Vertigo Can Be Deceiving

Statistics are often useless. Sometimes, however, they turn confusion into clarity. This time, a quick look at the compared statistics of both games played so far by Spain leads to an unexpected conclusion: the passing game against Switzerland had better attacking figures than the more direct and vertical playing style used against Honduras, evethough Switzerland was a much better organized, tougher team, that played a much more defensive game, whereas Honduras was a worse organized, more fragile team, that played a less defensive game. Indeed, the fact that against Honduras two goals were scored and the players performed at a higher rithm left a deceiving impression in most viewers, unfortunately including Spain's coach and a majority of the international and Spanish sports press.

For example, most viewers would have thought after watching the game against Honduras that Spain had shot many more times, and also more times on target, than it did against Switzerland. The stats, however, tell a different story. Spain only shot twice more against Honduras than it did against Switzerland (25 against 23 shots), in spite of the fact that Honduras defense was less strong and left many more empty spaces. Furthermore, Spain had one less shot on target agasint Honduras than it did against Switzerland (6 against 7). Spain shot once against the wood on each game, and missed a very clear one-to-one scoring opportunity against the goalie on each game as well.

Anyone who watched both games would be tempted to say that Spain gave more work to the Hondurian than to the Swiss goalkeeper, and yet, the Swiss goalie had more interventions during the game. Wouldn´t you have sworn that Spain had more corner kicks gainst Honduras? Well, it did not. The number of corner kicks for Spain on both games was exactly the same: 12.

Vertigo did not bring about better quantitative results to Spain than pause did. It brought about two goals. The big question remains--how many goals would have the passing game brought about to Spain had it been displayed against a very weak Honduras?