England’s predictable World Cup results suggest beating France would be a surprise

The most mysterious team of World Cup 2022 was clearly Japan. They were eliminated in the second round, and their early record of two wins, a draw and a defeat is, on paper, quite extraordinary.

The specificity, of course, came from evaluating those results against specific opponents. Japan’s scores were essentially a reflection of what you would expect. They beat Spain and Germany – two of the top six favorites going into the competition – but managed to lose to Costa Rica, considered 32nd-favourites. It was a curious, almost illogical sequence of results, and yet it’s the kind of situation that football regularly throws up. Presumably, many Japan supporters are saying things like “usual us” and “we never do things the easy way”. Football results regularly confound expectations.

Historically, however, England have been the exact opposite of Japan at World Cups. England aren’t a brilliant underdog outfit that outplays the big boys, then flops against the little guys. They are very simple, and do exactly what you expect. They do not move against the small sides. They roughly match the performances of fellow sides on the edge of favourites. They are eliminated by the first serious contender they encounter.

To test this theory, we can compare England’s World Cup results with their opponents’ position in the FIFA world rankings at the time. Those rankings are not perfect and since they were introduced in the early 1990s, we can only use them as a measure after the 1998 World Cup. But it still takes into account 32 matches, a good sample.

Here, in chronological order, are the results. The color coding is simple – green for wins, orange for draws, and red for losses. The strength of the opposition is indicated by red for a team ranked in the single-digits, orange for a team ranked 10th and 19th, and green for a team ranked 20th or lower. A penalty shootout loss is denoted by one asterisk, a penalty shootout win is denoted by two asterisks.

This table is sortable on the desktop. If you click on “Rank”, you can order those 32 games by the world ranking of the opposition. And, when you do, a fairly clear pattern emerges. When England face “green” opponents, they usually win. When they face “red” opponents, they usually lose.

And here’s the count of whether the two categories match. The three pink rows account for the results you would expect, the four silver rows show when there was a surprise, and the two blue rows show how many true shocks occurred.

And of those 32 matches – since the 1998 World Cup – in 22 of them (69 per cent), England’s result has been what you would expect given the strength of the opposition.

There have been three occasions when England have faced weaker opposition and only drawn – all 0-0. The first was actually a good result, as a goalless draw against Nigeria in 2002 meant that England qualified for the knockout stages, and the third was essentially a dead rubber against Costa Rica in 2014, as England first was dropped and a reserve team was fielded. . So, of the draws, only the 0-0 with Algeria in 2010 can be considered a truly poor result.

Only once in the last World Cup semi-final did England completely flop against (on paper) weaker opposition. Croatia were only 20th in the world and England lost in extra time. Perhaps this ranking slightly underestimates the quality of Croatia, but it shows how easy England’s path to the final was.

In eight matches against “Orange” opposition, England have drawn five matches for sure. Positive results came against Colombia in 1998 and Wales this year. In 1998 there was a defeat at the hands of Romania.

And in nine matches against “red” opposition, England have won just one – a 1-0 group-stage victory over Argentina in 2002, thanks to David Beckham’s goal from a penalty won by Michael Owen. athletic Columnist Mauricio Pochettino

In fact, two draws against serious opposition were also ultimately lost on penalties, against Argentina in 1998 and Portugal in 2006. So if you count those games as losses, England have lost eight of their nine matches against top ten opposition. The FIFA rankings were introduced.

What is the reason for this pattern? Maybe it’s a stupid question, usually trying to find the reason why things are the way you expect them to be. But the experience of Japan (or Spain and Germany) shows that this is not always the case. England do not suffer as shocking a defeat as Argentina did against Saudi Arabia, nor do they beat strong opposition in the way Belgium did against Brazil four years ago.

Maybe it comes down to the fact that England, tactically, is always beige. They are not a high-risk attacking side who move forward in numbers and leave themselves behind – this type of approach probably increases the likelihood of a shock result.

Likewise, they are not usually flexible sides who change their approach in response to their opponents’ approach. Teams working backwards from the opposition are often effective at undermining strong sides, but lack a positive identity to break down weaker opponents.

England is always on its own; Their approach is designed to suit their own players. It takes little tactical ingenuity to defeat a strong side, but the quality of individuals is usually good enough to defeat weaker opponents. This does not bode well ahead of the meeting against fourth-ranked France, and perhaps suggests some tactical flexibility, and a focus on blunting the opposition.

(Top image: Harry Kane reacts to elimination by Croatia in 2018, Photo: Manan Vatsyana/AFP via Getty Images)