This is a historic World Cup for goals, already breaking the previous record. Why?
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This World Cup has already featured more goals than any previous edition Mattia Ozbot/Getty Images
By Mark CareyJune 26, 2026 Updated 7:01 am EDTA version of this article was first published on June 21.
There is a simple barometer to judge the quality of a major international tournament.
More goals typically means more entertainment, and this summer’s World Cup has already treated us to an unprecedented volume of them.
We are not even out of the group stage, and the total tally of 177 goals scored is already the highest it has been in the 96-year history of the tournament.
The expanded 48-team iteration will have a large impact on this inflated figure, with 60 games already played — more than 15 full editions of the tournament historically. Still, a return of 2.95 goals per game is also the highest rate observed since 1970.
There is still plenty of football to be played, so it is worth digging deeper into why this World Cup has been so quick out of the blocks.
Goals are the currency of football, but are we getting an inflated return on our investment? To answer this, we turn to our old friend — expected goals.
For those who are yet to be acquainted, this metric measures the quality of each chance before a player shoots, accounting for many contextual factors, including the angle and distance of the shot, or the body part that was used to shoot.
From the many factors fed into the statistical model, the value is always presented as a number between zero (no chance of a goal) and 0.99 (an all-but-certain goal).
Aggregating all the chances to this point, we can calculate the total number of goals expected to occur based on the quality of those opportunities. Comparing that with the actual number of goals scored can tell us whether we are getting more bang for our buck.
There have been 177 goals scored from an xG tally of 155, meaning we have seen 22 goals more than the quality of chances would suggest.
Comparing goals and xG with such a small sample of games is not advisable. Even a full season’s worth of domestic club football data can still ride the wave of variance for some teams.
Therefore, we can all be grown-ups and treat those findings with caution, but the headline conclusion suggests that an unprecedented number of goals are being scored above expectation.
Given the quality of global stars like Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappe and Harry Kane, might that difference be down to elite finishing? Maybe. Could it be down to poor goalkeeping? Possibly. Even after removing the 12 own goals from the dataset — which are also being scored at an unprecedented rate — it is hard to pinpoint where that discrepancy is coming from.
The World Cup is famed for bringing together nations of notably different abilities, meaning there might be qualitative factors at play when looking at such a high conversion rate.
Germany put seven goals past Curacao on matchday one with a squad packed with league and Champions League winners. By contrast, goalkeeper Eloy Room plays for Miami FC in the second tier of American soccer.
Elsewhere, such an overperformance cannot be attributed to a disproportionate volume of efforts being scored from distance — with 37 per cent of shots outside the box being the same rate as 2022 and a lower rate than the 2018 edition.
One hypothesis might be the impact of excellent headed finishes — with 25 goals and counting across the group stage. Headers typically have a lower xG value within the statistical models, owing to the fact it is a non-footed, first-time shot.
However, the rate of total goals scored via headers stands at 14 per cent this summer — slightly lower than in 2022 (16 per cent) or 2018 (19 per cent).
Then there is the official World Cup match ball, known as the Adidas Trionda.
Adapting the physical characteristics of a tournament ball was discussed by The Athletic during Euro 2024, but former England goalkeeper Joe Hart has suggested it might be playing a role with a certain type of shot.
“I honestly feel as though this ball is coming onto the goalkeeper quicker than they feel it is off the foot,” Hart said during his analysis for the BBC.
The suggestion was that these subtle differences in trajectory might affect the split-second decisions that goalkeepers typically make — disrupting their typically laser-sharp hand-eye coordination.
Messi’s opening goal against Algeria was cited as one example, with Hart also suggesting that England’s Jordan Pickford could have done better with Martin Baturina’s arrowed effort in their opening encounter with Croatia.
Another was Mbappe’s long-range finish against Senegal. Take nothing away from the quality of the effort, but replays suggested that goalkeeper Edouard Mendy got close enough to the ball despite being unable to adjust his body in time to palm it away.
“As it leaves his foot, it’s a decent strike of course, but Mendy is a Champions League winner. He just doesn’t time getting his hands up correctly. I’m noticing it more and more with the higher balls.”
Whatever the reason for such an overperformance in front of goal, there is something happening here that is like no other tournament that has come before.
When adjusting for the volume of games played across previous editions, the rate of overperformance (goals versus xG) that we are seeing is unparalleled — with 14 per cent more goals than we could have expected, comfortably more than any other year.
The obvious caveat here is that we are just over halfway through the tournament, meaning that rate is almost guaranteed to subside by the time we reach the knockout stage.
Still, it is worth highlighting just how unlikely this outcome has been.
When simulating all 1,469 shots from the tournament 100,000 times using the individual xG, the likelihood of this 165-goal tally (which excludes own goals) is just 2.9 per cent. According to the model, we were equally as likely to see 147 goals (eight goals below their xG tally) as we have been for the current tally.
Thankfully, things have fallen on the fun side of variance — giving us more goals to gorge on during our glutonous summer of football.
If the co-host United States wanted to grow football — or soccer — then it cannot hurt to give the audience a heightened package of entertainment during this summer’s sales pitch.
Yes, it is premature to suggest that this rate of goalscoring will continue over the next few weeks, but in international tournament football — where statistical patterns and trends are hard to come by with so few games — we can lean into this quirk for now.
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