

Visualization of age, height and weight of players in the 2014 FIFA World Cup - lejohnq
http://ejoh.se/worldcup2014/weight

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colmvp
I didn't realize soccer players were so much shorter than a lot of North
American athletes in hockey, basketball, American football, and baseball.

For example, the average height of Brazil's team is 181.7 cm or 5 foot 10,
whereas I wouldn't be surprised if most North American sports teams had an
average height of 6 feet (much higher for basketball).

Of course, if I look at Team USA's stats, the average is 6 feet.

Also interesting to note is that the goaltender on most teams is the tallest
guy.

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aml183
Messi is one of the smallest soccer players at the WC and yet the best player
there. Size doesn't matter.

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dbaupp
Having a single example of a good short player doesn't mean size doesn't
matter. There may be a positive correlation between size and "skill", and
Messi is one of the best _despite_ his size disadvantage.

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pedrosorio
Germany: Philipp Lahm 5'7" and Mario Gotze 5'9" Belgium: Eden Hazard 5'8"
Italy: Andrea Pirlo 5'9.5" Netherlands: Wesley Sneijder 5'7" Spain: Xavi and
Iniesta 5'7"

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arshadcn
The data here is wrong for most players.

Example: Ramires from Brazil is 73kg not 83kg. Hulk is 85kg..etc

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drpgq
I was wondering how accurate these heights and weights were. Are these taken
from the World Cup site, or wikipedia or something else?

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jrs99
There's a real height, and there's a "listed" height. A lot of people say that
the "listed" height is often very wrong. Sometimes by several inches and more
for certain organizations that aren't really particular about getting an
accurate height.

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davidw
I'd be curious to see teams ranked by the combined salaries of their players.

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maest
Normalized by purchasing power, maybe.

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davidw
The market for those guys seems to be fairly globalized.

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goshx
Hm... this data doesn't seem to be 100% accurate.

Fred, from Brazil, for instance, is 30. Not 22 years old.

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aw3c2
This kind of visualisation screams for a "small multiples" display not spread
over 5+ pages. How are you supposed to get a full picture with a layout like
this?!

Is the data available? What's the source?

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caipre
FYI, the link to the LoTR project[0] on the about page is broken.

[0]:
[http://ejoh.se/worldcup2014/lotrproject.com](http://ejoh.se/worldcup2014/lotrproject.com)

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bsaul
spain really has a disproportionnate amount of small players. That's why they
use such a different kind of game (which i like a lot), with many fast short
passes rather that long kick reaching the head.

I'm really surprised by their poor performance at this world cup. Does anyone
here analyzing this set of stats can see another difference that would explain
this bad result ?

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carlio
That style of football is also dependent on closing down the opposition when
Spain don't have the ball, meaning the players have to run a lot, and be fast
and fit. Several of the important midfield players are now "old" (Xavi is 34,
Xabi Alonso is 32, for example) so they aren't as good at that side of the
game as they used to be.

Also, while it was completely new 6 years ago when they won the European
Championship, now people know what to expect and have better counter-tactics.

And thirdly, a lot of the Spanish players play for Real Madrid, Atletico
Madrid and Barcelona, who all had long and difficult seasons. The players
weren't able to ease off at all, so must be more exhausted than normal.

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vorador
Yes, Xavi has been declining for a number of years. I think it's one of the
reasons the FC Barcelone isn't as good as they were. Also, Del Bosque has made
some questionable player choices.

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eiliant
Can't find Lionel Messi on the Height vs. Weight chart based on the data from
Height/Weight.

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pkaye
Would be interesting to see their BMI. People always say BMI is not a good
indicator for athletes.

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Dewie
It isn't a good measure if they are muscular, no.

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mdlthree
The height vs weight chart is screaming for a linear regression line.

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rockdoe
The point of which would be pointing out that morbidly obese or underweight
people don't make world-class athletes?

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davidw
Depends on the sport. Chris Froome, for instance, is one skinny dude:
[http://inrng.com/2014/06/the-moment-the-race-was-
won-2014-da...](http://inrng.com/2014/06/the-moment-the-race-was-
won-2014-dauphine/) \- he's the one in the yellow jersey in the 3rd picture.

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rockdoe
He's not exactly winning many sprints. Checking out UCI World Ranking #1's on
the graph, they're reasonably in the middle.

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seanewest
I really wish there was a kg/lbs toggle

