This is the most exciting World Cup after group play, “statistically” speaking

Through the first game of group play, this was the most exciting World Cup ever . Group play is now over – is Brazil 2014 still the most exciting World Cup?

After the conclusion of the group stage, this is still the World Cup with the most goals scored per game and least likely to have a game end in a tie. I’ve also added a new stat: comeback wins, because watching games is more fun as a neutral when the first goal isn’t “always” going to be the decider.

Brazil 2014 features the most goals per game in group play.

Here’s the chart of that:

In group play, we went from the lowest scoring South Africa 2010 to the highest in Brazil 2014.

World Cup 2014 is also the least likely to have tie games:

Just for fun, I also checked on comeback wins. I define a comeback win as a game where the team who won the game was losing at any point.

2014 compares pretty favorably on this metric, with only 1970 and 1978 being more likely to have comeback wins. Before the final game of group play, 2014 was on track to have more comeback wins than 70 or 78, as 25% of games up to that point had been comeback wins. However, none of the final games in group play were comeback wins.

[Smart observers no doubt have realized that more goals per game is highly correlated with less ties and more comeback wins. More goals means ties are less likely, and also means more comeback wins are likely (by definition, a comeback win needs at least 3 goals).]