The Network Structural Features of Dominant Teams : The Case of FIFA World Cup

This study identified the network structural features of dominant teams in a competitive situation by investigating the passing distribution and performance of national soccer teams in the 2014 FIFA World Cup. The dataset includes 50,676 passes between 608 players of 24 teams in 64 soccer matches. This was used to construct directed and weighted networks for each team in each match. As a result, 128 pass networks were derived. The results show that the weighted degree distribution of the more dominant team is flatter and wider than the weighted degree distribution of the less dominant team. As the team’s dominance increases, the average path length of the pass network within the team decreases logarithmically and the clustering coefficient increases logarithmically.