Day Nine: 19/6/2010

Cameroon lose again as Australia scrape a draw

First, some information on the ages of all the card receivers in World Cup matches:

There have been 103 cards given out so far in this World Cup. The oldest player to get a card is 34-year-old Australian Craig MOORE, who isn't signed up for any team - in fact he is one of only three players in this World Cup who has no national league team [Fifa.com]. He has got two yellow cards in two separate matches, so he misses Australia's final game against Ghana.
The youngest player is Nigeria's Lukman HARUNA, aged just 19. Haruna plays for Monaco, in France.
The median age for a card receiver is 25, with LQ 23, and UQ 29 (in case there are any statistics geeks out there). The mean age is 26 years.
More stats on cards tomorrow!


Now, there were three more football matches today. Japan played well against the Netherlands, but a goal for Wesley SNEIDJER (pronounced 'Snider') gave the Netherlands three points.

Next, Ghana played previous losers Australia, who are in only their third World Cup, having previously qualified in 2006 and 1974. In 2006, Australia qualified for the final 16, but can they do the same this time? They only have a single point, but Germany's bad game yesterday means they could still qualify - Ghana is top of the group with only four points. Ghana's GYAN scored his second goal of the World Cup, and again from a penalty, making him equal second in the adidas Golden Boot competition. However, getting his goals in two separate games gives him an edge over Uruguay's Forlan.

Finally, Cameroon played Denmark. They took the lead early on, but Denmark came back to win 2-1. This is the first time Denmark have ever made a comeback from losing to win a group stages game in the World Cup!

I'm so glad FIFA is around to compare statistics with. Otherwise I would be making terrible mistakes! Actually, some of the card averages for the past few days may have been wrong. However, here's the actual results:

Goals per game: Mean - 1.88, Median - 2, Mode - 1,2, Range - 5
Cards per game: Mean - 3.96, Median - 4, Mode - 3,5, Range - 8

Four birthdays tomorrow. I'll probably edit them in tomorrow when FIFA updates their website, because I lost all the birthday boy details.