The chart that proves being a soccer fan really is heart-wrenching

By Zachary M. Seward — March 2, 2013

Here’s an amazing chart of heart attacks among Germans during the 2006 World Cup of soccer, which was held in Germany. The red line, for 2006, spikes each time the German national team plays a match, especially during its nail-biting, quarterfinal victory over Argentina in penalty kicks (#5) and crushing loss to arch-rival Italy in the semifinals (#6):

Heart attacks among Germans during World Cup 2006

Number of heart attacks each day at Bavarian emergency facilities. New England Journal of Medicine

Group match: Germany beats Costa Rica, 4-2
Group match: Germany beats Poland, 1-0
Group match: Germany beats Ecuador, 3-0
Round of 16: Germany beats Sweden, 2-0
Quarterfinal: Germany beats Argentina, 1-1, in penalty kicks
Semifinal: Germany loses to Italy, 0-2
Third-place match: Germany beats Portugal, 3-1
Final: Italy beats France, 1-1, in penalty kicks

“Viewing a stressful soccer match more than doubles the risk of an acute cardiovascular event,” concluded the authors of this study (PDF), which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2008. (The study was highlighted today by Grantland staff writer Katie Baker from the audience at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference in Boston.)

“It is clear,” the authors continued, “that watching an important soccer match, which can be associated with intense emotional stress, triggers the acute coronary syndrome and symptomatic cardiac arrhythmia.”

Interestingly, the only match that didn’t cause a spike in heart attacks was the third-place game against Portugal, confirming that once a team has been knocked out of contention for the World Cup title, nothing really matters. That semifinal loss to Italy, a team that has long tormented Germany and went on to win the tournament, left Deutschland quite literally with its hearts broken.

German fans after their team lost to Italy in the 2006 World Cup AP Photo / Roberto Pfeil

Top

Jamie Dimon survives vote but reforms are inevitable for JP Morgan

Microsoft’s new Xbox One is an Apple killer, in the living room

Yahoo’s marketing masterstroke: a free terabyte of Flickr storage is better than unlimited

Mobile data is the new luxury good in southern Europe

The audacious plan to end hunger with 3-D printed food

Hidden indicators on housing are buried in Home Depot’s rock solid earnings

The collapse of China’s photovoltaic industry will spark the next solar boom

Indian cinema is finally getting attention at Cannes—for all the wrong reasons

Why Chinese moms still love Fisher Price toys and Americans don’t

Open-plan offices make employees less productive, less happy, and more likely to get sick

Greek suicides are up 27%. These charts explain why

Here is how four companies are ignoring their shareholders’ votes

Avoiding this mistake ensures that meetings aren’t a waste of time

In the Abenomics era, partying is good for the economy

The seven craziest findings in the US investigation of Apple’s tax avoidance practices

There’s nothing new about Silicon Valley’s food hacking

How half the rice in the Chinese city of Guangzhou was poisoned by pollution

The bonds-to-equities great rotation fallacy, in one chart

Next-generation sapphire screens don’t threaten Gorilla Glass, says Gorilla Glass

Goldman Sachs casts a vote of no confidence in Chinese banking

North Korea returns hijacked fishing boat after Chinese social media erupts in fury

Introducing the Bangla-Pesa, Kenya’s beautiful new complementary currency

How Yahoo plans to make money on Tumblr: ads that don’t feel like ads

One chart showing why Brits are now poorer than French, Swiss, Belgians and Aussies

The chart that proves being a soccer fan really is heart-wrenching