Brazil v Colombia had most fouls at the World Cup

ANALYSIS
By Bhas Kunju | Chief Editor, Goal Singapore

Fifty-four fouls were won in the eventful tie between Brazil and Colombia on Saturday morning, according to Opta Sports stats.

That number makes it the match with the most recorded fouls at this year's World Cup.

Ironically, with 30 fouls counting Colombia's way, it was the tournament darkhorses who registered the most number of fouls won in a single match at the 2014 World Cup in the same fixture.

Although never spilling over to a full-blooded heated encounter, the game was littered with crunching tackles and mistimed challenges. One in particular has now stood out.

With the hosts 2-1 up and looking to run down the clock, Neymar Jr was struck in the back by Camilo Zúñiga's knee late in the game.

The forward went to ground clutching his back but with the incident looking relatively innocuous initially, no foul was even given. Neymar has since been ruled out of the World Cup with a fractured third vertebra.

Despite registering the most fouls at this World Cup, the match witnessed just four bookings, all coming after the hour mark, with both teams getting booked twice each. This, includes the 87th minute caution for Julio Cesar which resulted in the
successfully converted penalty by James Rodriguez.

However, with crunching tackles going unnoticed, it is likely that the match saw much more than the 54 officially counted fouls.

Interestingly enough, despite seeing just four cautions, it is still the most number of yellow cards issued in a match at the 2014 World Cup. The Costa Rica v Greece Round of 16 tie fares only marginally worse, with just as many cautions with the exception of one sending off.

Brazil have also been the team with the most fouls won, with a massive 94 in total from five matches played, that's an average of just under 19 fouls per game.

It's little surprise then that the Selecao's previous match against Chile saw the second most number of fouls at the World Cup with 51 officially tallied offences. Again, it was Brazil who weren't the main victims, with Chile winning 28 of the fouls.

Statistically, Neymar in particular, only ranks as the fourth most fouled player so far, although again, the records will not include the offences missed by the match officials.

Chile's Alexis Sanchez was fouled 24 times in just four games, an average of six infringements per match making him the tournament's most fouled player. Greece's Georgios Samaras comes in second with 21 fouls in as many games.

Against Colombia,Neymar was officially fouled just four times, with the aforementioned tournament-ending challenge not being included in the tally.

Oddly, the Barcelona star was most spared by opponents from outside the Americas. The matches against Cameroon and Croatia resulted in just two fouls per game on Neymar.