32 eye-opening facts about the World Cup squads that will impress your mates
32 eye-opening facts about the World Cup squads that will impress your mates
Posted by Eric Beard
I’m not one to get glued to Twitter, but sometimes the application proves to be a beautiful creature. I recently began following Optajoe, of Optasports, a European data collection service for sports. Now, as a philosophy major, I’m not one to get caught up with statistics, which tend to dominate American sports, but Sir Optajoe has done a wonderful job of conveying these stats to have such undeniable meaning. Optajoe shows that there are legitimate reasons why, for example, Drogba is essential to the Ivory Coast, why England should be confident until they run into a top 10 nation, and why Brazil and Spain are forces to be reckoned with. Here are 32 eye-opening facts from Optajoe about the World Cup that will help you impress your mates. They will also make you sound like a genius.
1 - After beating England 1-0 in 1950, USA have kept just one clean sheet in their 19 World Cup matches since. Porous.
2 - In the 11 PL games that Dawson and King started together for Spurs in 09-10, only 2 first half goals were conceded. Emergency.
3 - The last three goals Japan have conceded in friendlies have all been own goals. Calamitous.
3.2 - average number of goals scored by the Ivory Coast with Didier Drogba in the qualifiers for the 2010 WC against 1.9 w/out him. Missing.
