| remarkable:
Goal average sunk dramatically
when the knock out stage was entered at the European championship 1996
and the Nations Cup 1998. The approach was more avoiding the knock-out,
after it had been gaining the 3 points in the group matches.
The picture began to change
then.
France 98 did not confirm
the trend, nor did Ghana-Nigeria 2000. A therory is that a general refocus
on attacking football, helped a lot by the adjustments to the offside rule
and its interpretation, has made matches break open earlier by goals. At
the Euro 1996 5 of 7 knockout matches had gone into extratime and 4 into
penalty shoot-outs, 3 of them with a 0:0 scoreline. Since then knockout
matches seem to have seen a considerable change.
remarkable:
It is very difficult even
for a superior team to win through a knock out system. A team that is that
strong that it wins 80% matches against any opponent, is only likely to
win in roughly 50% of 3-round-knock-out-stages (0.8*0.8*0.8=0.512). With
winning 80% of league matches the same team would dominate the league for
sure.
remarkable:
Since the Nations Cup format
has expanded from 8 teams, no team has won all their matches at a Nations
Cup final tournament.
1998 eventual winners Egypt
lost to Morocco and drew with Côte d'Ivoire. 1996 South Africa lost
to Egypt. 1994 Nigeria drew with Egypt and Côte d'Ivoire. 1992 Côte
d'Ivoire drew with Ghana, Cameroon, and Congo.
In 1990, the last 8 team
edition had been won by an unprecedented 5 win row of hosts Algeria. Before
1968 there had been only 3 matches to play for the winner. In the 1992
and 1994 editions a 12 team format required 5 matches, like in the 8 teams
format. Since 1996 the winner will have played 6 matches.
In World Cup history, teams
winning all three of their first round matches, often have been struggling
in the following rounds. Exceptions: Brazil 1970 (just elected the best
team of the 20th century by an Italian soccer magazine) and France, whose
perfect record was spoiled by a draw with Italy in the quarter finals then
(a penalty shoot-out saved the campaign as you know).
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