UEFA Euro 2012 Poland-Ukraine: Germans Glowing with Anticipation

[Jacob]

My only point really is that Soccer needs to cater to the tastes of those who love the sport.  It is their love that makes it the biggest thing in the world of sports.  So any changes need to be done for their sake not people who probably would not pay any attention to the changes anyway.

Yeah exactly.

If you want games to play like American or Canadian rules football, rugby, hockey or basketball, you can watch those games. Association football has a pretty wide appeal as it is, so don't mess with it. I mean, sure, maybe there can be some adjustments made, but not for or by people who don't really care about the sport to begin with. That'd be daft.

[alfred russel]

I looked this up because I saw it (probably on languish) referenced in the news before, but a study done found that:

researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory have found that soccer is the most unpredictable sport, as it more likely that a team with a worse record can defeat a team with a better record. The researchers looked at the results of over 300,000 soccer, baseball, basketball, hockey and football games, and found that the likelihood for an upset was greatest in soccer.

http://www.sciencebuzz.org/blog/soccer-most-exciting-sport-watch

[it has a link to the study]

I stand by the idea that goals need to be bigger or some other modest innovation to up scoring (such as one less man per side, goalkeepers can only use one hand, 2 point shots from outside the box, players can pick the ball up and throw it to each other, etc).

A real question I have: are there less red cards / penalty shots because the referees aren't idiots from Trinidad and Tobago picked to add geographical diversity, European football just tolerates rough and tumble play more, or these tend to be higher quality sides that don't do stupid things to result in red cards and penalties?

But then it wouldn't be football 

And making bigger goals would only up the chances of offsets as lesser teams would increase their scoring chances

I cannot understand the non soccer nations incessant cry for more goals, why does that have to be a requirement for success??? 3 billion ppl on this planet doesn't seem to agree

V

I was trying to be funny, I wasn't making serious proposals. :p

Yes, bigger goals would make more scoring chances for everyone, but if you have a thorougly dominated team it becomes far less likely they win (the same principle that a poor poker player will win more hands by playing more hands, but at the same time the chance of finishing ahead plummets).

Also, the other four billion might have valid opinions too. :p

[Admiral Yi]

I don't think the problem is so much the randomness of the results, rather that inferior teams game the system to increase their chances.

[Sheilbh]

I don't think the problem is so much the randomness of the results, rather that inferior teams game the system to increase their chances.

How is it gaming the system to try and win with your resources?  Surely that's just playing the sport as it's meant to be played.  You look at your opponents and your own team change your plan accordingly

I got that you were joking Alf

[alfred russel]

Let me step back. Baseball is also a random sport--in the major leagues they play 162 games, and the saying goes you know every team is going to win 60 and lose 60, it is what happens in the other 40 that matters. The randomness of single games is eliminated by playing so many, and most playoff / world series are determined by a best of 7 series.

Soccer is arguably more random than baseball (at least that is what the study I found said). Playing lots of games, such as in the Premier League, overcomes that randomness. But in a tournament with very few games, the randomness has a major impact. For example, in baseball they thought up the World Baseball Classic--basically like the World Cup. I find the thing stupid: the US hasn't finished in the top 3 in the first two times it has been played. Is that because the US sucks at baseball? Hardly, it is just that a short tournament means the cream won't necessarily have time to rise.

Anyway, games start back tomorrow.

[FunkMonk]

DON'T MESS WITH OUR BELOVED GAME MADE FOR CHILDREN!!!!11   

[DGuller]

When citing billions of soccer fans figure, let's not go overboard and assume that they made the informed decision that soccer as it is right now works best.  When it comes to sport, a huge component of watching it is cultural.  When I lived in Ukraine, I too watched soccer on TV religiously, because that was the main sport there.  However, once I lived in US long enough, I just found it unwatchable, even though the soccer I can watch here is way better than the abortion that was Soviet soccer.  It's just that there is no more cultural attraction for it, few people watch and live it here, and on its merits alone, soccer is a horrible spectator sport.

[Martinus]

Let me step back. Baseball is also a random sport--in the major leagues they play 162 games, and the saying goes you know every team is going to win 60 and lose 60, it is what happens in the other 40 that matters. The randomness of single games is eliminated by playing so many, and most playoff / world series are determined by a best of 7 series.

