In an interview on CCTV after returning to China, Ma Ning and Bai Yansong discussed the issue of the Argentine team committing too many fouls.
Bai Yansong said: "I want to add some data. Before the final, everyone had the impression that Argentina committed many fouls, etc. On average, over 90 minutes, their number of fouls ranked 21st out of 48 teams. They received a total of 9 yellow cards, fewer than Spain. So this poses a challenge to the referees. We saw many of their actions that seemed dirty, but they were somewhere between fouls and not fouls. The actual foul statistics don't reflect the impression that they played very dirty. Consider that they ranked 21st, with fewer yellow cards than Spain. So this is quite a challenge for the referees, given the rules."
Ma Ning stated: "To be honest, Mr. Yansong, we have similarities and differences in what we look at. Looking at data is one aspect of our team analysis. However, we don't actually focus too much on the statistics themselves. Of course, if a team has a lot of yellow cards, there must be some issues. But as Mr. Yansong said, 21 fouls doesn't mean all fouls are normal. We focus more on the nature and purpose of the fouls, what their tactical objective is. Many teams might have a slightly higher number of fouls, but they are all normal tackles, probably without malicious intent. In such cases, we treat it as part of a normal game and don't overemphasize it. If a team commits 10 fouls, and 9 of them are with a specific purpose, a tactical objective, or an attempt to do something outside the rules or unsportsmanlike, then we will pay more attention to those aspects."
Sun Jihai added: I've been thinking about this. You see, Mr. Yansong provided us with this supplementary data, but our interpretation is different from Mr. Ma Ning's. I think that's what makes him professional—he considered what kind of fouls these 21 were. We might hear "21" or "40," and think the 40 fouls are dirty, full of dirty tricks, but that might not be the case.
