Breakout performances seemed to be everywhere at the 2018 World Cup — young talents were launched to international fame, and established players had their names crystallized on the world stage. The world’s biggest soccer tournament gives players a chance to shine outside the club-level paradigm of consistency and — apart from the English Premier League […]
A lasting effect of the 2018 World Cup will be the introduction of the video assistant referee, or VAR, and its ramifications on a huge part of soccer — penalties. The most obvious consequence has been the spike in total penalties called: Through the first semifinal, 10 more penalties have been awarded at this World […]
France enters today’s semifinal match against neighboring Belgium as the favorite to win the 2018 World Cup. At least on paper, though, France has been the least remarkable team of the four that remain: Les Bleus have scored fewer goals than each of the other semifinalists, they’ve possessed less of the ball than two of […]
Over the next few days, FiveThirtyEight will be examining each of the eight groups in the 2018 World Cup, which begins Thursday in Russia. Read about Group A, Group B, Group C, Group D and Group E. Germany, the defending World Cup champion, is one of the favorites to win the tournament — FiveThirtyEight’s Soccer […]