2026-05-world-cup-reddit
Option A — r/dataisbeautiful
Title: Goals per game at every FIFA World Cup (1930–2022) [OC]
Body: With the 2026 World Cup three weeks away, I pulled data from the full historical World Cup dataset (1930–2022) to visualise how goal-scoring has changed over 92 years.
The 1954 tournament in Switzerland averaged 5.38 goals per game — nearly double today's rate. The trend downward is clear, with 1990 as the nadir (2.21 goals/game), which is widely credited with prompting FIFA to award 3 points for a win from 1994 onwards.
Interactive chart: datahub.io/football/worldcup/v/0
Data source: datahub.io/football/worldcup — 27 tables covering every tournament from 1930 to 2022, open and free.
[screenshot the v/0 chart for the post image]
Option B — r/soccer or r/worldcup
Title: I went through 92 years of World Cup data before the 2026 tournament — here's what surprised me most
Body: With 2026 kicking off in three weeks, I spent some time in the historical World Cup dataset (all 22 tournaments, 1930–2022, fully open at datahub.io/football/worldcup). A few things stood out:
Brazil is genuinely in a class of its own. Only nation to have qualified for all 22 World Cups. Every single one. Germany and Italy have each missed at least one. No one else is close. → chart
The host advantage used to be real — and it's basically gone. 6 of the first 17 hosts won the tournament on home soil. Since 2002, no host has reached the final. Brazil (2014), Russia (2018), and Qatar (2022) all fell in the knockouts.
Football was genuinely more open in the early years. 1954 averaged 5.38 goals per game. Qatar 2022 was 2.69. The defensive evolution of the game is visible in the raw numbers. → chart
Miroslav Klose's record of 16 World Cup goals has stood since 2014. Ronaldo (Brazil) is 2nd with 15. Only 2 players in history have scored 14+. → chart
Morocco 2022 was the first African semifinalist — in the tournament's 92nd year. The geography of the tournament has completely changed from its Americas-heavy origins.
The full dataset is open: datahub.io/football/worldcup. 27 tables, every goal, squad, booking, and referee since 1930. What would you want to look at?
