World Cup 2014 – Fooled by Statistics

We’ve been inundated with statistics this World Cup but can we predict the outcome? In this blog, we examine the stats published by FIFA covering age, caps, goals, and league by player.

Spain, the winner of the 2010 World Cup, had all the stats in its favour, reinforced by experience as shown in the team’s overall number of international caps. They stood at 1,375 caps, 243 more than second placed Uruguay (33.32 on average). Their total number of goals is 217 (short second after Germany) and way more than third place Netherlands (161 goals). Spain’s average age is 27.78 consistent in close proximity to the qualifying teams’ average.

England’s relatively new squad has a low-ish 626 overall caps (27 on average) and average age 26.13 (below the average). Total goals is 113 (above average), way below the top teams such as Spain and Germany but surprisingly higher than Brazil’s 107 goals. Klose’s 68 international goals and Lukas Podolski’s impressive 46 give them more goals than all of England’s squad combined.

Based on these statistics, many a betting man likely put his money on Spain and some of the other top teams such as Germany, Italy and Brazil. In reality, Spain, Italy, and England spectacularly crashed out of the world cup in the first round.

Is it that we’ve been fooled by a small set of statistics? Should anyone wanting to predict the outcome have taken more factors into account such as weather and diet? Or is unpredictability unavoidable and that’s what makes football so exciting?

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UK Plastic Surgery Statistics – the Good Times are back

Not only is the UK economy is recovering, but plastic surgery is at an all-time high with solid 16% growth following modest growth in the last 2 years. More than 50,000 cosmetic surgery procedures were performed in the UK last year, according to the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons, with liposuction recording a 41% rise.

The numbers highlight an impressive double-digit rise in all cosmetic procedures. Breast augmentation (over 11,000) remained the most popular procedure overall. But the biggest increase on the year was for liposuction. A total of 4,326 liposuction procedures were performed last year – an increase of 41% on the year. It was the sixth most popular procedure among women and the fourth most popular among men. In the UK, women accounted for 90.5% of all cosmetic procedures in 2013 with a total of 45,365 procedures.

Rhinoplasty was the most popular with 1,037 surgical procedures carried out last year for men. Eyelid ops were the second most popular procedure for men in 2013, followed by breast reduction. Liposuction procedures saw the biggest rise with a 28% increase on 2012. 554 men opted for liposuction last year according to the data.

Check out our previous post on US Plastic Surgery.

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