That Argentina played finals in 1930, 1978, 1986, 1990, 2014 and, of course, in 2022, that Brazil has 5 World Cups or that Klose is the all-time top scorer in World Cup history with 16 goals, are facts that would not surprise a football fan. Neither would the fact that France finished second in Qatar. However, these competitions offer a wide variety of data to explore and enjoy.
At Infodash we offer a systematization of the data published by FIFA about the World Cups, covering all competitions and encompassing various variables of interest, from goals and cards to the use of VAR. Among other options, this dashboard allows filtering by year, player, team, stage, and even type of goal (in favor, penalty, or own goal).
For example, we can see how the number of cards (especially yellow cards) has increased throughout the World Cups. Naturally, fewer cards are given in the opening minutes of play. On the other hand, Argentina not only holds second place in red cards per World Cup (Brazil leads with 10, Argentina 9) but also has the player with the most yellow cards in the history of this competition (7 yellow cards for Mascherano, followed by Cafu, Rafa Marquez and Zidane, with 6 each, and Otamendi approaching with 5). Of course, this is mainly because these are players with a large number of matches, so the ratios are far from being the worst. In fact, in terms of card-per-match ratio, the top spot belongs to Serbia and Montenegro. Furthermore, no player has had the misfortune of scoring more than 1 own goal, and Jimmy Dickinson of the England national team is the only player who scored against his own goal, in the 1954 World Cup.
We could spend hours analyzing the dataset and playing with the filters, discovering curious facts about World Cup history. The questions are numerous, for example: Which national teams have the highest ratio of penalty goals to total goals? Which 5 Argentine players scored goals in extra time?
