The harsh truth: Qatar 2022 is projected to be one of the World Cups with the fewest goals in history

The goal is a poem. That deep vent that ends up being the main objective for which the teams fight on the playing field. Annotations that gain greater value in a World Cup. This time all the flashes are on Qatar 2022, a contest that has registered 120 goals at the end of the group stage. A worrying statistic ahead of the end of the championship.

Taking into account the number of goals scored in the other 21 editions, this tournament for teams could be ranked as the fourth with the fewest sacred cries. Following the average that occurred in the first phase, the number of goals that is reduced in the final phases and multiplying by the 16 games that remain to be played, from the round of 16 to the final, Qatar would add 155 goals. That is, 2.42 targets per game.

A record that would only surpass what happened in Italy 1990 (2.21), Germany 2006 (2.30) and South Africa 2010 (2.27). There would have to be unexpected wins for the course to be changed and at least to overcome what happened in Russia 2018 (2.47), Korea-Japan 2002 (2.52) and Mexico 1986 (2.54).

Not even the extra time helped

Unlike other world championships, FIFA considered extending the extra time of the matches. This with the aim of recovering the dead time that occurs during the 90 minutes. Despite this, only 23% of the games have had annotations in the discounts, either in the first half and complement. The games where more than one goal was scored in this period were Wales vs. Iran (R. Cheshmi 90+8′ and R. Rezaeian 90+11′) and Serbia vs. Cameroon (S. Pavlovic 45+1′ and S. Milinkovic-Savic 45+3′).

On the other hand, the number of games that ended goalless is something very unusual in world championships. To date we have witnessed five games where no scores were given: England vs. United States, Mexico vs. Poland, Denmark vs. Tunisia, Morocco vs. Croatia, Croatia vs. Belgium and Uruguay vs. South Korea. Another point in favor of the lack of efficiency in the Qatari contest.

men goal

There are five top scorers in Qatar 2022. With three goals, Kylian Mbappé (France), Álvaro Morata (Spain), Cody Gakpo (Netherlands), Marcos Rashford (England) and Enner Valencia (Ecuador) They lead the scoring table. Although only four are still in competition, after the northern squad says goodbye to the tournament.

In the previous edition, once the first phase ended, the scorer was the Englishman Harry Kane with five goals. He was closely followed by Romelu Lukaku with four goals for Belgium. Another blow of numbers to Qatar 2022.

More effective and more goals

The top scoring teams in the tournament are England and Spain. Both teams scored nine goals, but above all because of the 6-2 and 7-0 wins they gave to Iran and Costa Rica, respectively. Then they only scored three goals in two presentations.

In the other corner are those who saw their fence fall the most. The Costa Ricans rule this statistic with 11 goals against: seven against Spain and four against Germany. Serbia is second with eight goals on their doorstep. A statistic that clearly shows his bad and disappointing campaign in this World Cup.

There are still 16 games to go to reach the end of Qatar 2022. It is expected that the goal average can improve a bit so that the World Cup, so criticized in the previous one, does not have more edges to enter the category of the least remembered.