World Cup: Semi-Final Preview
by Hawerchuk on Jul 6, 2010 8:00 AM EDT
5 comments
One of the most interesting aspects of the World Cup so far is how quickly Germany has scored - they've spent just 27% of their game time tied, compared to much more for the other three remaining teams:
| % time | ESP | URU | NED | GER |
| -1 | 9.3 | 2.0 | 9.5 | 12.3 |
| 0 | 50.3 | 59.2 | 41.4 | 27.3 |
| 1 | 28.5 | 35.8 | 45.0 | 34.2 |
| 2 | 11.8 | 2.9 | 4.1 | 12.1 |
| 3 | 0.0 | 0.2 | 0.0 | 8.5 |
| 4 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 5.6 |
While their games have been tied, Spain has controlled much more of the play than the rest of the 32 teams in the World Cup, including the four remaining teams. Uruguay, on the other hand, is near the bottom - they're clearly the weakest remaining team, and it seems highly unlikely that they'll get past Holland if they only control 40% of the play:
| While Tied | ESP | URU | NED | GER |
| % Passes | 72.2 | 39.5 | 63.7 | 59.8 |
| % Weighted | 74.0 | 39.3 | 62.9 | 60.6 |
We can get a sense of how offensively (or defensively) each team plays by looking at the difficulty of the passes that they complete. Here, I've adjusted this difficulty to the tournament average - so Holland's average pass was 12.6% less dangerous than the average pass, and the average pass completed against them was 9.3% less dangerous.
| While Tied | ESP | URU | NED | GER |
| Rel Wgt For | 0.2 | 3.5 | -12.6 | -1.7 |
| Rel Wgt Vs | -8.5 | 4.2 | -9.3 | -4.8 |
Spain has the greatest control over the game play so far. They've played a vastly different game from the Germans, so the outcome of their match seems very difficult to predict. Uruguay plays a wide-open game but has allowed its opponents to have the ball most of the time, which doesn't bode well against the Dutch. And while Holland plays the most defensive game - in both directions - they didn't exactly dominate Brazil despite scoring their two comeback goals, which doesn't bode well for the final. I think the main conclusion here is that the real World Cup final will be played on Wednesday between Germany and Spain, and the final will be the winner of that game against a somewhat weaker Dutch team.
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But looking at the stats, it’s easy to conclude that Spain is the best team of the four. However, I don’t see why Germany better than the Netherlands, just by looking at the numbers you used for analysis. I think it’s 50-50 if the final is Germany vs the Nethederlands.
Germany does have an advantage over their opponents in terms of where they get the ball to. So I think they can be slightly more effective. But I agree with you – people like Germany because they scored quickly, but scoring is driven by possession and luck, and the Germans appear to have gotten lots of luck.
Have you thought of
continuing your soccer analysis after the World Cup. You know, maybe expanding into MLS and EPL? Because that would be awesome. I know this is a hockey centric site, but maybe you could start another site dedicated to soccer somewhere. This is great stuff.
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