Are dirty-playing teams more successful?
Australia was crowned champion of the 2015 AFC Asian Cup, being the third most dirty-playing team in the tournament during the group stage (understood by dirty-playing team, the one which commits many fouls and receives more yellow cards). Also We found that from the four quarter finalists, three of them had dirty play, so we ask: It’s the competitiveness pushing too far the fair play?
Here a graphical report showing each team behavior at the group stage of this tournament, so you, dear reader, can judge it.
The curved lines are representing a single match and are connecting the two teams which played that match. The countries were ordered according with their average of fouls per match.
Arabic Version
English version just before mirror it
Uzbekistan was the most progressive: from the fairest play in the tournament at first match until their infamous third game against Saudis. 14.5 fouls per match, that was the average along all 16 teams at the group stage. Jordan-Iraq was the most dirty match (41 fouls and 8 yellow cards)
