Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Brazilian striker Fred has announced he has retired from international football after his team lost the third-place play-off against the Netherlands.
The 30-year-old striker came in for a huge amount of criticism for his lacklustre performances in the tournament, where he scored just once for a Brazil team that entered the World Cup with such high hopes and failed spectacularly in the semi-final.
According to ProZone statistics, Fred emerged from the World Cup having spent less than one minute in possession of the ball during his six matches.
It's a stark comparison to Brazil's golden boy Neymar who spent six and a half minutes with the ball at his feet on home soil.
Time in possession statistics show that Fred had the ball for just 52 seconds during the tournament, accounting for 129 'individual possessions' (or touches) during his six matches.
A number of those touches would have come from kick-offs and restarts (as shown in the heat map below).
He had nine shots in total, with just four of those hitting the target and one finding the net.
Unsurprisingly, his best performance of the World Cup came in the 4-1 win against Cameroon, where he recorded 28 touches of the ball and recorded three of his five shots on target. He also scored in that game, though he only had seven seconds in total on the ball.
In the humiliation against Germany he had just one shot and his 20 touches used up 13 seconds of play.
This pales in comparison to star man Neymar, who recorded 392 seconds on the ball, for 261 individual possessions.
Neymar also had 18 shots in five games, with 12 of those on target as he scored four goals and added one assist.
Fred retires with a pretty decent international record with 18 goals in 39 matches, though nine of those came in an 11 match spell in 2013.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments