Mexico Card harshness

Card Harshness

Mexico

Still earlyMirror comparison — same referee, same games

Early sign: in Mexico's matches the referees booked their opponents far more readily than Mexico — a card about every 3 fouls for opponents, versus about every 12 fouls for Mexico.

Mexico 1 card / 12 fouls

Opponents 1 card / 3 fouls

Longer bar = more fouls allowed before a booking (treated more leniently)

This does not show whether comparable fouls were treated differently. We cannot see how bad each foul was, so a harsher rate can simply mean more bookable fouls.

How Card Harshness works

The exact numbers

Strength of schedule. The teams Mexico faced were carded less often than the tournament average.

This does not show whether comparable fouls were treated differently. We cannot see how bad each foul was, so a harsher rate can simply mean more bookable fouls. There are not many matches yet, so the number may still move a lot.

Fouls / cards

58 fouls, 5 cards

Expected cards

58 fouls × 0.082 = 4.779

Confidence interval (wilson_binomial)

[0.037, 0.186]

Source matches

1489369
1489388
1539010
1567306
1570714

Per-match inputs

Match	Opponent	Fouls	Cards
1489369	South Africa	12	2
1489388	South Korea	9	0
1539010	Czechia	13	1
1567306	Ecuador	10	0
1570714	England	14	2

Build snapshot

wc2026-43c8d1939c51

Artifact data

View JSON

{
  "baseline": {
    "expectedCards": 4.7792,
    "foulsPerCard": 12.1333,
    "opponentsCardsPerFoul": 0.0824
  },
  "buildSnapshotId": "wc2026-43c8d1939c51",
  "confidence": {
    "band": "limited",
    "interval": [
      0.0374,
      0.1864
    ],
    "method": "wilson_binomial",
    "metric": "cards_per_foul",
    "point": 0.0862
  },
  "investigation": "card_harshness",
  "mirror": {
    "corroborates": false,
    "oneSided": false,
    "opponentsCardsPerFoulVsTeam": 0.3125,
    "opponentsOwnBaselineCardsPerFoul": 0.0824
  },
  "perMatch": [
    {
      "cardColors": {
        "red": 1,
        "yellow": 1
      },
      "cards": 2,
      "fouls": 12,
      "matchId": "1489369",
      "opponent": "South Africa"
    },
    {
      "cardColors": {},
      "cards": 0,
      "fouls": 9,
      "matchId": "1489388",
      "opponent": "South Korea"
    },
    {
      "cardColors": {
        "yellow": 1
      },
      "cards": 1,
      "fouls": 13,
      "matchId": "1539010",
      "opponent": "Czechia"
    },
    {
      "cardColors": {},
      "cards": 0,
      "fouls": 10,
      "matchId": "1567306",
      "opponent": "Ecuador"
    },
    {
      "cardColors": {
        "yellow": 2
      },
      "cards": 2,
      "fouls": 14,
      "matchId": "1570714",
      "opponent": "England"
    }
  ],
  "schemaVersion": "1.0",
  "slots": {
    "confidenceBand": "limited",
    "doesNotMean": [
      "severity_invisible",
      "small_sample"
    ],
    "otherSide": {
      "mirrorFoulsPerCard": 3.2
    },
    "whatWeSee": {
      "baselineFoulsPerCard": 12.1333,
      "teamFoulsPerCard": 11.6
    }
  },
  "sourceMatches": [
    "1489369",
    "1489388",
    "1539010",
    "1567306",
    "1570714"
  ],
  "strengthOfSchedule": {
    "direction": "opponents_below_average",
    "material": true,
    "opponentsCardsPerFoul": 0.0824,
    "tournamentCardsPerFoul": 0.1186
  },
  "team": {
    "cards": 5,
    "cardsPerFoul": 0.0862,
    "fouls": 58,
    "foulsPerCard": 11.6
  },
  "teamCode": "Mexico",
  "tournament": "wc_2026"
}

Download JSON