World Cup Group Stages: Comparing 1998, 2002, 2006

[EaglesPhan36]

Just some quick research because as the 2nd wave of group stage matches begin today, people are wondering when or if the goals will start being scored. As of today's completed matches, there were just 25 goals scored.

World Cup 2006

1st Round/1st Match: 39 goals scored
1st Round/2nd Match: 36 goals scored
1st Round/3rd Match: 42 goals scored

World Cup 2002

1st Round/1st Match: 46 goals scored
1st Round/2nd Match: 35 goals scored
1st Round/3rd Match: 49 goals scored

World Cup 1998

1st Round/1st Match: 37 goals scored
1st Round/2nd Match: 43 goals scored
1st Round/3rd Match: 46 goals scored

Just wanted to pass that information along. Don't think it provides anything all that helpful personally, but it does show a bit that you can't really assume that goal scoring is going to greatly increase from the 1st match in Round 1 to the last for the most part.

[Squirrel]

Do you have the stats for the 1990 world cup to hand pal? I was talking earlier and we decided that this was the poorest set of opening games we could remember since Italia '90 .... wondering how the figures stack up compared to that.

[EaglesPhan36]

1990

1st match: 27 goals scored
2nd match: 26 goals scored
3rd match: 29 goals scored

Remember there were eight less teams in the Cup in 1990 with 24 total, so that makes this year look even worse in terms of scoring.

[JOHON8]

It's all thanks to the defensive philosophies. Look at North Korea's 2-1 result vs Brazil, Switzerland holding Spain scoreless and getting a goal etc... Even teams like Brazil have more conservative approaches this time.

[TheAntidote]

Wow, thanks for the stats. Pretty disgusting.

[EaglesPhan36]

Bumping this as it pertains to another thread here near the top.