WC 2014 Number Cruncher: How Germany Muellered Portugal

Germany thumped Portuga 4-0 in their World Cup opener in a match which saw Pepe get sent off for a headbutt on hat-trick hero Thomas Muller. The Germans weer successful in shutting down Cristiano Ronaldo and with Portugal down to 10-men with the score at 2-0, there was no way back. Here are the top stats from the match.

- 55 percent - Thomas Muller has been involved in 11 of last 20 Germany’s World Cup goals.

- Muller has scored eight goals from just nine shots on target at the World Cup.

- He is not the 4th youngest to score eight World Cup goals.

- Muller has as many World Cup goals as Maradona, Rudi Voller and Rivaldo.

- Muller’s is the first WC hat trick for a German player since Klose got one vs. Saudi Arabia in 2002.

- Germany have won their opener in each of the last seven World Cups.

- Germany have become the first country to appear in 100 World Cup matches.

- Teams with most hat-tricks at the WC: GERMANY 7 Argentina 4 Hungary 3 Uruguay 3

- In their 100 WC matches, Germany have now seen 20 players of opponents sent off, most of all countries.

- Mats Hummels with a headed goal to put Germany up 2-0. It was Germany’s 36th headed WC goal since 1966, no other team has more than 19.

- This is the 3rd World Cup in a row where Germany have found the back of the net within the opening 15 minutes.

- Germany have scored 19 of their last 20 penalties at World Cups (including shoot-outs).

- Germany have scored 206 goals and conceded 117 in their previous 99 World Cup matches.

- Germany has won its last four World Cup openers by a combined score of 20-2, scoring at least 4 goals in all 4 games.

- Only Spain (17) have won more penalties at the World Cup finals than Germany.

- Portugal have conceded four goals in a World Cup game for the first time in their history (24 games).

- Portugal are one of only two sides to win a World Cup game after going 3 goals down (5-3 v N Korea in ‘66, also Austria 7-5 Switz in ‘54). But Germany were too good for them to repeat the feat.

- From 2002 onwards, Portugal have picked up six red cards in 15 World Cup games, twice as many as any other side.

- Ronaldo had just 15 touches in the first half. All in all, he attempted just 25 passes in 90 minutes.

- Coming into today’s #WorldCup match, Pepe had 12 yellow cards in his 58-match Portugal career, but no red cards.

- This is the fourth straight World Cup in which at least one Portugal player is sent off (6 red cards total)

Stats courtesy Opta, InfoStrada and ESPN