When Mohamed Salah set up for a penalty kick in just the second minute of the 2018-19 UEFA Champions League final, he had a chance to score the potential deciding goal in one of global sports’ biggest contests. With a reported 63,272 fans in the stands, an estimated 380 million to 400 million people watching […]
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 […]
If you’ve come here during a penalty shootout, scroll down for some cool charts. The next several paragraphs explain our methodology in some detail. FiveThirtyEight has some credibility staked on the performance of the Brazilian national team. It was our pretournament favorite to win the World Cup. (Many other forecasts had Brazil favored, but not […]
If you’ve come here during a penalty shootout, scroll down for some cool charts. The next several paragraphs explain our methodology in some detail. FiveThirtyEight has some credibility staked on the performance of the Brazilian national team. It was our pretournament favorite to win the World Cup. (Many other forecasts had Brazil favored, but not […]
Brazil defeated Croatia 3-1 in the opening match of the World Cup on Thursday — while looking about as bad as it could while winning by that scoreline. Its go-ahead goal came on a penalty kick following a dubious call by referee Yuichi Nishimura. Its third goal perhaps ought to have been stopped by Croatian goalkeeper Stipe Pletikosa. […]
