That’s meaningless without a denominator. All other things being equal, the team with more time spent in the opponents box would be expected to have more penalty kicks.

EDIT: And just as I write this France draws a penalty!

What the hell!!!! It’s a draw now

I have no horse in this fight, just wanted to point out a curious fact.

That said, the denominator/ top team argument only holds if Argentina was the most dominant team in the cup by a landslide (considering the ratio of the total penalties). They weren’t, they performed mostly in the same pack of France/England/ Portugal. Brazil would be the only team that was blatantly more dominant. Another denominator could potentially be number of foul against, and I would be surprised if it is that lopsided.

Doesn’t seem unusual that a top team would get more penalties

True. And reckless challenges seem to be going up in general.

Did someone count the number of cards and penalties against Arsenal last season?