ASA Previews the World Cup for the Washington Post

By Drew Olsen (@drewjolsen)

The World Cup starts this week! America may not have made it to the tournament in Russia, but American Soccer Analysis still has you covered. We've partnered with the Washington Post on a series of articles previewing some of the most interesting teams. The pieces will be trickling out in the coming days as the tournament ramps up, so we'll be posting the links below as new ones are published. Keep checking back here to make sure you're all caught up.

Friday 6/15/2018
Belgium is a World Cup contender by the numbers, but Eden Hazard is key to backing them up by Harrison Crow (@harrison_crow)

Thursday 6/14/2018
Egypt got World Cup luck of the draw. Now it needs a little luck with Mo Salah’s health. - Jared Young (@jaredeyoung)
Costa Rica will look the same at World Cup 2018, but results might not match 2014 - Harrison Hamm (@harrisonhamm21)

Wednesday - 6/13/2018
The odds are against an Iceland World Cup run. You might fall for them again anyway. - Ian Lamberson (@ahandleforian)
Spain enters 2018 World Cup behind David de Gea and a better attack — but without its coach - Joseph Lowery (@joeincleats)

Tuesday - 6/12/2018
Peru could be the surprise team of the World Cup with Paolo Guerrero back - Joseph Lowery (@joeincleats)
Germany’s chances to repeat as World Cup champion could rest with Manuel Neuer - Drew Olsen (@drewjolsen)

Monday - 6/11/2018
By this measure, Brazil is a bigger World Cup surprise than Iceland - Jared Young (@jaredeyoung)

Tim Howard's effort against Belgium

American goalkeeper Tim Howard had a fantastic game against Belgium on Tuesday. It might have been the game of his life, and Wikipedia fittingly gave him a new job. We don't actually have data for every game he's ever kept, but we can put his performance into some perspective. 

On Tuesday, his Keeper Rating---based off each shot's origin, goalmouth placement, and pattern of play---represented the best single-game performance of any goalkeeper thus far in the tournament. Belgium laid siege on his goal, firing off a tournament-high 39 shots. 17 of those were on frame, also a tournament-high. They probably should have scored four or five goals, but that wasn't going to happen on Howard's watch. The chart below summarizes every game of the tournament to date for each keeper.

