Romelu Lukaku stood with his hands on his knees, looking bewildered.
A 0-0 draw with Croatia had just sent Belgium out of the tournament and became the sixth goalless match of the 2022 World Cup so far. Though Lukaku and his team were heading home from Qatar, their effort on Thursday had matched one record: six 0-0 draws in the World Cup’s group stage, something which last occurred in 2010 in South Africa.
Advertisement
When Uruguay drew with South Korea by the same scoreline a week earlier (then the fourth goalless draw of the tournament) it looked like the figure might get much higher. At that stage, only 14 matches had been played.
It was enough to get The Athletic thinking though: What is the most common scoreline in World Cup finals history?
So we collected all the data from the very first games in 1930 — USA beat Belgium 3-0 while, simultaneously, France defeated Mexico 4-1 — to the 2018 final, when France were 4-2 winners against Croatia.
Each result was taken from the final whistle being blown, including added time and, in the case of knockout ties, extra time.
As well as revealing the most common scoreline over the entire period, the numbers revealed the game’s evolution.
Since 1998, when the World Cup expanded to be a 32-team tournament, the most likely number of goals in any given game during the finals is three.
We can break it down further to track the goals per game in different tournaments, as well as their distribution within each World Cup.
Post-1998, the tournaments that saw the most goals in a single game were 2002 and 2014. There were eight scored in Germany’s 8-0 victory over Saudi Arabia 20 years ago, and they were at it again in their 7-1 semi-final demolition of hosts Brazil.
That’s the average number of goals per game since 1998 dealt with, but what about the most common scoreline since the competition began, and before the current World Cup started?
The most common result is the old faithful: 1-0.
It has been the scoreline in 19 per cent of all matches prior to the current tournament, and is also the joint-second most commonplace score in Qatar, with eight matches seeing only one goal at the time of writing.
It was Argentina who set the ball rolling with the first 1-0 victory in World Cup history, over France in 1930. It is one of 13 1-0 victories for the Argentinians at the World Cup, the most recent being their quarter-final defeat of Belgium in 2014.
Advertisement
They are not the most prolific 1-0 specialists, though. That honour, perhaps unsurprisingly, goes to Italy, the kings of catenaccio.
Teams with the most 1-0 victories
| Team | Number of Wins |
|---|---|
Italy | 14 |
Argentina | 13 |
Brazil | 13 |
England | 9 |
Germany | 9 |
Belgium | 6 |
Spain | 6 |
Sweden | 6 |
West Germany | 6 |
France | 5 |
Japan | 5 |
Portugal | 5 |
United States | 5 |
Their first came during their debut in the tournament in 1934, progressing past Spain in the quarter-finals on their way to winning the trophy. Their most recent was a round of 16 victory against Australia in 2006. They won that tournament too. Italy haven’t had many chances to add to their total, having failed to qualify for both the 2018 finals and the current competition.
The second most common result at all World Cup tournaments is 2-1 (16 per cent), which is the joint second most common result at Qatar 2022, with eight games finishing that at the time of writing.
In the early tournaments, 1-0 was a rare scoreline. Indeed, in 1934, there was excellent entertainment with 3-2 being the most frequent result. Twenty years later, three matches finished 4-1 and another three ended 4-2.
Most common scoreline in each World Cup
| Year | Most Common Scoreline | Number of times |
|---|---|---|
1930 | 1-0 | 4 |
1934 | 3-2 | 5 |
1938 | 2-1 | 4 |
1950 | 2-0 | 4 |
1954 | 2-0, 4-1 & 4-2 | 3 |
1958 | 2-2 | 4 |
1962 | 3-1 | 7 |
1966 | 2-1 | 9 |
1970 | 1-0 | 8 |
1974 | 1-0 & 2-0 | 6 |
1978 | 1-0 & 3-1 | 7 |
1982 | 1-0 | 9 |
1986 | 1-0 | 10 |
1990 | 1-0 | 15 |
1994 | 1-0 & 2-1 | 10 |
1998 | 1-0 & 2-1 | 12 |
2002 | 1-0 | 15 |
2006 | 1-0 & 2-0 | 13 |
2010 | 1-0 | 17 |
2014 | 2-1 | 15 |
2018 | 1-0 | 15 |
In the 13 tournaments since England won in 1966 though, a single-goal victory has been the most common or joint most common scoreline on 12 occasions. The odd year out was 2014, when — surprise, surprise — 2-1 took the honours.
