In a previous post, I wrote about match management by referees at the 2018 FIFA World Cup. Effective match time is part of that analysis, and it is possible to infer the average amount of effective time during the tournament. This post will break down effective match time over all 64 matches played.

As is the case for all of my analytical content on the World Cup, the underlying match event data has been supplied by DataFactory LatAm. The data is of good quality, but unfortunately does not track the moments when the ball has gone out of play for a throw-in. Because of this, it’s not possible to compute effective match time exactly. To get around this, I have estimated the amount of time lost from the number of throw-ins in the match which then allows me to create an estimate of effective match time. It’s the best that can be done at the moment with the data available.

Below is the chart of estimated effective time over all 64 matches of the 2018 FIFA World Cup. The nominal times and upper and lower estimates are presented in seconds for the regulation time and extra time periods. The matches are currently ordered by the order of occurrence, but you can sort by the other fields.

Effective playing time in 2018 FIFA World Cup matches, with nominal, upper and lower range of estimated time shown. Data sourced from DataFactory LatAm.

During this World Cup the average effective playing time was between 52-58 minutes, which is a significant reduction from the 60-67 minute range of effective time at the 2014 World Cup. The averages remained stable from the group phase to the knockout rounds. The France vs Croatia final had about 15 fewer minutes of effective playing time than the 2014 Argentina vs Germany final despite — because? — having three more goals.

The five matches with the greatest amount of effective playing time in regulation were (times ordered by lower bound/nominal/upper bound):

• Belgium vs England (3rd place match) – 66:14/68:08/69:43
• Egypt vs Uruguay (Group A) – 63:15/66:27/69:02
• Brazil vs Costa Rica (Group E) – 63:36/66:02/68:03
• Saudi Arabia vs Egypt (Group A) – 63:44/66:00/67:52
• Spain vs Russia (Round of 16) – 62:53/65:37/67:51

The five matches with the least amount of effective playing time in regulation were:

• Nigeria vs Argentina (Group D) – 39:18/44:18/48:15
• Morocco vs Iran (Group B) – 42:29/46:31/49:46
• Portugal vs Morocco (Group B) – 43:12/46:58/49:59
• Russia vs Saudi Arabia (Group A) – 42:26/47:32/51:33
• Senegal vs Colombia (Group H) – 44:09/47:48/50:45

Only five matches went to extra time, so it’s possible to display their effective time metrics below:

• Spain vs Russia (Round of 16) – 62:53/65:37/67:51, 20:43/21:22/21:57
• Croatia vs Denmark (Round of 16) – 48:16/52:53/56:32, 17:39/18:34/19:21
• Colombia vs England (Round of 16) – 51:32/53:43/55:31, 15:43/17:15/18:33
• Russia vs Croatia (Quarterfinal) – 51:58/54:58/57:25, 12:55/14:06/15:06
• Croatia vs England (Semifinal) – 44:46/49:23/53:03, 14:26/15:47/16:56

As I’ve written earlier, the calculation of effective playing time for this tournament is an inexact effort. Nevertheless, I believe that the final analysis will conclude that while this World Cup has been compelling in terms of storylines and drama, the amount of effective match time will be found to be less than the major soccer leagues and significantly less than the 2014 World Cup, which is looking more like a sui generis event.