Dubai: A World Cup record was broken when on Saturday Belgium’s Eden Hazard scored his sixth-minute penalty kick against Tunisia.
The Chelsea man’s successful penalty meant that the first 27 games in the tournament had at least one goal, surpassing the benchmark set way back at the 1954 tournament in Switzerland.
The record has been stretched to an astonishing 36 games, with every game since the record was broken seeing the net bulge at least once.
It’s quite a remarkable feat considering the naysayers were moaning at the ‘paltry’ goal tally earlier in the event. They did have a point as, despite hosts Russia banging in five in the opening game, there was a danger that this could become the lowest scoring tournament in history.
By last Friday, the goals-per-game average was 2.33 per game, leading to score-hungry fans demanding more. There were 3.21 per game in the Uefa Champions League last term and 2.67 in the English Premier League. The lowest average at a World Cup is the 2.21 of 1990, a infamously boring tournament.
We needn’t have worried. Starting with the Belgium game on Saturday, the average goals-per-game soared to just under four per game — thanks in no small part to Belgium and England running rampant against Tunisia and Panama respectively, and previously shot-shy or just downright unlucky teams such as Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Uruguay finding their scoring boots.
Goals are always welcome for the neutral fan, and at some tournaments such as that turgid affair in Italy in 1990, it is all there is to talk about.
However, Russia 2018 has given us a whole menu of other incidents to feast on.
Spain sacked their coach before a ball was kicked, VAR — designed to clear up dodgy decisions — has raised as many questions as hit has answered, Switzerland and Mohammed Salah become embroiled in political scandals, and did Ronaldo actually punch that Iranian?
And that VAR has also played its part in another spike on the graph. There have been 19 penalties so far at Russia 2018 — including five in four games on Day 3 — and most have been given following video review by the referee and his men upstairs in the recording booth.
I’m not going into the rights and wrongs of the system that has been introduced at the World Cup for the first time this year, but it has certainly ironed out a few of the borderline spot-kick cases.
France were eventually awarded a penalty against Australia after much deliberation, and the infraction by Tunisia that led to Hazard’s landmark goal also went upstairs. Both of these decisions were touch and go, and tough to call even as we watched on TV, never mind with the naked eye. Both decisions were correct in the end but could easily be missed had the video replays not been available to the referee. Ok, this may mean more penalties, and some will be harsher than others (just re-watch the Egypt v Saudi Arabi game for evidence), but even by the finest of margins, there has been a foul and that means a spot kick has to be given.
I guarantee the number of goals will dip once we enter the knockout stages and games become much cagier affairs, but only the most cynical of armchair fans can complain that they have not been entertained so far.
