World Cup statistics

Tendences in the World Cup covering won, draw, loss and goal average and how it can shift through stages in tournaments. For example, how often win a team all three group matches or in which of the group stages are most goals made? Concerning the statistics, only World Cup final tournaments are counted, not qualification matches.

Goal average

More goals are made in the group matches than in the knockout stage.

Average goals per match whole tournament:
Period 2002-2018: 2.48 goals per match average (penalty shoot-outs not included)

(2002; 2.52 goals per match; 2006: 2.3 goals per match; 2010: 2.27 goals per match; 2014: 2.67 goals per match; 2018: 2.64 goals per match.)

Average goals per match in group phase:
The following statistics is based on World Cup 2018.

All matches in 1st group round: 2.38 goals per match (in total 38 goals)
All matches in 2nd group round: 2.94 goals per match (in total 47 goals)
All matches in 3rd group round: 2.31 goals per match (in total 37 goals)

All group matches: 2.54 goals per match (in total 122 goals)

Frequency of matches with more than 3 goals in group phase:
The following statistics is based on World Cup 2010, 2014 and 2018.

1st group round, 3 goals or more: 19 out of 48
2nd group round, 3 goals or more: 25 out of 48
3rd group round, 3 goals or more: 25 out of 48

All group matches, 3 goals or more: 69 out of 144

Results

The following statistics is based on World Cup 2010, 2014 and 2018.

Most common results in group phase:
1-0 (35), 2-1 (27), 2-0 (15), 3-0 (12), 1-1 (12), 0-0 (12)

Most common result in 1st group round:
2-1 (9), 1-1 (7), 1-0 (6)

Most common result in 2nd group round:
1-0 (12), 2-1 (8), 2-0 (7)

Most common result in 3rd group round:
1-0 (11), 2-1 (10), 3-0 (6)

Comment: Since home and away is normally not relevant in World Cup, 1-0 and 0-1 etc. are not separated but added into one number.
Analyze: Compared to the general statistics, 1-0 (the most common result) can be considered normal in frequency, whereas 1-1 (the second most common result) is underrepresented.

Wins, draws, losses

The following statistics is based on World Cup 2018.

In the 8 groups, 3 teams of won all their group matches (Uruguay, Croatia and Belgium).

*

The following statistics is based on World Cup 2014.

In the 8 groups, 4 teams of won all their group matches (Netherlands, Colombia, Argentina, Belgium).

*

The following statistics is based on World Cup 2018.

In the group phase, 8 matches out of 48 was drawn. 16% or 1 of 6.

Teams

Tendencies for specific teams, based on World Cup 2002-2018.

First match in tournament:
Argentina: 1-0, 2-1, 1-0, 2-1, 1-1
Brazil: 2-1, 1-0, 2-1, 3-1, 1-1
England: 1-1, 1-0, 1-1, 1-2, 6-1
France: 0-1, 0-0, 0-0, 3-0, 2-1
Germany: 8-0, 4-2, 4-0, 4-0, 0-1
Italy: 2-0, 2-0, 1-1, 2-1, (N/A)
Spain: 3-1, 4-0, 0-1, 1-5, 3-3

Comment: In the list, Argentina, Brazil and Italy are the only teams that haven't lost the first group match in the 21th century. Germany is the team with most scored goals, although there is one deviating from the pattern. England (D-W-D-L-W) France (L-D-D-W-W) and Spain (W-W-L-L-D) stands for worst performances in the first group round among the big nations.

Final

The finals normally include fewer goals than the tournament average.

Goals per match:
2002: 2 goals
2006: 2 goals
2010: 0 goals
2014: 0 goals
2018: 4 goals

Penalty shoot-outs or extra time not included.

See World Cup Qatar 2022 dates, groups, fixtures.