The World Cup Statistics that Really Matter
Credit to our friends at the 2,006 World Cups of Comedy for finding the Information Builders site, which is keeping track of the World Cup statistics that really matter. These include dives, feigned injuries, tantrums thrown, wrong off-side decisions, complete miss-kicks (air balls), and players not knowing their national anthem.
It must be heartening for Serbia and Montenegro fans to know that their country might have finished last in the Group C, but they led the whole field in number of players who didn’t sing their national anthem.
We’re not sure how a tantrum is defined, but apparently if we watch France play against Brazil we will find out. The French might be one of the older, more experienced teams in the tournament but that doesn’t mean they don’t throw tantrums like little kids. They are tied with Holland atop the leader board.
Italy is leading the way with most dives, but the Azzurri have their work cut out for them if they are going to match Paraguay’s impressive accumulation of fake injuries. It is a good thing Paraguay bowed out early. They were starting to run out of magic spray.
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Displaying the most recent 25 comments from a total of 31 comments.
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By Bendit_In | June 29th, 2006 at 4:47 pm 
Why be sensitive. These stats are a lighter side to thew game and are quite humorous. I find counting the number of tantrums and dives to be hysterical.
Posted from 
United States
By Pedro P | June 29th, 2006 at 4:49 pm The only thing I still didn’t understand is why nobody so far has called Italy the same everybody is now calling POR. They usually foul more, dive more, cry much more, etc… The world just loves them. Mind you, I really have nothing against them. Might dislike their style of play, but that’s it. Anyway, this is also a fact. Now, why is that…? Could it be cos they’re “made in Italy”?
I mean, POR are the cheaters and etc, ENG’s media fakes interviews and statements (Ericksson has lived in Portugal for years, coached Benfica to what was then the Champs League finals, even speaks portuguese; Pauleta never gave that interview cos it wasn’t even possible), HOL enters the pitch with that atitude, I mean… Just give us a break! Just play ball. Win or loose.
POR are no angels, nobody is (I guess, cos I haven’t seen any wings yet - I didn’t see the AUS penalty, though, and I did see 3 yellow cards in another match), but apparently we are always defending ourselves from things others do much more often, or even things we are not or did not do.
I mean, POR went quarter finalists in Euro 96, Semi-finalists in Euro 00 loosing to FRA who won (not at home, like the other semi: HOL and without Scolari), finalists in Euro 04 loosing to Greece (OK, at home), didn’t qualify for WC98 - got GER in the group, didn’t qualify for WC 94 - got SWI and ITA (who lost the Final to Brazil) in the group, and in 2002 DID GO to the WC and had HOL in the group, who didn’t qualify.
This is our recent CV. It’s not for nothing POR reached the quarters this time. And it’s also not for nothing, the same old adversaries, who have lost to POR in the last times we’ve met, now pull up all this image blackening stuff.
There…
Posted from 
Netherlands
By Cocoliso | June 29th, 2006 at 4:52 pm The little boy in yellow is bravely singing the Portuguese anthem, isn’t he? I can’t spot any bias here.
Posted from 
Spain
By pao | June 29th, 2006 at 5:09 pm Pedro don’t take it so seriously it’s just humorous (or at least it’s trying to be humorous). And being italian i can say unlikely the world loves us, we neither love ourselves. You don’t need to report all the acheivements of Portugal, who really loves this sport knows POR deserves to be among the best 8.
Posted from 
Italy
By Pedro P | June 29th, 2006 at 5:19 pm Thanks Pao. 
Posted from Netherlands
By ilovechristianoronaldo | June 29th, 2006 at 5:32 pm OMG THAT LITTLE KID IS SOOOOOOOOOOOOO CUTE!!!!!!!!
I really have nothing to say about these statistics. All that matters is what is happening right now.
The LOSERS GO HOME and stop being so bitter about EVERYTHING.
Those in the TOP 8. just keep WORKING IT. work hard.
