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Just like that, the World Cup is over — and what a summer of football it has been.

The biggest event in the sporting calendar drew to a close at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey as Spain were crowned world champions for the second time, overcoming Argentina in one of the most dominant finals in recent memory.

An expanded 48-team tournament gave us 104 games in five weeks, and drama was never far away. Red cards, controversy over hydration breaks, and defensive mid-blocks —Sunday’s final was a microcosm of some of the larger trends that emerged from the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Before the focus shifts back to club football, allow The Athletic to walk through some of the data quirks and tactical tendencies from this year’s World Cup.

Goals, goals… too many goals?

There is no better place to start than goals. We were treated to plenty.

The expanded format was always going to break records for total goals, but the rate of 2.96 per game is the highest we have seen in the World Cup since 1970 (2.97 per game).

A closer look at the underlying numbers suggests that fans got more bang for their buck this year, when considering how many goals ‘should’ have been scored based on expected goals (xG).

This metric measures the quality of each chance as a player shoots, accounting for many contextual factors, including the angle and distance of the shot, and the body part used for the effort. 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).

Comparing the volume of goals and xG, this summer saw 37 goals more than the quality of chances would suggest. Looking at all World Cups since 1966, the trend has typically been fewer goals than expected over a tournament, but this year bucks that trend.

Adjusting for the volume of games played, we have been treated to 14 per cent more goals than the data model would expect.

Even accounting for the inflated number of own goals (14, breaking the 2018 record of 12), this summer has delivered for goalmouth entertainment.

A Golden Boot race like no other

Kylian Mbappe’s 10 goals clinched the Golden Boot for the second successive tournament, helping him become the all-time highest goalscorer in World Cup history (22 goals).

Finishing as the top goalscorer is a record to be admired, but not every Golden Boot winner has been the best striker on the planet. Thomas Muller, an attacking midfielder for Germany, took the title in 2010 with just five goals, before Colombia’s playmaker James Rodriguez finished top scorer with six goals in 2014.

This summer has been different.

Perhaps barring the absence of Cristiano Ronaldo (three goals) or Vinicius Junior (four goals), the top six players in the Golden Boot race contained the biggest attacking stars at the tournament.

Six goals would have been enough to be the top goalscorer in 10 of the last 12 World Cups, but six players have scored six goals or more this summer — Mbappe, Lionel Messi (eight goals), Erling Haaland, Jude Bellingham (both seven), Harry Kane and Ousmane Dembele (both six).

The expanded 48-team tournament meant more games, but when you look at the list below, it is hardly surprising that we were treated to so many goals.

Mbappe’s consecutive individual awards came without a team victory, after France’s final (2022) and semi-final (2026) defeats. It means that the last player to win the Golden Boot and lift the World Cup was Brazil’s Ronaldo, who scored eight goals at the 2002 tournament in South Korea and Japan.

The linebreakers and game-changers

While we are celebrating individuals, let’s narrow in on the World Cup’s most creative players.

Sure, assists or expected assists could do the job, but a niche method of exploring a player’s passing is to look at how many defensive lines they break.

Using FIFA’s data platform, we can identify who most frequently attempted to break through the midfield and defensive lines when given the opportunity — basically like the pass below.

The shortlist reads as a who’s who of global stars, with Michael Olise, Rodri, Vinicius Jr, Messi, and Lamine Yamal all making the top 20. However, the most positive-minded attacker was France’s Bradley Barcola, who looked to break multiple lines with over 10 per cent of his attempts.

Rotating between a starter and an impact substitute, Barcola seemed to be in a hurry to stamp his attacking authority on games and set France on the front foot.

Olise comfortably recorded more assists (seven) than any other player, but you could argue that Barcola, his France team-mate, was the most optimistic in his creative passing.

Which club team dominated the headlines?

Paris Saint-Germain can be pleased with their squad’s goalscoring output, with nine players on the scoresheet spread across five nations.

Their tally totalled 16 goals, behind Real Madrid’s 22 spread across four players, including Mbappe and Bellingham, who both scored in Saturday’s third-placed play-off.

Not for the first time, Messi carried Inter Miami on his shoulders to help his club make an appearance in the shortlist — single-handedly bagging all eight of the goals represented by the MLS side.

Unsurprisingly, there was a strong Premier League presence among the leading clubs represented, but Crystal Palace and Sunderland will be particularly happy with their players’ exploits.

