Germans Top 1st Round Scorers for the 3rd Successive Cup

The USSF have released some fun facts from the opening set of fixtures from South Africa. After every side had played one game, the number of goals per game had dipped radically from four years ago -except for the German.

It appears that they are the tournament’s best starters for the third year running. For the third-consecutive tournament, Germany has the high goal total after each team played one game, having scored four in their opener against Australia, and the same number in their opening game in 2006.

In 2002, they managed twice that, eight goals against Saudi Arabia.

Here are some other goal facts:

Through the first 16 group matches, one-third of the way through, only 1.56 goals per game have been scored.

Since the FIFA World Cup expanded to 32 teams in 1998, the first 16 group matches averaged 2.56 goals per game from 1998 to 2006, including 2.43 per game in Germany.

Nine of 16 games to start the tournament were scoreless at halftime.

Of the 25 goals scored, only two have come from outside the penalty area and both were in Group C (Clint Dempsey and Robert Koren).