The Statistical Problem With Soccer • Hacker News Board

Re: The Statistical Problem With Soccer

#31

Post by xiaoma » Tue, Sep 29, 2009, 7:53 PM UTC

heyitsnick wrote: post #10

- "In fact, Skinner and Freeman have carried out an extensive statistical analysis of the scores at the last World Cup. They point out that if the outcomes of games were a true reflection of the teams' abilities, then the situation "Team A beats Team B beats Team C which beats Team A" should never occur. They call this an intransitive triplet." The outcome of the game is never meant to be a "true reflection" of the t…

That was my thought exactly. Pikemen beat cavalry who beat footmen who beat pikemen.

Re: The Statistical Problem With Soccer

#32

Post by hughprime » Tue, Sep 29, 2009, 9:11 PM UTC

Perceval wrote: post #29

sfg wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get a lot of statistics from a game of cricket, but it does not seem to have taken off in the U.S.

Cricket and baseball are substitute goods. If you have one, you don't really need the other. For example, baseball hasn't taken off in the Commonwealth either.

Right. Likewise, American football and soccer are substitute goods as well. Americans don't dislike soccer because of any particular quirk of its scoring system, they just dislike soccer because they already have another sport which fulfills the same function. It's just a historical quirk.

Re: The Statistical Problem With Soccer

#33

Post by hughprime » Tue, Sep 29, 2009, 9:14 PM UTC

newsdog wrote: post #22

miracle wrote: post #9

It's called football not soccer.

Correct. But we dumb North Americans need to make the distinction with the weird violent USA game, which almost everyone in Canada cares about, myself included. Somehow, they convinced us it's important. I really want to know how they did that.

I'm sorry, that game is called "Grid Iron". The word "football" is reserved for Rugby League.

(Not to be confused with Rugby Union, which is "rugby" or Australian Rules Football, which is "footy". And definitely not soccer, which is "soccer".)

Re: The Statistical Problem With Soccer

#34

Post by Danny72 » Tue, Sep 29, 2009, 10:41 PM UTC

Although the World Cup is the most well known (and watched) soccer tournament, it isn't that representative of soccer.

1. It's mainly a knockout tournament which obviously increases the variance

2. International sides aren't a cohesive team like domestic club sides only playing a handful of times per year leading up to the tournaments.

Compare this to the domestic leagues where the league format reduces the variance and players spend most of the year working with who they're playing with on the pitch. In the EPL, the #1 ranked side going into the season probably wins the league 75% of the time. It's a much lower number though for the domestic cups because of the knockout format.

Re: The Statistical Problem With Soccer

#35

Post by frossie » Tue, Sep 29, 2009, 10:54 PM UTC

cromulent wrote: post #11

Soccer is a low scoring game. It's not a "statistical problem", it's a feature. Treating it as "an experiment to determine which of the teams is the best" is not a good approach. There are a thousand contests in 90 minutes, but probably only two or three of them result in a goal, one of which may be from a penalty anyway. High scoring games are much better at determining the best team on the day. I believe that one o…

Damn right it's a feature. This is why you shouldn't let physicists come up with sports rules

The point of the format is to give a team a chance to win even if they are not the best team. That's what keeps people interested - the chance that their team will win, even thought it is the 2nd, 3rd or 10th best team. When Greece won Euro 2004 against all odds, the psychic energy was just incredible. When Germany wins, it's like "Well, there we go, no surprise, let's go have a beer".

Re: The Statistical Problem With Soccer

#36

Post by dasil003 » Tue, Sep 29, 2009, 10:59 PM UTC

hughprime wrote: post #32

Perceval wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cricket and baseball are substitute goods. If you have one, you don't really need the other. For example, baseball hasn't taken off in the Commonwealth either.

Right. Likewise, American football and soccer are substitute goods as well. Americans don't dislike soccer because of any particular quirk of its scoring system, they just dislike soccer because they already have another sport which fulfills the same function. It's just a historical quirk.

How is American football at all like soccer? It's much more like rugby, and you don't see rugby displacing soccer.

Re: The Statistical Problem With Soccer

#37

Post by hughprime » Tue, Sep 29, 2009, 11:16 PM UTC

dasil003 wrote: post #36

hughprime wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. Likewise, American football and soccer are substitute goods as well. Americans don't dislike soccer because of any particular quirk of its scoring system, they just dislike soccer because they already have another sport which fulfills the same function. It's just a historical quirk.

How is American football at all like soccer? It's much more like rugby, and you don't see rugby displacing soccer.

It's like soccer in that it's an outdoor game that we play on an open field in winter.

Doesn't rugby displace soccer? The only place I know where rugby is taken seriously as a spectator sport is Australia (maybe NZ and South Africa as well?), and sure enough soccer is a niche sport played by students and amateurs, only being seriously watched when Australia is competing in an international competition. In Britain, on the other hand, soccer is the main spectator sport in winter, and it's rugby that's confined to high schools and international competitions.

Is there anywhere that rugby and soccer are both equally (or almost-equally) popular?

Re: The Statistical Problem With Soccer

#38

Post by jimbokun » Wed, Sep 30, 2009, 2:05 PM UTC

dasil003 wrote: post #36

hughprime wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. Likewise, American football and soccer are substitute goods as well. Americans don't dislike soccer because of any particular quirk of its scoring system, they just dislike soccer because they already have another sport which fulfills the same function. It's just a historical quirk.

How is American football at all like soccer? It's much more like rugby, and you don't see rugby displacing soccer.

Wikipedia suggests all three (and other sports) have a common history, and that the word "foot" in the names of these games might have originally come from the fact that these games were played "on foot," as opposed to horseback games.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football#Etymology

Re: The Statistical Problem With Soccer

#39

Post by Deron » Wed, Sep 30, 2009, 7:56 PM UTC

Italy 2006, Brazil 2002, France 1998, Brazil 1994, Germany 1990, Argentina 1986....

The end results do seem to favor the best teams.

The only people who don't recognize that are England fans, who routinely overestimate their team anyway.