We have some location data for where players play – in particular, we can see where a player is on the field, on average. These are the 10 players who've played closest to the goal in games thus far:
Player | Position | Country | Distance from Goal | Shots | Goals |
Andre-Pierre Gignac | Forward | France | 15.1 | 1 | 0 |
Thierry Henry | Forward | France | 20.8 | 2 | 0 |
Javier Hernandez | Forward | Mexico | 23.1 | 2 | 0 |
Florent Malouda | Midfielder | France | 27.2 | 1 | 0 |
Giovani Dos Santos | Midfielder | Mexico | 27.4 | 4 | 0 |
Abdelkader Ghezzal | Forward | Algeria | 27.4 | 2 | 0 |
Diego Milito | Forward | Argentina | 28.0 | 0 | 0 |
Peter Crouch | Forward | England | 29.0 | 1 | 0 |
Nicolas Anelka | Forward | France | 30.3 | 5 | 0 |
Lionel Messi | Forward | Argentina | 31.3 | 8 | 0 |
I don't know how accurate the data collection is, but Gignac certainly seems to have played a completely different game from any other forward in the tournament. At the other end of the field, obviously the goaltender is playing the furthest back – among non-goaltenders:
Player | Position | Team | Distance from Goal |
Danny Shittu | Defender | Nigeria | 77.1 |
Aleksandar Lukovic | Defender | Serbia | 77.1 |
Mauricio Victorino | Defender | Uruguay | 78.9 |
Aaron Mokoena | Defender | South Africa | 79.5 |
John Mensah | Defender | Ghana | 79.6 |
Joseph Yobo | Defender | Nigeria | 79.8 |
Cho Yong-Hyung | Defender | South Korea | 79.8 |
Diego Lugano | Defender | Uruguay | 80.3 |
Bongani Khumalo | Defender | South Africa | 81.3 |
Sebastien Eguren | Midfielder | Uruguay | 82.6 |
Here's the distribution of player locations thus far in the world cup:
These are average positions by game, so the distribution of instantaneous player locations is a bit broader.