One of the delights of the coming World Cup will be commentators’ liberal use of cliché: the Brazilians play the beautiful game, Italians are defensive, Germans efficient and, of course, Africans are naïve at the back. However, cliches can be true, as this new paper shows. The authors studied 1564 competitive internationals involving six teams. And they found that the Germans are more likely to score in the last minute of a game. They did so in 5.5% of games. By contrast, Brazil did so in only 2.1% of their games and Italy in just 2.2% of them.
Germans, then, really do have a never say die attitude. But so too do the Dutch and English; these too score in the last minute in more than one game in 20.
However, there’s a difference between Germany and England. Germany are more likely to concede in the last minute; they do so in 4.4% of games, whereas England have done so in only two of their last 232 competitive games. This suggests that German games become much more open in the last minute. This is in contrast to Italy, who have conceded just one last-minute goal in 267 games.
All this suggests there really are cultural differences between teams. Maybe northern Europeans are less fatalistic than more Catholic nations, and so do more to chase the game.
And one other thing: Germany really are better at penalties. In shoot-outs since 1960, they have scored with 94% of their penalties, whereas England have scored with just 50% and Italy with 65%.
Germans, then, really do have a never say die attitude. But so too do the Dutch and English; these too score in the last minute in more than one game in 20.
However, there’s a difference between Germany and England. Germany are more likely to concede in the last minute; they do so in 4.4% of games, whereas England have done so in only two of their last 232 competitive games. This suggests that German games become much more open in the last minute. This is in contrast to Italy, who have conceded just one last-minute goal in 267 games.
All this suggests there really are cultural differences between teams. Maybe northern Europeans are less fatalistic than more Catholic nations, and so do more to chase the game.
And one other thing: Germany really are better at penalties. In shoot-outs since 1960, they have scored with 94% of their penalties, whereas England have scored with just 50% and Italy with 65%.
Surely a man of your talents would realise that this analysis is total hoop. I've just done a quick simulation of these games between 6 teams, assuming a generous average of 4 goals per game. Each team's probability of scoring was uniformly distributed across the 90 minutes of each of their 521 games. Pure random chance showed that the gritty 'team 5' scored 18 times in the last minute, showing their never say die attitued, while 'team 6' didn't have the same tendency to go down fighting - scoring only 6 times in the last minute.
It's well established that Monte Carlo methods are poor for estimating low probabilities, and so it is in this case. The stuff about penalties stands up to scrutiny much better, as the probability is further way from the extrema. However, the conclusion about penalities isn't a national stereotype, it's just an observation.
Posted by: The Silent Sceptic | June 04, 2010 at 02:46 PM
Completely spurios stats. Think about the sample size and then adjust further for the natural churn in players and managers.
Posted by: KaKTy3 | June 04, 2010 at 02:57 PM
I'm not entirely sure it makes sense to think of efficiency as about scoring in the last minute. Surely "efficiency" is about getting the job done early.
However, I have to disagree with KaKTy3. The natural churn of players and managers has been taken out of the equation by looking over a long period (200+ games), necessary to see only the effects of "cultural differences" between footballing nations.
Posted by: Alex | June 04, 2010 at 09:12 PM
"And one other thing: Germany really are better at penalties. In shoot-outs since 1960, they have scored with 94% of their penalties, whereas England have scored with just 50% and Italy with 65%."
In 1990, 7 of the 16 teams were involved in at least 1 penalty shoot-out. In 1994, 6 of the 16 teams after the group stage were involved in a penalty shoot-out. But Glenn Hoddle didn't even bother practising in 1998, despite such high probabilities. Maybe he thought that applying time to on-field play would mean they could outright win each game rather than facing the possibility of penalties?
Posted by: Tim Almond | June 04, 2010 at 10:25 PM
Some would say it's no surprise that stereotypes are often true - after all, that's why they are stereotypes in the first place!
Posted by: photo ex machina | June 04, 2010 at 11:20 PM
After reading the article I was kind of speechless and I tried to look at this in the complicated way, however, just like @photo ex machina puts it: " stereotypes are often true - after all, that's why they are stereotypes in the first place!" and I couldn't agree more.
Posted by: Fred Kapoor | June 07, 2010 at 05:08 PM
silent sceptic - you are neglecting the importance of the prior hypothesis.
If you have a prior hypothesis that team C is a never-say-die team then it is meaningful if your small-sample survey supports that hypotheis.
Open -ended research 'I wonder if any of these teams....' is different.
Posted by: botogol | June 10, 2010 at 03:18 PM