FIFA provided Match Facts for each of the games played at the 2019 Women’s World Cup (link). From these Facts is was possible to construct a time profile of the World Cup.
The data available suggest that the median ball in play time was 55 minutes. The median game time was 97 minutes. The ball was not in play for a median time of 43 minutes. Three of the games went to extra time (Norway v Australia, France v Brazil, Netherlands v Sweden).
Ball in Play ranged from 41 minutes (Germany v Nigeria) to 73 minutes (Norway v Australia).
The geom_smooth profile of ball in play was:
I used a smoothing method to look at trends in the time data (link). The grey area visualises confidence levels (95% confidence level interval for predictions from a linear model) . The confidence limits can be varied (link). In this example, I used Loess smoothing as I had less than 1000 data points.
The FIFA data made it possible to calculate ball not in play time.
In the Netherlands v Sweden game there were 63 minutes of time when the ball was not in play. This was an extra time game.
The total game length varied from 93 minutes (Japan v Scotland, Jamaica v Australia) to 135 minutes (France v Brazil). The three extra time games are indicated in red.
The FIFA data were particularly helpful in constructing time profiles of the games.. Data were presented for each half. Extra time data were included in the match report. As well as describing what occurred these data raise important questions about ball in play time.
Photo Credit
France v Brazil (FIFA Live Blog)
