rhyme/reason to geographic trends.

wondering it there's any theoretical basis for what regions/themes do relatively well/badly each world cup

 seems like recent past world cup there's been some great runs by asian teams and central american teams (not including mexico)

i thought the was due to world getting smaller in alot of ways....... but then this world cup this theme hasn't really worked.

the world cup, the big powers haven't been so great at all. germany, brazil, spain, portugal all have had some very shaky moments. 3 of them were in real elimination danger..

i think the real theme is that mid-tier european football countries have been really good. croatia and belgium have been outstanding although if you peruse world top 100 list they each have alot of players represented and very high up the list. iceland (tiny country) and poland not so much. england and france been good too but i think they're above the mid-tier.

one thing i've noticed as a moderate soccer fan is that there has been much much less sideways and backwards passing in teams own ends. i mean doing this for 3-4 minutes with no intent to move ball forward.. you'd think this would benefit the big teams but apparently not.

anyway, that is rambling....... where can i find aggregate stats on team possession, shots, corners etc.? it strikes me the big teams have dominated the lesser teams in these stats but the results haven't come. small sample size or lesser quality chances?

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