Keeper	Team	Opponent	SOT	Goals	xGoals	Rating
T. Howard	USA	BEL	17	2	4.68	-2.68
V. Enyeama	NGA	BIH	7	0	2.46	-2.46
A. Dominguez	ECU	FRA	9	0	2.44	-2.44
G. Ochoa	MEX	BRA	6	0	2.31	-2.31
D. Benaglio	SUI	ARG	8	1	2.93	-1.93
F. Dauda	GHA	POR	7	1	2.46	-1.46
T. Courtois	BEL	KOR	4	0	1.41	-1.41
C. Bravo	CHI	ESP	6	0	1.34	-1.34
F. Muslera	URU	ENG	6	1	2.34	-1.34
D. Ospina	COL	URU	4	0	1.25	-1.25
Julio Cesar	BRA	CRO	3	0	1.20	-1.20
S. Romero	ARG	SUI	4	0	1.17	-1.17
V. Enyeama	NGA	FRA	5	1	2.06	-1.06
C. Bravo	CHI	AUS	4	1	2.03	-1.03
K. Navas	CRC	GRE	8	1	1.95	-0.95
E. Kawashima	JPN	GRE	4	0	0.95	-0.95
N. Valladares	HON	FRA	5	2	2.84	-0.84
A. Begovic	BIH	NGA	9	1	1.80	-0.80
N. Valladares	HON	SUI	10	3	3.79	-0.79
I. Akinfeev	RUS	ALG	6	1	1.75	-0.75
T. Courtois	BEL	USA	5	1	1.74	-0.74
H. Lloris	FRA	ECU	2	0	0.73	-0.73
Alireza Haghighi	IRN	NGA	4	0	0.72	-0.72
K. Navas	CRC	URU	3	1	1.71	-0.71
O. Karnezis	GRE	JPN	4	0	0.62	-0.62
M. Neuer	GER	POR	4	0	0.61	-0.61
S. Romero	ARG	IRN	3	0	0.60	-0.60
S. Sirigu	ITA	ENG	5	1	1.60	-0.60
D. Benaglio	SUI	HON	3	0	0.48	-0.48
K. Navas	CRC	ITA	4	0	0.47	-0.47
G. Ochoa	MEX	CMR	1	0	0.47	-0.47
C. Bravo	CHI	BRA	6	1	1.45	-0.45
D. Ospina	COL	GRE	2	0	0.45	-0.45
T. Courtois	BEL	RUS	3	0	0.41	-0.41
V. Enyeama	NGA	ARG	13	3	3.41	-0.41
G. Buffon	ITA	URU	5	1	1.41	-0.41
Jung Sung-Ryong	KOR	RUS	5	1	1.41	-0.41
M. Neuer	GER	ALG	4	1	1.33	-0.33
Julio Cesar	BRA	MEX	2	0	0.33	-0.33
V. Enyeama	NGA	IRN	1	0	0.30	-0.30
S. Pletikosa	CRO	CMR	2	0	0.29	-0.29
D. Ospina	COL	JPN	7	1	1.29	-0.29
T. Howard	USA	GER	6	1	1.24	-0.24
J. Cillessen	NED	AUS	4	2	2.20	-0.20
B. Foster	ENG	CRC	2	0	0.19	-0.19
J. Cillessen	NED	ESP	4	1	1.18	-0.18
Beto	POR	GHA	4	1	1.16	-0.16
K. Navas	CRC	ENG	1	0	0.16	-0.16
A. Dominguez	ECU	SUI	6	2	2.14	-0.14
O. Karnezis	GRE	CIV	4	1	1.14	-0.14
Julio Cesar	BRA	CHI	2	1	1.14	-0.14
J. Cillessen	NED	CHI	1	0	0.13	-0.13
Kim Seung-Gyu	KOR	BEL	5	1	1.12	-0.12
A. Begovic	BIH	ARG	2	1	1.11	-0.11
H. Lloris	FRA	NGA	2	0	0.10	-0.10
G. Buffon	ITA	CRC	5	1	1.07	-0.07
H. Lloris	FRA	HON	1	0	0.07	-0.07
G. Ochoa	MEX	NED	4	2	2.07	-0.07
F. Muslera	URU	ITA	1	0	0.04	-0.04
R. M'Bolhi	ALG	RUS	4	1	1.04	-0.04
R. M'Bolhi	ALG	GER	12	2	2.01	-0.01
J. Reina	ESP	AUS	0	0	0.00	0.00
M. Neuer	GER	USA	0	0	0.00	0.00
C. Itandje	CMR	MEX	4	1	0.99	0.01
D. Ospina	COL	CIV	3	1	0.94	0.06
J. Cillessen	NED	MEX	5	1	0.92	0.08
I. Akinfeev	RUS	KOR	5	1	0.87	0.13
S. Romero	ARG	BIH	6	1	0.86	0.14
Alireza Haghighi	IRN	ARG	4	1	0.84	0.16
A. Dominguez	ECU	HON	5	1	0.81	0.19
Julio Cesar	BRA	CMR	1	1	0.79	0.21
A. Begovic	BIH	IRN	2	1	0.77	0.23
R. M'Bolhi	ALG	BEL	7	2	1.74	0.26
T. Howard	USA	POR	7	2	1.71	0.29
D. Benaglio	SUI	FRA	12	5	4.70	0.30
B. Barry	CIV	GRE	5	2	1.69	0.31
T. Howard	USA	GHA	3	1	0.68	0.32
T. Courtois	BEL	ALG	1	1	0.61	0.39
D. Benaglio	SUI	ECU	4	1	0.61	0.39
B. Barry	CIV	COL	6	2	1.57	0.43
I. Akinfeev	RUS	BEL	2	1	0.54	0.46
G. Ochoa	MEX	CRO	2	1	0.54	0.46
B. Barry	CIV	JPN	2	1	0.53	0.47
I. Casillas	ESP	CHI	4	2	1.50	0.50
F. Dauda	GHA	GER	4	2	1.49	0.51
M. Neuer	GER	GHA	6	2	1.45	0.55
N. Valladares	HON	ECU	4	2	1.43	0.57
O. Karnezis	GRE	COL	6	3	2.38	0.62
C. Itandje	CMR	BRA	10	4	3.32	0.68
C. Bravo	CHI	NED	4	2	1.28	0.72
S. Romero	ARG	NGA	3	2	1.24	0.76
O. Karnezis	GRE	CRC	1	1	0.22	0.78
R. M'Bolhi	ALG	KOR	3	2	1.06	0.94
E. Kawashima	JPN	CIV	5	2	1.01	0.99
F. Muslera	URU	CRC	4	3	2.01	0.99
S. Pletikosa	CRO	BRA	6	3	1.95	1.05
Rui Patricio	POR	GER	6	4	2.94	1.06
A. Larsen Kwarasey	GHA	USA	4	2	0.92	1.08
F. Muslera	URU	COL	4	2	0.89	1.11
Beto	POR	USA	4	2	0.85	1.15
J. Hart	ENG	ITA	3	2	0.79	1.21
S. Pletikosa	CRO	MEX	4	3	1.74	1.26
I. Casillas	ESP	NED	10	5	3.59	1.41
Jung Sung-Ryong	KOR	ALG	5	4	2.58	1.42
H. Lloris	FRA	SUI	4	2	0.58	1.42
Alireza Haghighi	IRN	BIH	5	3	1.54	1.46
J. Hart	ENG	URU	2	2	0.45	1.55
M. Ryan	AUS	NED	9	3	1.43	1.57
M. Ryan	AUS	CHI	4	3	1.39	1.61
C. Itandje	CMR	CRO	9	4	2.38	1.62
M. Ryan	AUS	ESP	4	3	0.90	2.10
E. Kawashima	JPN	COL	4	4	1.72	2.28

Brazil: better than you think!

