World Cup so far – the key questions

Why so many goals?

At time of writing – day 19 of the 2014 World Cup – 145 goals have been scored so far. That is the same as the tally for the whole of the 2010 competition.

Fans have been treated to an average of 2.79 goals per game, the highest number since the 1982 World Cup in Spain (2.81 goals per match).

If the average rises slightly in the remaining games, we could see the first World Cup since 1958 where there have been three goals a game on average.

Italia 1990 was the lowest-scoring World Cup, with just 2.21 successful strikes per match. The 1954 competition, hosted by Switzerland and won by West Germany, was the most prolific ever, with more than five goals per game on average.

Pundits have offered a range of explanations for the glut of goals seen in Brazil so far.

Could the punishing heat be affecting the players, forcing drained defenders and goalkeepers into making mistakes? That would perhaps explain why South American teams have performed so well so far on average.

There have been few complaints about the official ball for 2014, the Adidas Brazuca, in contrast with the manufacturer’s Jabulani ball, which was widely criticised by players in the 2010 tournament.

The new ball even received the seal approval from Dr Rabi Mehta, a Nasa aerodynamics expert, who predicted before the action began that it would outperform earlier designs.

Some are trying to dominate the ball, some are trying to counter-attack. There’s just more variety and that makes for good games. Michael Cox

Michael Cox, who analyses football tactics on the website Zonal Marking, agrees that the 2010 ball was “terrible… a genuine disgrace”. But he puts this year’s goal glut down to teams playing more attacking football in general, with more teams pressing high up the pitch, trying to win the ball quickly.

“It means more space behind, and more chance of winning the ball closer to the opposition goal, so more goals likely in both respects.”

And while four years ago everyone played slowly, there is now more variety in the style of play different teams are adopting.

“Some are trying to dominate the ball, some are trying to counter-attack. There’s just more variety and that makes for good games.”

In terms of specific tactics, Michael finds teams are pushing full-backs further forward and trying to cross the ball, a risky tactic that creates scoring opportunities but can leave centre-backs exposed when teams counter-attack (“see Switzerland getting battered by France”).

Other football statisticians have found that corner kicks have been unusually successful in netting teams goals this year.

And the standard of teams is generally higher this time around, with fewer World Cup debutantes or lower-ranked outsiders in the competition.

Can a European team win?

The six South American teams who qualified have bagged an impressive 2 points per game so far on average, compared to an average of 1.5 for the European teams.

Five out of six teams from South America (83 per cent) made it to the last 16, compared to 6 out of 13 European sides (46 per cent).

But some statistics favour the European sides still in contention. Holland and Colombia have both scored 12 points so far, with the Dutch ahead on goals, largely thanks to their 5-1 spanking of Spain.

But history is against the Old World. No European team has won a World Cup held in South America.

Is the Suarez bite the worst foul ever?

The sight of Uruguay’s star striker sinking his teeth into the shoulder of Italian defender Giorgio Chiellini has proved to be the biggest talking point of the tournament so far.

But Luis Suarez has plenty of competition when it comes to extreme foul play.

The bite marks on Chiellini’s shoulder pale into insignificance compared to the skull fracture suffered by US midfielder Tab Ramos when Brazilian defender Leonardo elbowed him in the face in 1994.

Leonardo got a four-match suspension while Ramos was bed-ridden for weeks.

Zinedine Zidane‘s spectacular head-butt against Italy’s Marco Materazzi in the 2006 World Cup final was arguably as bizarre as Suarez’s bite and certainly more blatant.

Perhaps the most notorious example of cynical foul play in the tournament’s history took place in a qualifier in 1989, when Chile’s Roberto Rojas pretended to have been struck by a firework thrown on to the pitch with his team minutes away from losing 1-0 to Brazil.

The goalie in fact cut himself with a razor blade hidden in his glove in an attempt to get the match called off and avoid elimination from the 1990 World Cup.

Video evidence led to Chile being banned from the 1994 tournament.

Rojas was banned from the game for life and now lives in Brazil.