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I'm amazed that soccer hasn't discovered modern statistics yet. Soccernet has something called "Top Rated Players" sorted by position, but they don't explain the formula!
fifaworldcup.yahoo.com has some interesting stuff like corners, crosses, fast breaks, short and long passes, and tackles committed and suffered. The short vs. long passes give an interesting perspective on the countries' styles of play.
http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/06/en/w/stats/index.html
But where is possession time for sides and players? Things like steals, turnovers, and percentage of successful passes for sides and players should be simple enough to tabulate.
Wouldn't it be interesting to see an NFL-style halftime breakdown of a handful of stats? Or maybe something like how Ronaldo averages 50 touches and 5 minutes of possession time, but he only had 10 and 1 in the first half? Or that the U.S. is completing 73% of their passes, compared to the their 82% rate in qualifying?
In the World Cup, the small sample sizes and varying quality of opponents might make a lot of this meaningless, but over a 38 match club season, there's got to be some useful information in there.
