This Week in Stats: Messi and Ronaldo flopped again

Messi and Ronaldo flopped in the World Cup knockout stages yet again, while Spain had all of the ball but no ideas. What did we learn from the round of 16?

When I was a lad, Spain had a natural ability to flop in international tournaments. That all changed a decade ago, when they won three major titles in a row. However, that run ended in 2012, and they’ve been pretty rotten in the two World Cups since. Has the Spain of yesteryear now returned?

The Spanish have won just two games at the last two global championships, and taking the scalps of Australia and Iran doesn’t make anyone sit up and take notice. Their run this year was ended by the hosts, with Russia winning 4-3 on penalties after a 1-1 draw.

The masterful Spanish sides used to dominate the ball, but were incisive too. Against Russia, they went nowhere fast. Completing over 1,000 passes might initially sound impressive, but where on the pitch were they? How many chances were created, and how many of them were clear-cut?

While 251 of their completed passes were in the final third, just 12 (twelve!) of them were in the box. For some semblance of context, around 11 percent of completed final third passes are in the penalty area in the Premier League, but just 4.8 percent of Spain’s were.

Similarly, creating 19 chances sounds decent enough, but when only one is a big chance, you’ve got a problem. Only three of Spain’s nine shots on target were from the centre of the box, and two of those were headers.

And on and on it goes. In soccer stats, volume alone is not enough. You need quality too, and Spain fell woefully, embarrassingly short.

Messi and Ronaldo fluffed their lines

The World Cup is a powerful beast when it comes to making or breaking a player’s reputation. Toto Schillaci only scored seven international goals for Italy, but as six of them came during Italia 90 where he won the Golden Boot, his name will be forever remembered.

It would be foolish to claim the World Cup has broken the reputations of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, but it is fair to say they haven’t performed well in the business end of the tournament. Neither has ever scored a goal in a knock-out match, and their teams could’ve done with that run ending this year.

They had a similar shot profile in their matches on Saturday too. Messi had four shots, but three were blocked. Ronaldo may have had six, but four of his were stopped by Uruguayan defenders, and only one was on target.

Portugal didn’t even make it out of their group in Brazil four years ago, but Argentina made the final. Yet in 450 knock-out minutes, Messi only had nine shots, or less than one per half match. The Champions League may have ensured the World Cup isn’t the highest quality tournament around, but international teams certainly seem to be able to keep Ronaldo and Messi out of matches better than most club sides can.

Or is it the paucity of talent alongside them? Whatever the reason, the lack of goals for the best two players in the world brought the banter merchants out en masse on Saturday.

Bores used to say Messi couldn’t be the greatest of all time without performing at a World Cup; you’d hope his 552 goals for Barcelona might shut them up. Yet to some extent they still have a point.

Next: The best player on every team at the World Cup

Two out of three ain’t bad

Soccer is a cruel sport. It’s low scoring nature means it’s easy for teams to win matches they don’t deserve to. In a league that doesn’t matter now and again, but in cup football it’s everything.

While there is undoubtedly skill involved in successfully negotiating a penalty shootout, no matter what past England managers might tell you, it does offer teams a chance to advance from matches where they were the worse side.

Colombia were not one of those teams. As well as trying to kick England into next week, they also created no chances of note. In the opinion of InfoGol, their 14 shots were collectively worth 0.62 expected goals. That’s just 0.04 per shot, where 0.1 is average.

Harry Kane’s penalty in normal time alone was worth more than Colombia’s xG tally, but even ignoring that, Gareth Southgate’s team had two other clear-cut chances and a total of 1.55 expected goals. Justice was served.

It was a near identical story in Croatia’s win over Denmark. Like England, the Croats generated over 1.5 goals worth of chances more than their rivals (thanks in part to a penalty), and then prevailed in the shoot-out.

If you’ve been paying attention, you can see where this is going. Oh, Espana. I won’t bore you with their stats again, suffice to say that on expected goals, they deserved to win. If they had, then the eight best performing teams in the round of 16 (according to xG) would’ve made the quarter-finals. But when it’s not your tournament, it really isn’t.