Curaçao — Ivory Coast 0:2: Seven Shots, No Stress

Ivory Coast beat Curaçao 0:2 at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia on 25 June 2026, in a match that quietly dismantles the two laziest readings of football statistics. The losers took more shots; the winners had more of the ball; and neither fact explains the scoreline. The Crime Index of 52% sits near neutral because the model saw the gap all along — in what each attempt was actually worth.

Seven shots, two goals: Ivory Coast's filtered attack

The visitors attempted just 7 shots all match, but 5 came from inside the box, and the model priced the collection at 1.31 xG — nearly triple their opponent's total from a fraction of the volume.

Three efforts hit the target and two scored. A conversion of 1.53 runs warm without being freakish: from positions that good, two goals out of three accurate strikes is professional finishing, not fortune.

Curaçao's 11 attempts, worth 0.50: seven misses tell the story

The hosts out-shot the winners 11 to 7 and had nothing to show for any of it. Seven attempts flew off target entirely; only 2 reached the goalkeeper. The average attempt cost the model less than 0.05 xG.

Geography is the whole explanation: 6 of the 11 came from distance, and the five nominally inside the box were struck from angles and under bodies. The model doesn't punish ambition — it simply refuses to pay for bad positions, and it valued Curaçao's entire evening at half a goal.

63% possession, 624 passes: control without hurry

Ivory Coast kept 63% of the ball and completed 558 of 624 passes, against 295 of 355 for the hosts. Notably, that control never became a shot avalanche — and that was the design. Seven attempts from that much possession isn't attacking poverty; it's a filter, shooting only when the position justifies the strike.

The closing comparison — 1.31 xG from 7 attempts against 0.50 from 11 — is the cleanest argument that filter football won this match twice: once on the pitch, once in the model.

Fouls 11 to 6 and the minor columns

Curaçao committed nearly double the fouls, 11 to 6, and took 2 yellow cards to 1 — the usual profile of a side chasing the game's rhythm rather than setting it. Corners went 6 to 4 for the visitors, offsides 2 to 1 against the hosts, blocks 2 to 1. Small lines, all nodding the same direction.

Goals Prevented at 0.06: two keepers at par

Curaçao's goalkeeper made 1 save from three on-target shots; Ivory Coast's made 2 from two. Both closed at 0.06 Goals Prevented — nobody stole anything, nobody gave anything away.

What this match demonstrates best is how little the raw shot counter means on its own. Curaçao won it 11 to 7 and created next to nothing; Ivory Coast filtered its attack down to five box entries and left with a win the model endorses without a single reservation. The 0:2 is quality outscoring quantity, itemised.

Numbers that didn't make the recap

Curaçao and Ivory Coast split the ball 37% to 63%; on its own that number doesn't explain the result, but it frames the rest of the data. Curaçao completed 355 passes at 83.1% accuracy, Ivory Coast 624 at 89.4%; raw pass volume alone doesn't correlate with chance quality in this game.

Fouls read 11-6 (Curaçao-Ivory Coast) — the side committing fewer of them generally gave up fewer dead-ball situations to defend. The offside count (2-1) is modest, but it tends to move with the number of balls played over the top rather than total attacking volume.

Curaçao won 4 corners to Ivory Coast's 6; inside the box it was 5-5 in shot attempts, generally a better read on chance quality than the 6-2 split from distance.

Blocked shots: 2 for Curaçao, 1 for Ivory Coast — attempts that never reached the frame thanks to bodies in the way inside the box.

The source for every number here is the official Curaçao-Ivory Coast match sheet — none of it is a manual estimate.