This next chart shows the average number of goals per match staying below three since 1970.
That 1954 tournament mentioned earlier was a goal bonanza. Fans witnessed a 9-0 (Hungary vs South Korea), an 8-3 (Hungary again, vs Germany), a 7-2 (Germany v Turkey) and two 7-0s. Total chaos.
The average dropped as low as 2.2 in 1990, and in back-to-back tournaments in 2006 and 2010 it was hardly any better at 2.3. The last two tournaments have seen the number increase to 2.7 (2014) and 2.6 (2018).
In this World Cup so far, we have seen 113 goals in 46 games, an average of 2.5.
When we look at the top 20 biggest scorelines in World Cup history, only six have been after 1958 — although some involved extra time, including Brazil’s 6-5 victory over Poland in 1938, which was 3-3 after 90 minutes.
Advertisement
The honour of the biggest scoreline goes to Hungary who beat their own record in 1982 with a 10-1 victory over El Salvador.
Biggest World Cup scorelines
| # | Year | Scoreline | Teams |
|---|---|---|---|
1 | 1982 | 10-1 | HUNGARY vs El Salvador |
2 | 1954 | 9-0 | HUNGARY vs South Korea |
3 | 1974 | 9-0 | YUGOSLAVIA vs Zaire |
4 | 1954 | 8-3 | HUNGARY vs Germany |
5 | 1938 | 8-0 | SWEDEN vs Cuba |
6 | 1950 | 8-0 | URUGUAY vs Bolivia |
7 | 2002 | 8-0 | GERMANY vs Saudi Arabia |
8 | 1954 | 7-5 | AUSTRIA vs Switzerland |
9 | 1958 | 7-3 | FRANCE vs Paraguay |
10 | 1954 | 7-2 | GERMANY vs Turkey |
11 | 1934 | 7-1 | ITALY vs United States |
12 | 1950 | 7-1 | BRAZIL vs Sweden |
13 | 2014 | 7-1 | GERMANY vs Brazil |
14 | 1954 | 7-0 | URUGUAY vs Scotland |
15 | 1954 | 7-0 | TURKEY vs South Korea |
16 | 1974 | 7-0 | POLAND vs Haiti |
17 | 2010 | 7-0 | PORTUGAL vs Korea DPR |
18 | 1938 | 6-5 | BRAZIL vs Poland |
19 | 1930 | 6-3 | ARGENTINA vs Mexico |
20 | 1958 | 6-3 | FRANCE vs West Germany |
The most recent of the 20 was the Maracana humiliation when hosts Brazil were trounced by Germany in that 2014 semi-final, with Germany taking a 5-0 lead within the first half an hour, leaving an entire country in tears.
Austria’s 7-5 quarter-final victory over Switzerland in 1954 is the highest-scoring single game in World Cup history and it didn’t even need to go to full-time to get there, with its final goal being scored on 76 minutes. There were hat-tricks from Switzerland’s Sepp Huegi and Theodor Wagner of Austria that day.
Ferenc Puskas-inspired Hungary registered the joint-second highest World Cup victory while playing South Korea in 1954 (9-0). Puskas scored two but team-mate Sandor Kocsis went one better and walked away with the match ball.
Twenty years later, Yugoslavia equalled that in a demolition of Zaire. They were 6-0 up at half-time, with Dusan Bajevic netting three times.
That does not mean high-scoring games no longer exist in World Cup football.
Spain’s 7-0 thrashing of Costa Rica and England’s dominant 6-2 victory over Iran are two examples that would have made the top 20, if our data collection had extended to this competition. We’ve also had two 4-1s, a 4-2, a 3-3 and two 3-2s already in Qatar.
We all want to see end-to-end, all-action, seven-goal thrillers every game. So far in the current tournament, 2-0 has been the most common scoreline (11 times).
That will likely change though once the stakes rise, and with teams potentially getting an extra 30 minutes to score more goals.
(Graphics by Mark Carey)
(Top photo: Stu Forster via Getty Images)
