In an earlier post I presented the estimated effective playing time in this summer’s World Cup matches over 90 minutes.  (They are estimates because the raw data used to calculate effective time do not track the moments when the ball leaves the field of play.)  Eight matches were decided in extra time, so for completeness I present the metric over the 120 minutes of those games.

The table below presents effective time during both extra time periods of the eight World Cup matches that went to extra time.  Because the raw data doesn’t track ball-out events, I used an empirical model to estimate the amount of time that should have been lost due to ball-outs.  However, the training data that I used was for a league competition, so the adjusted time in extra time period will have more uncertainty than adjusted time over regulation time.  Nevertheless, the average amount of effective time in overtime is 76% of the length of the extra time period.  The smallest amount of effective time during extra time was the Netherlands vs Argentina match (20 mins 30 sec) and the largest amount was during the Argentina vs Switzerland game (26 mins 27 sec).  I have to watch the Argentina-Switzerland game again, but I have a hard time believing that the ball was out of play for just three and a half minutes over 30 minutes!

Effective playing time in extra time periods of 2014 FIFA World Cup matches, with nominal, upper and lower range of estimated time shown. Data sourced from Press Association MatchStory feed and served from the Soccermetrics Connect API.

The second table presents effective time over 120 minutes of the eight World Cup matches that went to extra time.  If we only consider nominal estimates of the effective time, the proportion of effective time to regulation time is very close between the World Cup matches decided in regulation time and the eight decided in extra time (71.46% to 71.94%, respectively).  The extra time boosts the amount of effective time to an average of 88 minutes in those overtime matches, but the proportion of effective time to 120 minutes increases slightly (72.96%).  Only two matches in the knockout phase exhibited above-average effective time in normal and extra time: the Round of 16 match between Belgium and the USA, and the final between Germany and Argentina.

Effective playing time of 2014 FIFA World Cup matches played to extra time, with nominal, upper and lower range of estimated time shown. Data sourced from Press Association MatchStory feed and served from the Soccermetrics Connect API.