Palace’s Ismaila Sarr, Daichi Kamada and Daniel Munoz all got on the scoresheet multiple times for Senegal, Japan and Colombia. Sunderland boasted five goalscorers across the tournament, with only Arsenal (seven) and PSG (nine) having a higher tally across all clubs represented.

The financial and footballing clout of the Premier League is well-established, but the World Cup only highlighted that point further.

Were games less chaotic?

Players had to contend with difficult conditions this summer, from challenging altitudes to sweltering heat and humidity. Tactically, many nations had to manage their way through games.

For some, this might have meant sitting in a compact defensive block to contain energy, while others rested on the ball, retaining possession and moving around the opposition.

One way to explore the pace of play is to look at the volume of ‘possessions won’ in a given game. A higher number indicates more chaos, pace and freneticism as the ball frequently changes hands between the two teams.

There was variability — some games were more chaotic than others — but an average of 76.8 possessions won per game is the lowest at the tournament level since 1966.

The wider trend above shows that the pattern of play has been settling down since the turn of the century, with a greater focus on retaining possession through longer passing sequences, compared with the every-man-for-himself theme that appeared to dominate in 1966.

That possession-dominant trend might still hold this summer, particularly in the expanded edition where the quality gap between the best and worst teams is bigger. Whether for football or climate-related reasons, the numbers suggest that games were a little calmer this summer.

Box throws on trend, but are set pieces less important?

Free kicks and corners dominated in the Premier League last season. Within that glut of set pieces, throw-ins became crucial, too, with specialists hauling the ball into the box to maximise the chaos.

The numbers suggest the long-throw trend continued on to the international stage this summer. There were 112 throws in the final third directed into the box during the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, but this year has seen an even higher rate.

Canada were the biggest advocates, with 27 box-throws attempted. Paraguay, Sweden, New Zealand, Austria and Belgium also reached double figures, and five teams scored from long throws into the box — Tunisia, Turkey, Germany, Czech Republic and the United States.

But overall, has the focus shifted away from set pieces across recent World Cups? This summer, 27 per cent of goals were scored from set pieces, a slight increase on 2022 (24 per cent), but one of only five editions since 1966 to finish with a rate below 30 per cent.

If it means more beautifully worked sequences or spectacular open-play strikes, few people will complain about a lower rate of set-piece goals.

Gabriel Gudmundsson of Sweden taking a throw-in against France at the World Cup (Zhizhao Wu/Getty Images)

Late comebacks and game-changing substitutions

If you were in the market for wall-to-wall narrative and action-packed entertainment, the numbers suggest that this tournament delivered.

Hydration breaks and VAR checks meant there was invariably an additional 10 minutes to play in each contest, leaving more opportunities for teams to grab a goal when they needed it most.

The sheer number of games in this expanded tournament will underpin the trend, but there were 15 comeback victories — the only time that has reached double figures in World Cup history.

Belgium’s late surge against Senegal in the round of 32 will live long in the memory, coming from 0-2 down to win 3-2 in extra time. Argentina’s incredible victories from behind against Egypt and England showed their sheer grit and determination to get over the line in the closing stages.

England were the only other side to fall behind twice and win, overcoming first-half concessions against DR Congo and Norway before winning both 2-1.

Comebacks can be catalysed through many factors, but substitutions are an obvious way to swing momentum. When looking at how substitutes’ goals change the state of a match — eg, turning a losing game into a draw, or a drawing game into a lead — there were 21 goals that had a meaningful impact, which is more than any tournament since in-game replacements were introduced at the World Cup in 1970.

This year’s champions would almost certainly have fallen short without their men off the bench.

Mikel Merino has been the ultimate ‘super-sub’ after two winning goals to help Spain defeat Portugal and Belgium in the knockout stages. He is one of three players to score two game-state-changing goals off the bench this summer, alongside Ivory Coast’s Amad and Germany’s Deniz Undav. Only eight players have achieved the feat at any World Cup since 1970.

Ferran Torres’s extra-time winner in the final came after entering the pitch on the hour mark, highlighting Spain’s strength in depth. Torres’ finish was the seventh game-state-changing goal from a substitute in the knockout rounds, comfortably higher than any edition since 1970.

The winning goal coming from a substitute felt apt, bringing down the curtain on an incredible summer of football.