GO PORTUGAL
Posted from 
Canada
By Jon | June 29th, 2006 at 5:33 pm The USA was second from the bottom in “Dives” and dead-last in “Fake Injuries”. No wonder we got our asses handed to us.
Posted from United States
By pao | June 29th, 2006 at 5:51 pm I always thought football was about scoring and defending their own goal.
Posted from Italy
By Disgruntled Portuguese Guy | June 29th, 2006 at 6:34 pm Bob, I never would have suspected you were a closet Portugal hater, what with your ever-diplomatic comments about “just wanting to see some good footie”
I can now see –and I don’t know how I could’ve been so stupid not to realize this before– that those comments were nothing more than a way to distract your loyal minions from the fact that you…hate…portugal.
How could we have been so blind?
Well, you know what they say in Texas: fool me once, shame on you. fool me twice….you won’t get fooled again.
Posted from United States
By Se7en | June 29th, 2006 at 7:01 pm These stats are as accurate as Sweden’s PK kicks.
Posted from United States
By Kevin K | June 29th, 2006 at 7:07 pm Well, if they kicked it twice they must be accurate!
Posted from 
Australia
By Jonny Iselin | June 29th, 2006 at 7:14 pm Best soccer teams from 1994-2006:
I was bored (actually, i think with the dedication i put into this, i should be made a blogger myself, can anyone tell me how?) and wanted to devise a system for rating/ranking the soccer teams from the first world cup i watched (1994) to the present-day, here’s how I did it:
The world cup:
If you win: 18 points
Runner-up: 13 points
3rd place: 9.5 points
4th place: 9 points
Quarterfinalist: 6 points
Round of 16: 3
Participant who was a top seed but got eliminated in the first round: 1.5 (ex. Spain in ‘98)
Participant: 1 point
Also, 0.5 pts is added if you won your group. So if you were Romania in 98 for example or Mexico in 2002, you get 3.5 instead of 3.
To add in some other international competitions that i felt were major, or at least major things I’ve kept up with:
The Olympics
Gold: 10 pts
Silver: 7 pts
Bronze: 3.5 pts
4th place: 0.5 pts
Euro Championships:
Winner: 6 pts
Runner-Up: 3 pts
Semi-Finalist: 1.5 pts
Copa America:
Winner: 3 pts
Runner-Up: 1 pts
You can debate with me the weight i give each one, and i understand you won’t agree with me, it’s mostly personal preference. Some might say i make the olympics too high.
Nevertheless, my rankings are as follows through the quarterfinals: (a field of 32 is as follows) (parenthesis indicate the rank before the world cup 2006:
1. Brazil 72 (1)
2. Germany 39.5 (2)
3. Italy 37 (3)
3. Argtentina 37 (3)
5. France 34 (5)
6. Spain 26 (6)
7. Holland 23 (7)
8. Nigeria 18 (8)
9. Sweeden 17 (9)
10. England 16.5 (14)
11. Mexico 15.5 (13)
12. Portugal 15 (20)
13. Paraguay 14 (9)
14. Cameroon 13 (11)
15. S. Korea 12.5 (12)
16. USA 11.5 (15)
16. Croatia 11.5 (15)
18. Bulgaria 10 (17)
19. Denmark 9.5 (18)
19. Turkey 9.5 (18)
21. Belgium 7 (21)
22. Chile 6.5 (22)
23. Ukraine 6 (N/A)
23. Greece 6 (23)
23. Ireland 6 (23)
23. Senegal 6 (23)
23. Saudi Arabia 6 (23)
28. Czech Republic 5.5 (27)
29. Japan 5.5 (27)
30. Ecuador 5 (N/A)
31. Columbia 5 (29)
32. Uruguay 5 (29)
Posted from United States
By Quick Fix | June 29th, 2006 at 7:15 pm @disgruntled guy:
I beive the saying goes: “fool me once shame on me, fool me twice shame on you.” Unless, of course, you are trying to qute our eloquent leader (Bush).
Posted from United States
By JOE M. Hutchinson | June 29th, 2006 at 8:25 pm Referees have helped Italy and Portugal to stay alive. Maybe that is the luck they need to come in 3rd or 4th in the cup.
