Monday, June 22, 2009

Fun Stats and Player Ratings

Those of you who are following us on Twitter will have seen that we have been enjoying clicking around on the FIFA.com statistics page. In addition to all sorts of interesting tidbits, we found that:
  • Michael Bradley covered the most distance of any player on the field (7.9 miles) in the last game.
  • Egypt's pass-completion percentage took a drastic turn for the worse against the U.S., dropping to 73% from previous games of 88% and 82%.
  • Tim Howard also has the most saves of any goalkeeper in the tournament, with 17.

FIFA.com also has a new Player Ratings Index, which you can learn about by watching the short video here.
  • Clint Dempsey (8.26 out of 10) and Michael Bradley (8.19) are the two American representatives in the index's Top 11 players.
  • Dempsey is ranked second overall amongst mifielders, behind Kaká at 8.84.
  • No prize for guessing the top two ranked players. Spain's Fernando Torres and David Villa sport tournament bests of 8.91 and 9.03, respectively.

3 comments:

Gabe said...

Can't believe how many in depth stats they have on there. Pretty interesting stuff. Thanks!

Youngee8 Atlanta said...

I have no idea how Demps beat Michael Bradley on the rating? What games are these guys watching. Based on work rate, technical ability, performance, holding the ball. Landon even though he needs to be more selfish in the box his rating needs to be increased as well. Go USA.

Unknown said...

I do like the objective stats better, as they don't express any real bias. As for the Castrol Index? Gooch is the worst US defender? And the 5th worst defender in the whole tournament?

Don't get me started on midfielders... Xavi and Fabregas in the middle of the pack? I'm sure more than one team would swap their higher rated mids for one of those players.

FIFA may need to go back to the drawing board on their Player Ratings.