How the World Cup has been impacted by the winter schedule
International tournaments don't often live up to the hype, but through two rounds of play the lack of goalscoring of this tournament has stood out. There's an underlying reason for it
We’re through two rounds of play at the 2022 World Cup and so far I can’t decide if this tournament has been good or really bad.
The argument for good is we’ve seen some big upsets such as Saudi Arabia stunning Argentina and Japan topping Germany. Portugal vs Ghana turned into a wild game and just today we saw Cameroon erase a two goal deficit in about three minutes followed by South Korea erasing a two goal deficit in the first 15 minutes of the second half, only for Ghana to grab the lead right back.
The argument for bad is that I’m not alone when I say that often I’ve struggled staying awake during some (too many) of these matches. Goals per game are way down compared to previous World Cups as are shots per game. So far 161 matches have been scoreless at halftime and 11 of them have seen neither team create 1.0 worth of non-penalty xG. While I’m all for good defending and good tactical battles, a lot of these matches have badly needed goals.
At the moment, I’m someone who was falling firmly in the “it’s been bad” camp to now moving more into the “it started slow but it’s getting better” camp.
As is always the case with World Cup’s, it’s too small of a sample size to draw any real conclusions. Lack of goals could be down to nothing more than variance. That’s not stopping me from hypothesizing. If you think this World Cup has been a little drab, I think that’s come down to two reasons2:
International tournaments are often bad
This one is simple. International tournaments often don’t live up to the hype. This is something that has been, correctly, going around Twitter this weekend.
My old editor Brent chimed in with a great point.
They’re both right3, but here's what I'll say. As Kim points out, 2014 was a good tournament. While I spent the first few days of 2018 stewing over the United States not being there and Fox doing an awful job with their coverage, I distinctly remember everyone else talking about how great a World Cup it’s been. Even now four years later I can rattle several great games from 2018 off the top of my head, none of which featured my team. That’s a pretty good sign the tournament delivered.
When you look at it that way, you’d have to go back 12 years to find a World Cup that underwhelmed. The two we’ve had over the last eight years have both delivered, therefore you’d be forgiven for almost expecting this one to be good as well. And yea, we’re still aware that this doesn’t apply to all international tournaments. Just over a year later I don’t recall Euro 2020 being anything special and Euro 2016 was hot garbage.
So while I don’t disagree with that statement, I think there’s another factor at play here.
Timing: The winter tournament
Let’s make something clear from the jump here. I’m not talking about the injuries to big players that have kept them from this tournament or anything of that regard. Injuries happen when the tournament is played in the summer too.
You can argue that the tournament coming smack dab in the middle of the European season would make things better because the players are quite literally in mid-season form and you can press more etc etc. Sure, but that doesn’t mean that the timing of the tournament isn’t having a major impact on the lack of goals. Allow me to explain.
Typically the European season ends about 23-25ish days before the start of a tournament4. That gives teams just north of three weeks to get their whole squad together5 and begin preparations. This year, there was just one week between the end of the domestic fixtures and the start of the tournament.
That’s a huge deal. Here’s why.
Putting together a tactical plan *when out of possession* is easy. You can do most of that work in a meeting room diagraming the team’s shape and players responsibilities right up on a blackboard. As long as the players understand their role you don’t need much time on a training pitch. A week is more than enough time to go over defensive structure - especially when that’s what you played throughout qualifying anyway.
Implementing a tactical plan *in possession* is a whole different story. Building in possession structures and patterns requires a lot of work and repetitions that come from time on the training pitch and playing matches. Having almost a month with your squad gives you time both on the training pitch and to play friendlies to develop those patterns.
This is true whether you’re a mid tier side like Switzerland or a top side with some of the best players in the world. Even though these guys have played many times together at the International level, it still takes a hot second to remember that guy next to me isn’t the guy I play with at my club. We need to remember what each others mannerisms are.
Now factor in this. The way tournaments are structured, the bigger longshot you are the more you want to create variance. More variance means higher chances of ‘anything can happen. The more goal scoring chances created in each match the higher the chances that the team with better players will win. If there are fewer chances created, the chances of the better team not winning are much greater6. That makes it far more advantageous for smaller sides to set up negatively and play not to lose rather than having a go and trying to win. You're far more likely to score a 1-0 upset than a 4-3 upset.
Through two rounds we’ve seen a few blowouts - England vs Iran, France vs Australia, Spain vs Costa Rica to name a few. All three of those matches though featured one of the tournament favorites against some of the weakest teams in the tournament7. In their second matches England and Spain both drew, while France benefitted from having Kylian Mbappe and going against an overrated Denmark side.