Admittedly, it hasn't felt like Brazil has played all that well this World Cup.

The referee seemingly made its two-goal victory over Croatia a more relaxed finish than it should have been; against Mexico, the fourth-place team from CONCACAF, it only managed a draw; and Cameroon was just low-hanging fruit. The host team then took a lot of flak for its play in the Round of 16 against Chile, especially for its performance after halftime. Indeed, Brazil conceded a silly goal on a defensive giveaway, and Chile had chances to win that game.

But I'm here to tell you that Brazil has played better that it has looked. Too often, it seems, the scorelines heavily influence our praise and criticism of what's happening on the field.

Brazil dominated Group A in terms of Expected Goal Differential (xGD), and recorded the second-highest tally of any team during the group stage. Brazil's 1.05 xGD during even (tied) gamestates ranked fifth among the 32 teams. You might have expected better from the hosts, but most teams only played about 130 minutes in such gamestates. That's a big enough sample size to get a general idea of which are the best teams, but too small a sample to split hairs over the top five.

Croatia - June 12th

Against the Croats, a penalty awarded to Fred on what appeared to be a dive marred what was actually a solid performance by Brazil. Up to that controversial call, Brazil had earned 1.4 Expected Goals (xGoals) to Croatia's 0.4, dominating in quantity and quality of shots. Even after taking the lead on the penalty, Brazil still edged Croatia in xGoals the rest of the way, 0.30 to 0.24---a differential that matches what we'd expect of teams that were leading in this tournament.

Mexico - June 17th

Mexico is a better team than their last-second World Cup qualification (and that commentator) would suggest. It led the CONCACAF Hexagonal (the Hex!) in shot ratios and is currently ranked 13th in the world in the Soccer Power Index (though some of that improved ranking is because of their tie against Brazil). Despite a disappointing 0 - 0 tie on the scoreboard, Brazil's 1.4 xGoals again dwarfed that of its opponents. Mexico totaled just 0.5 xGoals.

Cameroon - June 23rd

There's not much to say about this one. Brazil's 1.9 xGD against Cameroon was the third highest discrepancy thus far in the tournament, trailing only France's drubbing of Honduras and Germany's handling of Portugal. It should be noted that both France and Germany enjoyed a man advantage for the majorities of those games.

Chile - June 28th

For Chile, the scoreboard and their well-developed rapport with the woodwork are clear indications that they could have won this game. However, the opportunity creation department informs us that Brazil probably should have won, as it did. 94 percent of this game's shots were taken during an even gamestate, either 0 - 0 or 1 - 1, and Brazil outpaced Chile during that time by a full expected goal. Even after halftime, when Brazil looked disorganized and sloppy, it still edged Chile 1.1-to-0.7 in xGoals.

Perhaps Brazil has not "looked" the part of tournament favorites during its first four games, but its shot creation numbers suggest it is definitely playing like one of the best teams. Add that to their pre-tournament resume, throw in the home-field advantage that's not going away anytime soon, and there is little doubt that Brazil is still the favorite to win this World Cup---maybe not with a majority of the probability, but definitely with a plurality.

The Manaus Effect

During the United States' game against Germany on Thursday, it was hard to go 10 minutes without hearing Ian Darke or Taylor Twellman mention Manaus and its effect on the players. The US Men's National team played its previous game against Portugal in the "Jungle City," as did Italy, England, Croatia and Cameroon, before each dropping three points in their next games.

Business Insider pointed out that those first four teams to play in Manaus lost by a combined score of 10 - 3, though it conceded the tiny sample size. A Washington Post article cited the same statistics, and pondered the possibility of a curse in Manaus. The Independent, based in the United Kingdom, noted on June 24th that each of the seven teams that played in Manaus lost its next game. That was confusing since only six teams had played in Manaus to that point, and only four of those had actually played a "next game." But whatever. #stats Graham Zusi, Sporting Kansas City's All-star midfielder and starter for the USMNT, wasn't having any of it, stating "I don’t think it was that bad to be honest. When it got down to it, at night it cooled off and the humidity wasn’t as bad. I think after about 24 hours the bodies felt great." Hugh Laurie would tell us that everybody lies, especially athletes on record, but there might be something to Zusi's statement. Below is a chart depicting the average temperature, humidity and heat index for each game site. The weather stats were taken from Weather Underground at the beginning of the second half of each game.

