REVIEW: Hat-trick hero Cristiano strikes again

FOOTBALL – Cristiano Ronaldo registered his third career hat-trick for Portugal and the 35th of his career in an official match, propelling Portugal past Armenia on Saturday. It was the third consecutive hat-trick in official matches for Cristiano Ronaldo. He also netted three in league games against RCD Espanyol (17 May) and Getafe CF (23 May). He had not played an official match since 23 May. It is the first time in his career he has performed the three square performance (3×3).

INFOGRAPHIC: The battle of the hat-trick heroes

FOOTBALL – Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are matching each other hat-trick for hat-trick as their remarkable scoring battle continues apace. Last Sunday at Deportivo La Coruña, Messi recorded his 33rd career treble (club and country) and his 22nd in La Liga, one behind all-time record holder Ronaldo. Continue reading →

REVIEW: Cristiano Ronaldo brings up 450th career goal

FOOTBALL – Cristiano Ronaldo scored his 450th official goal for club and country on Friday. Ronaldo has reached this tally in 703 official matches. It was his 52nd goal for the Portuguese national team. He is already his country’s all-time leading goalscorer. Ronaldo made his 117th appearance for Portugal and is now only 10 shy of the national team record of 127 held by Luis Figo. Ronaldo has scored his 450 goals for Real Madrid (275), Manchester United (118), Portugal (52) and Sporting CP (5).

ANALYSE THIS: Germany lose number one spot, Dutch in freefall

FOOTBALL – Now that the dust has settled on the week’s international matches in Europe, a glance at the Infostrada Sports’ National Team Ranking reveals a few major changes since the World Cup including Germany’s loss of the top spot to Argentina after losing at home to their World Cup final opponents and the Dutch national team dropping from third to ninth after two defeats. There is now just one European team, Germany, in the top five as Spain have dropped a place.

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ANALYSE THIS: Croatia Group H favourites ahead of Italy

FOOTBALL: Euro 2016 qualification begins this weekend and two of the top seeded teams in the draw, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Italy, are not the favourites to win their groups according to the Infostrada Sports’ National Team Ranking. Six of the nine groups have an overwhelming favourite to be group winner and only one of the groups looks truly competitive at this stage. We finish our analysis of the groups by looking at E to I. Our previous article analysing Groups A to D can be read here: http://infostradalive.com/2014/09/03/analyse-this-overwhelming-favourites-in-groups-a-to-d/

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ANALYSE THIS: Brazil still favourites but Argentina closing in

FOOTBALL – After two match rounds, Brazil remain as World Cup favourites in the Infostrada Sports’ Forecast with 24.5% chance of lifting the trophy on July 13. This has barely changed since the start of the competition but continental rivals Argentina’s chances are improving and now stand at nearly 18%. Germany are third favourites on around a 14% chance of becoming World Champions. The current chances for each team are listed below.

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ANALYSE THIS: Wave – USA v Portugal

Football – The Wave of the match between the United States and Portugal shows a good period for the Americans without a goal after they went 1-0 down but Portugal probably should have made it 2-0 by before half-time. The US equaliser was clearly coming but their second came out of almost nothing before Portugal pressured more and more and eventually scored the equaliser.

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ANALYSE THIS: Wave – Germany v Portugal

FOOTBALL – At Infostrada Sports, we are always experimenting with new insights from sports data and we have therefore developed a balance of play visualisation called Wave which shows how the balance between two football teams ebbs and flows during a football match. Today’s World Cup match between Germany and Portugal is visualised below.