As for the rest of the tournament, it’s been mostly sides with a still not in-sync attack against sides that are very well organized defensively. Each team much happier not to lose than going for the benefit of winning.
There’s no question this has contributed to the lower goal scoring (and lower scoring chances) but this also isn’t anything new. A month really isn’t that much time to get your attack clicking and firing so how can you blame this on the difference between a winter and summer World Cup?
Here’s why,
Set pieces set pieces set pieces
Set pieces used to be thought of as the great equalizer. Something that could tilt the balance of a contest in favor of the underdog if they could take advantage of them. Big teams didn’t think about them because they felt they didn’t need to.
By 2018 international football had very much realized set pieces were low hanging fruit. Small sides could get valuable goals from them but the big sides realized the goals were just as valuable for them to.
The 2018 World Cup came to be known as “the World Cup of set pieces.” 43 goals at the 2018 World Cup were scored via set pieces accounting for 25 percent of all goals8. England utilized set pieces to make a run all the way to the semifinal with six of their 12 goals coming from dead ball situations. Hosts Russia surprised many by going all the way to the quarterfinal. They scored four times (36.36%) of their goals via set pieces. In 2014 Germany scored 27.8 percent of their goals on set pieces en route to winning the whole thing.
It’s been a bit different this year. 78 goals have been scored through 30 matches so far but just nine (11.54%) have come via set pieces9. It's not just the goals, the amount of set pieces that have been turned into shots is down drastically as well.
This is where we’re feeling the calendar change. The spike in goals from set pieces wasn’t because we just had great shooters putting free kicks directly into the top corner of the net. It wasn’t because teams just suddenly became really good at hoofing it to the big guy.
The rise in set piece goals came from working on them training. Developing unique routines that get the big guy open so he has an easy finish when the ball gets to him. These choreographed routines require time on the training pitch to perfect. The teams that spent time on them benefitted. This year, no one has had the time to work on them.
Here’s the thing about the World Cup. Most teams are very risk averse because losing is that much worse than not losing. But that also means that when a team goes down, they’re often that much more aggressive to get back on level terms10 which leads to a much more open game. Look no further than the Portugal vs Ghana match. The 20 minutes after Cristiano Ronaldo's penalty were some of the best we've seen all tournament and four goals were scored, but in order to get there we had to endure 70 minutes of absolute crap.
Teams with a slightly out of sync attack engaging in stalemate with very organized defensive teams is nothing new. In previous years, a set piece very often provided the breakthrough, leading to a much more open game. With the set pieces drying up, we’re not getting that breakthrough and thus the games aren’t opening up.
Would more set pieces be getting scored if teams had more time to prepare for this tournament? It’s not unfair to suggest that might be the case! This seems to be a result of the tournament being shoehorned into the calendar during the club season rather than over the summer.
PS: I’m writing this piece after having watched Cameroon and Serbia play a six goal thriller followed by South Korea and Ghana score five between the two of them. That’s the second straight match Ghana has played where five goals were scored. Yesterday Croatia scored four.
There seem to be goals in Groups E, F, G, and H and well, if time on the training pitch is so important then that makes a lot of sense. Groups E-H didn’t start their tournament until Wednesday and Thursday. When some teams only had their team’s together for seven days before their first match, having an extra three of four days together is a huge advantage.
Starting the tournament on Wednesday or Thursday gave teams time to squeeze in a friendly match before the tournament, giving their players valuable time to work out the kinks and build chemistry with each other. 13 of the 16 teams in these four groups played a friendly the week before the tournament11. These teams seem to be disproportionally involved in the most exciting games.
Again it doesn't seem like much, with a 31 game sample size this could all just be variance and nothing more than a coincidence. But when the margins are this small it also could very well be that the slightest advantage makes a big difference.
As of this writing there is still one more match this round
If you don’t think this World Cup has been even a little drab, you can stop reading now
Brent also does a good job of touching on why we all fall into the “back in my day” trap when thinking about all sports
Specifically the Euros and the World Cup. Copa America’s can start a bit later
Save for a few players participating in domestic cup finals and the Champions League final who will arrive a little later
The case of the Japan-Costa Rica match
I don’t put Croatia-Canada in this bracket because that was an open match with two teams going for it and the better team took advantage. Canada deserves kudos for going for it though
A further 13% of goals came from penalties
Even though goal differential is highly likely to come into play, the reward of getting a draw is much greater than taking a loss but maintaining your goal differential
Additionally South Korea played Iceland on Nov 11
Good piece!