World Cup Group Stages: Comparing 1998, 2002, 2006
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.
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.
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.
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.