City	Games	Temp	Humidity	Index
Fortaleza	4	82.4	62%	85.4
Salvador	4	80.2	73%	83.5
Manaus	4	79.3	81%	82.1
Natal	4	78.5	83%	80.7
Cuiaba	4	78.4	66%	79.1
Brasilia	4	77.5	43%	78.7
Sao Paulo	4	69.4	55%	78.3
Belo Horizonte	4	76.1	40%	77.8
Recife	4	77.5	86%	77.8
Rio De Janeiro	4	75.7	71%	76.6
Porto Alegre	4	65.8	71%	75.5
Curitiba	4	64.0	79%	71.5

It's reasonable to theorize that more extreme environments take their toll on the human body, even professional athletes. But if we're going to get serious here, we need to consider all locales that were exceptionally uncomfortable. Manaus actually ranked third in average heat index, and had a lower average humidity than fourth-place Natal. Italy and England were the first to play in Manaus on June 14th and sparked the notion that it was a hell hole. But while they were duking it out in Manaus, Costa Rica and Uruguay were playing in Fortaleza, number one on that list up there. Though it was less humid to start the second half in Fortaleza, it was actually hotter, and Fortaleza's halftime heat index beat that of Manaus by a few points, 87.3 to 84.6.

It turns out that teams which most recently played in Natal, Salvador or Fortaleza---the other three extreme locations---did alright. Those teams outscored their opponents by a combined five goals. That makes it hard to believe that the conditions of Manaus were responsible for the downfalls of Italy, England and Croatia, though that still leaves the possibility of a non-weather-related curse.

To make this a legit study, there are some other factors we need to control for, and that is why God invented linear regression. Using ESPN's (Nate Silver's) Soccer Power Index, I controlled for each team's overall ability, and then I measured the effects of extra rest and past-game heat index on the goal differential outcome. The output is below:

Variable	Estimate	P-Value
Intercept	-0.37	15.8%
SPI Ratings Differential	1.01	0.1%
Additonal Days Rest (home)	-0.21	68.1%
Heat Index Differential	0.01	74.3%

If you're not a linear regression kind of person, then basically what that chart up there says is that neither the heat index of the teams' past games nor any rest discrepancy seemed to matter during this tournament. At least not in terms of goal differential. But we know that goal differential is finicky, and Expected Goals are a better indicator of team performance. Good thing we've got our World Cup Expected Goals data up and running! If we measure team performance by some Expected Goal Differential statistics (xGD), then we get these linear regression outputs:

Expected Goal Diff	Estimate	P-value	Even Expected Goal Diff	Estimate	P-value
Intercept	-0.06	61.9%	Intercept	0.01	88.4%
SPI Ratings Differential	0.46	0.1%	SPI Ratings Differential	0.34	0.2%
Additional Days Rest (home)	0.13	57.0%	Additional Days Rest (home)	0.17	37.0%
Heat Index Differential	0.00	79.7%	Heat Index Differential	0.00	86.3%

Again, regardless of whether we look at overall xGD or even-gamestate xGD, there are no statistically significant effects due to extreme heat index figures from past matches. Expected Goals data are obviously not a direct measurement of how heat impacts the athletes' bodies, but they should be a stable representation the teams' relative strengths during a match.

The Swiss were the last team (that is still in the tournament) to play in an 80+ heat index environment, but I wouldn't expect that to matter much based on what I've shown above. What will matter is that Argentina is much better. Talent has trumped the heat index so far this World Cup.

World Cup Statistics

We have begun rolling out World Cup statistics in the same format as those we provide for MLS. Scroll over "World Cup 2014" along the top bar to check it out! In the Team Stats Tables, one may observe that the recently-eliminated Spain outshot its opponents, and a much higher proportion of its possession occurred in the attacking third than that of its opponents.

Our team-by-team Expected Goals data shows that England played better than its results would suggest, earning more dangerous opportunities than its opponents. It was a matter of inches for Wayne Rooney a few times there...

SHOT MAP: Wayne Rooney has now missed with his right foot, his left foot & with a header. An English hat-trick. #ENG pic.twitter.com/HfR86YL23w

— Squawka Football (@Squawka) June 19, 2014

Finishing data suggests that James Rodriguez has made the most of his opportunities---surprise, surprise---but did you know that none of Thomas Muller's first seven shots were assisted?

And despite giving up a tournament-high seven goals in the group stages, our Goalkeeping Data actually suggests that Honduran goalkeeper Noel Valladares performed admirably---especially considering the onslaught of shots he faced that were worth a tournament-most 0.4 goals per shot on target.