The World Cup, decoded in data.
96 years. 2,720 goals. All 22 finals. Every penalty shootout ever taken — replayed kick by kick. And tomorrow it begins again at the Azteca.
Every shootout ever,
replayed kick by kick.
Since Seville 1982, 320 penalties have decided 35 matches — including three finals. Pick any shootout in history and watch it happen: the ball flies, the keeper dives, the pressure builds. Every taker, every miss — the official record.
Kick order within each team and every outcome are from the official record. Ball flight & placement are stylised — historic placement data doesn't exist for most shootouts, and we don't invent data.
⚽ Take the kick — can you beat History?
Best-of-five against History XI, who convert at the real World Cup rates (and feel the real kick-4 pressure drop). Tap where you want to shoot. Top corners beat the keeper more — but you might blaze it over.
Keeper model tuned so overall conversion matches the real 69.4% — the game is honest.
Nations of nerve (and nightmares)
Every team's penalty-shootout record at World Cups (2+ shootouts). One dot per shootout: green = won, red = lost. Germany and Croatia have never lost one. Argentina have won six. Spain have lost four. Italy lost three — then missed 2026 entirely by losing another shootout, to Bosnia in the playoff final.
Ninety-six years.
Twenty-two deciding days.
Every final since 1930 — swipe through them. The Maracanazo. The Miracle of Bern. Geoff Hurst's hat-trick. Zidane's red. And Lusail 2022, the greatest final ever played.
Eight nations
own every star.
Only eight countries have ever lifted it. Europe leads South America 12–10, and no nation from any other continent has even reached a final. Brazil are the only ever-presents — 22 tournaments out of 22.
The holders' curse
Four of the last six champions crashed out in the group stage while defending the title. Argentina, you've been warned.
Numbers that may
never fall.
The all-time record book, computed from every match ever played. Knockout shootouts counted as wins/losses; goals include own goals credited to the team.
Two GOATs.
One last World Cup.
Five tournaments each, 48 matches between them — and they have never once met at a World Cup. In 2026 both chase a record sixth. Ronaldo arrives at 41. Messi turns 39 during the group stage. The numbers, head to head:
Goals, tournament by tournament
Messi above the line, Ronaldo below. Ronaldo is the only player ever to score at five World Cups. Messi blanked in 2010 — then dropped seven in 2022.
The wild west is over.
1954 averaged 5.38 goals a game — the most violent scoring spree in World Cup history. Then defences learned. Since 1962, no tournament has cracked 3. The modern game lives at ~2.7.
Goals come late.
Legs go first.
2,720 goals, mapped by the clock. The last 15 minutes of normal time produce 43% more goals than the first 15 — and another 79 arrive in second-half stoppage time alone.
The all-time scorer race
Klose's 16 still stands. Messi sits on 13, Mbappé on 12 — both play this summer.
2006: the summer
of 28 red cards.
Red cards per tournament since cards were introduced in 1970. Germany 2006 remains the bloodbath — four reds in one match (Portugal–Netherlands, the "Battle of Nuremberg"). Then VAR-era football went quiet: just 4 reds in 2018 and 4 in 2022.
When the impossible
actually happened.
Eight results that broke football, all verified in the match record. The lesson for 2026: the last team to beat Argentina at a World Cup was Saudi Arabia.
Every life starts
with a World Cup.
Type your birth year — meet the first World Cup of your lifetime: who won it, who ruled it, and how many you've lived through.
Hosting helps —
until it doesn't.
Six hosts have won it — but none since France 1998. South Africa 2010 became the first host out in the groups; Qatar 2022 lost all three. Now three nations host at once, and the Estadio Azteca becomes the first stadium to stage three World Cups — 1970, 1986, 2026 — at 2,200 m above sea level.
The 48-team machine.
Twelve groups. The top two from each, plus the eight best third-placed teams, feed a brand-new round of 32. Four debutants. No Italy — again. The final lands at MetLife Stadium, New York/New Jersey, 19 July.
Road to MetLife (fills in automatically)
Gold = path if they win their group · cyan = path as runners-up. Third-placed paths depend on results, so they can't be drawn yet. Teams and scores fill in automatically from the round of 32 onwards.
The Golden Boot race (updates automatically)
The road to 19 July
Sixteen stages
FIFA-published capacities. AT&T Stadium in Dallas hosts the most matches (nine); the Azteca opens it; MetLife closes it.