Early Goals In The World Cup Final Could Be More Of A Curse Than A Blessing

As the Qatar 2022 World Cup reaches it’s knockout phase, scoring first is more important than ever. Research has found that scoring the opening goal gives teams a more than 80% chance of victory in World Cup knockout matches, with one huge exception.

When Kieran Trippier scored with a free kick in 5th minute in the World Cup semi-final against Croatia in 2018, England fans might have thought they had one foot in the final.

And a few years later in 2021, England’s Luke Shaw had the ball in the net in the final of UEFA Euro 2020 before some fans had even got to their seats.

But on both those occasions, England were on the losing side.

Some might call this “typical England”, but in fact, scoring very early in crucial games can sometimes be more of a curse than a blessing.

This is especially true of the World Cup final.

Swedish sports video solution firm Spiideo, who work with the Spanish and Croatian national teams, teamed up with University of Oxford statistics expert Matthew Penn to look into how the time of the opening goal affects teams’ chances of victory.

They found that scoring first in a World Cup knockout match gives a team an 82% chance of winning the match. When looking at the times of the first goals, the data showed that scoring the opening goal between the 75th and 90th minute gives a 97% chance of winning. If the opening goal is scored in the first 15 minutes of a game, this drops to a 77% chance of victory as the opposition has more time to get back into the game.

This suggests that, unsurprisingly, scoring first gives teams the best chance of winning a World Cup knockout match.

But when it comes to the actual World Cup final, very early goals generally don’t lead to victory.

Penn says that of the eight World Cup finals where the opening goal has been scored in the first 15 minutes, six of the eight teams that have scored first have gone on to lose the match.

The most recent time that happened was in 2006 when Zinedine Zidane gave France the lead from the penalty spot in the seventh minute before Marco Materazzi equalized on 19 minutes. Italy went on to win that final on penalty kicks.

The eventual losing side also took the lead in the first 15 minutes of the final in the 1974, 1962, 1958, and 1954 world cups, as well as in 1966 when West Germany scored in the 12th minute before England came back to win 4-2 in extra time.

Penn says “this suggests that scoring an early goal may not be as advantageous in a World Cup final” and that it may even be “psychologically disadvantageous.”

In many of those finals, the team conceding the opening goal managed to get a quick equalizer. England were on level terms after 18 minutes in 1966, and the Netherlands’ early lead in 1974 was cancelled out by West Germany after 25 minutes. In 1954, Hungary actually managed to be 2-0 up after eight minutes only for West Germany to level the scores by the 18-minute mark before eventually winning 3-2.

The VP of Product at Spiideo, Fredrik Ademar says scoring early “can often end up inviting more pressure and shifting the games’ momentum,” and that although in terms of probability, it increases your chances of winning, teams “need to be both tactically and mentally prepared for these moments” to ensure that an early lead turns into a victory.