Euro 2020: Better than 2016 (or at least there's been more goals)

Looking back over some of my posts from the 2016 tournament I saw something suggesting that it hadn't been a great tournament (a sentiment echoed on Football Weekly), so I decided to figure out how many goals we've had per game. the other thing that inspired me to check it out was seeing Sweden and Spain grind out a 0-0, so I wanted to see how quickly Euro 2016 had produced that scoreline.

Both tournaments have featured two 0-0 draws by the end of Match Day 2, but in 2016 those both came on the second match day, whereas for 2020 they've been spread across the two days so far. But notably, 2020 has so far been a higher-scoring tournament:

• The total goals-per-game for 2020 is 2.29, compared with 1.96 at the same point in 2016
• Match Day 1 in 2020 yielded 2.33 goals per game, while in 2016 it was just 1.83
• Match Day 2 in 2020 declined slightly to 2.25, but in 2016 it grew to 2.08
• The highest scoring game at this point in the tournament in 2016 featured 4 goals, but 2020 has so far had three games that saw 4 or more goals

The talk so far among the podcasts I listen to is that 2020 is shaping up to be more fun than 2016. That statement revolves around more than just goals, but goals are relevant to the statement in that they record moments of drama. By this reckoning, Germany's 4-2 defeat of Portugal featured six such moments, and it would be churlish to argue that those goals weren't dramatic: Portugal's early lead from a Ronaldo tap-in being eliminated by two own-goals in the first half, and then Germany scoring two further goals early in the second half.

Speaking of own-goals: so far there have been 5, prompting jokes about how Own Goal is the leading scorer of the tournament. This number certainly beats out Patrik Schick and Cristiano Ronaldo, who have each scored just three. By contrast 2016 featured just three own-goals across the entire tournament. This could be because of tiredness from the weird season-and-a-half just gone, or the fact that the teams are going for it - but either way, it's a notable side effect of all this pressing that the teams have been doing.

As for penalties, there have been four so far in 2020, and there were four at this same point in 2016, suggesting that this aspect of discipline is holding constant for the moment. For the 2016 tournament as a whole, there were 12 penalties awarded, of which 8 were scored. Wikipedia's page for Euro 2020 stats doesn't currently record the number of penalties awarded, but I'll report back if that changes.

In any case, the tournament seems to be marked by positive, attacking football, which means a lot of defenders are making mistakes (including own-goals), but also means there's a lot going on. Let's hope it continues this way into Match Day 3.