In the decisive 1-2 defeat in the first group game, the DFB selection gave away the best scoring chances in a row.
(Photo: IMAGO/PA Images)
Berlin The German national soccer players could hardly understand the end of the World Cup in Qatar on Thursday evening. They had done some of their homework in the 4-2 win over Costa Rica, only Japan thwarted their round of 16 goal by beating Spain.
In the end, the Germans were five more goals short of moving past Spain to second place in World Cup Group E. But it is also clear that the DFB team had already given up their chance to reach the round of 16 with their 2-1 defeat against Japan.
Because if you look at the “expected goals” of various data providers, the probability of a goal based on the game situation, effort and income differ fundamentally, not only in this game.
According to “expected goals” Germany would be the group winner
Rounding the odds to whole numbers, Germany should have won 3-2 against Japan instead of losing 1-2. After the game, Thomas Müller spoke of an “insane defeat”. The 1-1 draw against Spain, on the other hand, would have lasted even after “expected goals” – even if Germany tended to be ahead here.
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Against Costa Rica there should have been a 6-1 victory for Germany according to the goal probability. If you take the “expected goals” as a basis, the team of national coach Hansi Flick would have walked through the group phase with seven points. Incidentally, level on points with Spain, which, however, has fewer “expected goals”.
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The latter piece of information is not surprising: Germany are in fact the team most likely to have scored the most goals in this tournament – ten in total. In reality, however, there were only six.
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They are followed by France with seven goals, England with five and Spain with five. The difference: France comes at least close to the “expected goals” with six goals, England and Spain (9 each) even clearly exceed the expectations.
The Germans have thus become victims of their own ineffectiveness. Again, I have to say. Because at the 2018 World Cup in Russia, Germany had better values against Mexico and South Korea.
In the run-up to this World Cup tournament, assessing chances was also a major construction site. The DFB team missed the preliminary decision in the Nations League game in England and almost lost. Niclas Füllkrug scored the redeeming goal late against Oman.
Two other statistics prove this phenomenon again for the World Cup. With 69 shots on goal, Germany gave up the most of all participants after three games. The fact that not much was missing is also shown: No team hit the post or crossbar more often than Germany – five times in total. They are horrifying statistics.
This text first appeared in the Tagesspiegel.
More: Current news about the football World Cup 2022 in Qatar in our news blog