Football: it is a game of two-halves

I'll discuss why teams reached the quarter-finals in a later post as I need some time to collect my thoughts. Until that time congratulations to Ghana, Ivory Coast, Democratic Republic of Congo and Equatorial Guinea. Commiserations to Algeria, Tunisia, Guinea and Congo.

The game of two-halves (and extra-time, when needed...)

I've been sitting here thinking about whether there is something near a 'normal distribution' of the times at which goals are scored in football tournaments. For example, it makes sense if a high number of goals are scored in the last ten minutes as teams pile on the pressure with their last-ditch efforts because the team's survival in the tournament is at stake.

I plan to dig into this topic a little bit more tomorrow but I'll give the overview right now.

The first of these two charts shows the timings of goals scored grouped by 15-minute segments and extra-time. The first-half goals are in blue, the second-half goals are in purple. Extra-time goals are in red. The second-chart explores these as percentages.

The charts show pretty plainly that in the Africa Cup of Nations - so far - teams are leaving it pretty late to change the outcome of the game. 34 of the 61 (or 56%) goals scored so far have come after and/or on the 61st minute of games. 

What's more, 44 of the 61 goals (or, 72%) scored so far have come in the second-half. That seems like a big skew to me.

I have put this post here as a bookmark (if you will allow me) to explore further. It'd be interesting to know if this timing-of-goals pattern is mirrored in other international tournaments (such as the Asian Cup, for example).