Table 2 Comparison of the six tournaments included in the analysis for the present study.

	World Cup		Olympic Games		U‐19 World Cup
	1999	2003	2000	2004	2002	2004
Participating teams*	16	16	8	10	12	12
Mean actual time* (min, s)	55′, 35″	59′, 16″	60′, 23″	56′, 95″	55′, 45″	58′, 38″
Qualification	58′, 22″	57′, 36″	60′, 58″	56′, 35″	55′, 29″	57′, 42″
Knockout	52′, 48″	64′,15″	59′, 46″	57′, 50″	56′, 01″	59′, 33″
Yellow cards*	77	65	46	40	56	79
Qualification	62	49	31	21	41	51
Knockout	15	16	15	19	15	28
Red cards*	5	1	0	0	2	3
Goals/match*	3.84	3.34	2.62	2.75	3.88	3.54
Injuries/match†	1.3	1.7	2.1	2.3	2.8	2.2
Contact v non‐contact ratio†	3.2	3.9	5.4	3.7	4.2	4.6
Tackle match	144.8	149.2	153.7	157.7	142.5	139.3