Fascinating World Cup Facts & Figures

Posted: 2010-07-09

As the world gets ready for this weekend’s World Cup Final between The Netherlands and Spain, the Castrol Predictor reveals that Spain are favourites to the lift the famous trophy.

Going into the tournament, the Castrol Predictor showed that Spain had a 17% chance, whereas The Netherlands had just a 9.8% chance of winning.

Castrol has applied the same expertise they apply to the development of their oils to create the Castrol Predictor, using objective analysis and highly advanced technology to measure team and player performance over the last 10 years to work out the attack and defence ratings of each nation.

Then, by simulating the tournament more than 100 000 times and weighting the 2010 FIFA World Cup™ match results as a greater indicator of current team performance, Castrol has calculated who are the favourites for the world’s most famous trophy.

Looking at the finalists, Castrol Global Ambassador, Marcel Desailly said: “The Holland team is packed full of talent and their chances of winning were always ranked highly by the Castrol Predictor, but not by the world’s fans and media.

“Their performances have been solid and Sneijder has been outstanding, but they have been conceding more and more goals in the later rounds which they will be keen to stamp out on Sunday. Spain shouldn’t underestimate them in the Final as after all, this is the team that knocked out Brazil, who had been favourites from the start.”

But Desailly is well aware of the challenge that The Netherlands face as they take on Spain in their first FIFA World Cup™ Final in 32 years.

“As reigning European Champions, Spain has been one of the favourites to lift the trophy from the start, and they have proved to the world why they were so highly rated coming into the tournament. With their clinical passing game and solid defending which has conceded just two goals on their way to the Final, the Dutch team will have to be on top form to beat the Spanish.”

As another exciting World Cup draws to an end, Castrol are also able to reveal some of the fascinating facts and figures from the Castrol Live Tracker which has been monitoring the tournament:

• 540 of shots have been struck on target, with over twice as many (1 196) missing the target altogether
• The ball has found the net 139 times, while goalkeepers have been busy, making 404 saves
• 15 penalties have been awarded during matches, resulting in nine goals
• Teams have taken a combined 595 corners, with 14 goals coming from the set-pieces
• Referees have blown the whistle a total of 4 744 times and shown 241 cards, 15 of which were red
• The fastest player of the tournament so far is Javier Hernández of Mexico, who reached a top speed of 32.15km/h (source: FIFA.com)
• Uruguay’s Pereira has covered the most distance in the tournament, running a total of 66.5km (source: FIFA.com)
• Players have kept their energy up by consuming 41 042 771 calories and 95 169 litres of fluid. All this has enabled them to collectively burn 17 593 kilowatts of energy
• 15 562 723 732 people worldwide have watched the games, with an additional 3 006 632 coming through the turnstiles across South Africa
• Groundsmen have used a total of 304 litres of paint to mark the pitches


http://www.kickoff.com/2010/news/16667/