World Cup 2010
According the the Castrol Performance data, Spain should take their chances at goal from distance in the World Cup 2010 final in South Africa, as the stats show that Holland goalkeeper Maarten Stekelenburg has been guilty of conceding most goals (3) in the finals from shots taken from outside the box.
Stekelenburg has conceded five goals in total in his six World Cup appearances, compared to just two conceded in the same number of games by Spain’s Iker Casillas.
Casillas appears to be a more reliable goalkeeper than Maarten Stekelenburg, having saved a higher proportion of shots than his Dutch counterpart.
The Real Madrid player has so far kept more clean sheets than any other goalkeeper at the 2010 FIFA World Cup (four) and proven decisive on many occasions including a penalty saved in the quarter final against Paraguay, despite UK TV commentators constantly telling viewers how shaky he looks!
In defence Carles Puyol’s headed goal against Germany has powered Spain to their first ever World Cup final, the Catalan centre half has won a greater proportion of aerial duels than Johnny Heitinga and his passing accuracy has also been superior. However the Everton defender has displayed great fighting spirit, making more defensive actions than Puyol.
Many of us expect the game will be decided in midfield where many key battles will take place on Sunday. Castrol Performance data suggests that midfield general Mark van Bommel has made more tackles (31) than Xabi Alonso (18) but the Real Madrid schemer has shown more attacking intentions with 14 shots, compared to just two for the 2010 Bundesliga champion.
Despite playing in midfield, Wesley Sneijder is the joint top scorer at the FIFA World CupTM with five goals, the Inter Milan playmaker has attempted 22 shots, compared to just five for Xavi.
However the Barcelona player has created far more goalscoring chances for his team mates, setting up 25 shots, a tournament record so far. Xavi has also delivered more passes than any other player at the 2010 World Cup (509).
The new Barcelona signing David Villa has become the all time Spanish top scorer in World Cup history with eight goals, five of these coming this summer.
Having recovered in time from an injury, Arjen Robben has managed to score three goals and assist another in just four appearances at this summer’s finals. The Bayern Munich winger has been more clinical in front of goal than his Spanish counterpart and has completed a higher proportion of his dribbles.
According to Castrol Performance data, central to the Netherlands’ path to the 2010 World Cup final has been their accuracy in front of goal, with the Dutch posting a competition-high 58.2% accuracy rate while only Germany can better their conversion rate of 17.9% (both including only quarter-finalists).
But the Dutch midfielders will need to stamp their authority early in the game if they don’t want Spain’s midfield to dictate the game, as they did in their semi-final win over Germany.
The Spanish midfielders completed 131 more passes than their German counterparts in Durban on Wednesday. On average, Spain’s midfield were distributing the ball to one of their teammates every 16 seconds compared to one pass every 27 seconds for Germany.
Unsurprisingly, Spain also dominate the possession ranking at the World Cup with a 67% average, a full 11 percentage points better than the Netherlands (56%).
Xavi, who teed up Carles Puyol’s goal, was the second player to complete more than 100 passes in a game at the 2010 FIFA World Cup after Argentina’s Juan Sebastian Veron. Interestingly, the Catalan schemer comfortably leads the tournament for successful passes, with over 200 completed deliveries more than the most prolific Dutch player, Mark van Bommel.
| Rank | Player | Team | Successful passes | ||
| 1 | Xavi | Spain | 509 | ||
| 2 | S. Busquets | Spain | 430 | ||
| 3 | X. Alonso | Spain | 408 | ||
| 4 | B. Schweinsteiger | Germany | 367 | ||
| 5 | G Piqué | Spain | 351 | ||
| 7 | M. van Bommel | Netherlands | 307 | ||
1 comment so far
1 Galvin Green // Jul 12, 2010 at 3:00 pm
There is no doubt about it that Spain are the best passers of the ball in the world but this is because other teams are to afraid to keep the ball and just want to score goals instead of being patient and waiting for the right time. If you do just hurry upfield with the ball you leave the defense open and teams like Spain, Brazil, Germany and Argentina will rip you apart on the break and score goals past you. This is exactly what England done. Two defensive mistakes put us two-nil down after half-an-hour against Germany and then we played well to get a goal back and then a minute later Frank Lampard hit the ball on the volley and hit bounced off the crossbar and down into the goal but it bounced out again and the ref and linesman didnt spot it go in. It would have been 2-2 then and game on. England would have stood a chance but seen as thought that goal didnt count England attacked and attacked and attacked and Germany caught us on the counter attack twice and Thomas Mueller converted both chances to make it an undeserved 4-1 win to Germany. In the next roung Germany did the same to Argentina and the same result. They also scored 4 goals against Australia in the group stages to make them the top scorers of the tournament. So basically if you sit back and attack on the counter you will score goals and will not concede any.