Soccer is arguably more random than baseball (at least that is what the study I found said). Playing lots of games, such as in the Premier League, overcomes that randomness. But in a tournament with very few games, the randomness has a major impact. For example, in baseball they thought up the World Baseball Classic--basically like the World Cup. I find the thing stupid: the US hasn't finished in the top 3 in the first two times it has been played. Is that because the US sucks at baseball? Hardly, it is just that a short tournament means the cream won't necessarily have time to rise.

Anyway, games start back tomorrow.

Why is randomness a problem, though? I think it's one of the reasons that makes it exciting for the fans, despite their occasional bitching when their favorite team falls prey to Lady Luck.

[Sheilbh]

Plus I don't think it necessarily is randomness.  A worse team can beat a better team by having better tactics and playing better together.  Just look at the Dutch

Randomness for me is things like the Ukrainian goal that wasn't or a ref getting the decision wrong.

[Martinus]

Plus I don't think it necessarily is randomness.  A worse team can beat a better team by having better tactics and playing better together.  Just look at the Dutch

True. The alternative would be Germany, Spain or Portugal always winning which would be much worse.

[Zanza]

True. The alternative would be Germany, Spain or Portugal always winning which would be much worse.

Portugal?

[Valdemar]

I cannot understand the non soccer nations incessant cry for more goals, why does that have to be a requirement for success??? 3 billion ppl on this planet doesn't seem to agree

It is pretty idiotic.  If they change it the non-soccer nations STILL won't like soccer.  But then the soccer nations would be pissed off.  So basically then nobody would like soccer.  Great thinking there reformers.

I say soccer needs more goals for the same reson I say hockey needs more goals - because scoring is the most exciting part of the game.  It's what gets people out of their seats.  It's what gets shown on the highlight reels.  It's what you want to see.

Now there comes a point where if the scoreboard is flipping around like a pinball game it loses all excitement (I think basketball has this problem), but soccer is far from that.  The ideal is probably about 5-10 total goals or scoring plays per game.   I remember watching that ridiculous 9-8 Jets/Flyers game this past year and thinking it was getting out of control, but the 3-2 games were a lot more exciting than the 1-0 ones.

But BB, its the low number of goals that adds the thrill... one goal early on.. can they hold it? Do they need to close it down with another goal?

If it gets too easy, then tha one goal and the tactics of digging in, not digging in, subbing more defensive/offensive players go away.

V

[Valdemar]

Alfred's ideas are worse than Sepp Blatter's.

I agree with Alfred, in that if there is a lack of scoring chances the better team will lose too frequently.

Let's assume that the two teams both have 20 chances to score, and for one team it'll score 15% of the time and the other 5%.  The stronger team is seriously stronger than the other, and should dominate.  The weaker team has about an 8.27% chance of winning and a 12.59% chance of drawing.  If we drop the number of chances for both to 10 the weaker team will now win 11.22% of the time and draw 24.93%.  If we raise it to 30 shots for each the weaker team will only win 5.77% of the time and the draws only occur 7.56%.

There's a balance between ending up with the score fests of basketball and having too few chances resulting in a lot of draws and upsets.  It shouldn't be heresy to be concerned about the issue.

That why we have country championships, where they play the entire season and the team with the best cosistent wins take the title

The EC, WC and Cups (incl Champions leaque) are all with a great element of hit and miss, in which bredth of squad, tactics, planning, and pure luck is part of the exitement, part of the entire setup, not something to fix.

I'm sorry, but you are missing the whole point of that kind of tournemants

V

[Valdemar]

I don't think the problem is so much the randomness of the results, rather that inferior teams game the system to increase their chances.

Hence the two different tournament forms in most soccer nations.. a national championship played over the course of a season, in which points are gathered and the best teams come out on top, and the underdogs rarely manage to truly upset things

and the local cup formats, in which EC and WC is a hybrid, where underdogs CAN and will upset things by knocking out a better team once in a while.

For the strategist the championships are the one to follow, for the thrill of hit and run, follow the cup

V

[Richard Hakluyt]

I agree with Valdemar, the league title rewards consistency, a major cup rewards a streak of great play supplemented (often) with luck. There is great joy when a second-string team (Stoke City, Sunderland,,,etc) actually get it together and win a cup.

I think that football have got that degree of randomness just about right.

But, if you Americans don't like low-scoring games maybe you should try cricket? There are literally hundreds of runs in a match