Argentina, Brazil, France and Germany are not depending on referee helps. They are evenly matched and ready.
Brazil is just more cup experienced and cultured.
Posted from United States
By Pedro P | June 29th, 2006 at 8:48 pm @Joe: We beat MEX fair and square and ARG had to swet a lot more for it… If anything, the ref helped HOL playing with 11 against POR for tooooo long. ARG and GER have been the most impressive and one will go away tomorrow. BRA is in cruise mode. ITA is the devil you know and they never lack quality. Fra did get INDEED the refs help, but experience and quality did the rest. Don’t hear people calling Henry a diver…
Posted from Netherlands
By Claude | June 29th, 2006 at 9:32 pm To people who want to know how Portugal plays soccer needs to only read up on Portugal - Brazil in 1966. To this day Portugal is known as the team that butchered Pele. Just type Pele into your search engine and look for 1966. Forty years later we have Figo, king of the headbutts, and his team with 10 yellows and 2 reds. I really don’t care to hear any more about Portugal sportsmanship or fair play. The record speaks for itself.
Posted from United States
By Chainsaw Charlie | June 29th, 2006 at 10:00 pm Are you kidding Claude?! Did you actually saw the entire match? Get the bbc documentary on the 66 World Cup and see Hungary Vs. Brazil to see where Pele got the injury in the first place. or go see Italy vs. North Korea or England vs. portugal. Every team tackled really hard back then. Geeesh…If you have to go back 40 years to back-up your opinion, then you’re doing something wrong.
Posted from 
Germany
By Pedro P | June 29th, 2006 at 10:06 pm @Claude: It was actually Bulgaria who did the most, before they played POR, Claude. And on that game, there was a name called Eusebio. Look it up, cos I’m sure you don’t know him… Meanwhile, learn a some (about who we are):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9u4VPSZ1wk&search=portugal%20football
Posted from Netherlands
By enzo | June 29th, 2006 at 11:07 pm As it is said “there are lies, damned lied and then they are statistics”. Everyone will use them to their advantage, and if the statistics indicate something unfavourable then they will be dismissed as unreliable. The statistics will mean only what one wants them to mean.
Posted from Australia
By owen | June 30th, 2006 at 1:24 am since I’m a normalized numbers kind of guy I devised a formula for these numbers that looked at fouls, dives, yellows, reds and faking injury (I left out ref bullying and tantrums because they were ill defined) and then normalize against number of games played. Top two worst-behaved teams? Holland followed by Italy. (for the record Portugal were just in the top one third) The two best behaved? Best Brazil, second best England.
And the portuguese are not allowed to comment about fair play after Figo’s head butt. Just like Italians aren’t allowed to comment.
Posted from United States
By Mario F | June 30th, 2006 at 3:35 am Just one thing…Holland is out!!! as always…so please go home and dont bother more…
And please we dont need opinions from people outside WC…give the speech to the Brits..they are our next victim… 
Posted from 
Sweden
By Observer | June 30th, 2006 at 4:38 am Most of these “comedy” stats are primarly subjective. What constitutes a dive, play-acting, etc? Not only are such labels subjectively defined but they are hypocritically applied. People tend to cheer the same things done by their team that they jeer and criticize when done by the opposition.
Posted from Canada
By Claes | July 2nd, 2006 at 11:40 pm C Ronaldo must be one of the greater actors in the history of soocer, he takes dives alot.
Teams like Italy and portugal play nasty soccer
Posted from Sweden
By Wanton Smithers | July 6th, 2006 at 12:43 pm They make the marriage of Figo to a Swedish woman sound like a love at first sight story. They try to win by deceiving the referee and “making love to your woman while you are not looking”. This is the Portuguese inferiority complex. Why do we pay attention to these people. They want to be in the world stage so that we notice them for otherwise who cares about them? Maybe we go there on holiday.
By Ana | July 19th, 2006 at 1:57 am PORTUGAL!!!!! all day way babi!!
Posted from United States
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