As the 2015/16 football season has drawn to a close after Euro 2016, there are some precedents to be noticed and many conclusions to be made. It was a season full of surprises as Leicester won the Premier League after they were appointed as one of the teams that are most likely to be relegated. Iceland surprisingly reached the quarter finals at the European Championship after defeating England and Austria on their way through. And champions became Portugal winning only 1 match in the whole championship! But why do such things happen? Sports News&Analysis reviewed all the matches and came up with some answers to that question:
Reason #1: Teams prefer to play defensive rather than offensive football.
One thing that can be noticed is that teams nowadays prefer not to receive a goal rather than score one. That is why they play a clever football and look to close every space left on the field to ensure security for their own goal. And as we saw these tactics were mostly used by teams that have been pointed for underdogs. They play a football without much possession, but at the same time closing every space available and the only chances they create is from counter attacks. These tactics proved to be working after in 55% of the matches the team that possessed the ball less was the winner in the match. This is proved by the standings for the teams' possession during the tournament:
1. Germany (63% per match) - defeated in the semi finals.
2. Spain (61% per match) - defeated in the Round of 16
3. England (59% per match) - defeated in the Round of 16 by Iceland (who are last in this category with only 36% per match)
5. Ukraine (56% per match) - eliminated in group stage without scoring a single goal
7. Russia (53% per match) - eliminated in group stage
8. Portugal (52% per match) - Winners of the Tournament
14. Wales (48% per match) - Reached Semi-Finals
16. Poland (46% per match) - Reached Quarter-Finals
18. Italy (46% per match) - Reached Quarter-Finals
These stats show that 3 teams from top 5 in possession during the tournament were unable to get through the Round of 16 while teams that possessed the ball nearly 2 times less than them (huge difference) reached the quarter finals. This means that possession does not necessarily mean advantage in terms of modern football.
Euro 2016 also saw the lowest "Goals per Match" stats in the 21st century (probably the lowest at a major competition ever). In 2000 were scored 85 goals in 31 matches with a 2.74 goals per match. During the last 3 competitions this number was always somewhere around 2.45. At Euro 2016, this significantly dropped to 2.12 even though there were more teams and matches than ever and big teams had the opportunity to play against "small teams" in the group stage. It is crazy to think that nearly 12% of the goals were scored in 2 matches (Portugal vs Hungary 3:3 and France vs Iceland 5:2). That means 1.93 goals per match in the other matches which is 0.81 less than in 2000.
Part 2 here
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