Performance Analysis During the 2014 FIFA World Cup Qualification

Abstract

This article analyzes the performance of the national football teams during the 2014 FIFA World Cup qualification. The sample consists of 31 qualified national teams to the final tournament in Brazil. The analysis uses Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) methodology and is carried out for the whole qualification period between June 2011 and November 2013. Each national team is evaluated according to a number of played matches, used players, qualification group quality, obtained points, and score. The results show that only 12.9% teams reached the performance of 100%. The reasons of low performances mainly depend on teams´ qualities either in each qualification zone or in each qualification group. In addition, a sensitivity analysis is used to confirm the adequate structure of the DEA model.

Quantifying the unfairness of the 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification

“…Some scientific research has addressed the World Cup qualifiers. Flégl 6 applies Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to evaluate the performance of national soccer teams during the 2014 FIFA World Cup qualification. Stone and Rod 3 aim to assess the degree to which the allocation of qualification berths among the six FIFA confederations reflects the quality of the teams from their specific region, mainly by descriptive statistics.…”

Quantifying the unfairness of the 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification

“…Some research has addressed the World Cup qualifiers. Flégl (2014) applies Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to evaluate the performance of national soccer teams during the 2014 FIFA World Cup qualification. Stone and Rod (2016) aim to assess the degree to which the allocation of qualification berths among the six FIFA confederations reflects the quality of the teams from their specific region, mainly by descriptive statistics.…”

Personnel selection in complex organizations: A case of Mexican football team for the 2018 World Cup in Russia

“…Comparative analysis of different team selections can justify whether the selection led to desirable outcomes. The comparative analysis can evaluate different levels, such as national teams (Flégl, 2014), league clubs' (Carmichael, Thomas and Ward, 2000;Barros and Leach, 2006;García-Sánchez, 2007) or players' performance analysis (Tiedemann, Francksen and Latacz-Lohmann, 2011). Moreover, the comparative analysis can evaluate specific aspects of a game.…”