sports

My Very Own Football Club

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Ever wanted to own a sports team? If someone says “football” do you think “match” instead of “game?” If so, you’ll want to know about a new site/org called MyFootballClub which is aiming to make football history in just 3 easy steps:

  1. Get at least 50,000 members who will pay 35 pounds each (equal to $70.81 today).
  2. Use the pooled money to buy an English football club
  3. Have its members, who are also owners, vote on team selection, player transfers, etc.

If interested, they, or I should say we, have reached the magic 50k threshold and now are in talks with 4 different teams (nameless for now, though they are in the Division Two and Conference divisions). Overseas payments are now accepted and I paid yesterday.
I cannot wait to see what club we end up with!

sports

Do You Love "Jogo Bonito"?

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Even though the WC is over, I’m still going to post about footie. If you love it like I do, or simply pay attention to Nike ads, you might know that Jogo Bonito means “beautiful game” in Portuguese. If you are a Brazil supporter, you may want to find out what your Brazillian name is for when you get your very own customized Brazillian football jersey. Yes, they did bow out of the tournament a tad earlier than most thought. They still rock, or should I say samba…
Here is my shirt:

brazilname.jpg

Via Chris

sports

The Final Countdown for the US in Real Time

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The restaurant beneath my office opened early today just for the World Cup matches. I’m there, with a laptop, coffee, borrowed wi-fi, American Flag, heart in stomach, and will present the game as I see and experience it:
10.30 AM – I’m watching the US World Cup match and cannot believe the bullshit that I just witnessed. Claudio Reyna, known as “Captain America,” supposedly the best and most professional of all US players, just tried to dribble out of his own zone, lost the ball, gave it to Ghana and they scored. He was laying on the ground clutching his leg while it happened, weeping like a little girl, and I thought he was done, like he had torn his ACL. Then he got up eventually and is still in the game, which makes it even worse, because his leg should be broken if he gave up the ball that easily. So the US is losing. Great. Not only that, but 2 minutes later the Italians scored to take the lead against the Czechs. “Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?!” Dreck! Merde! I’m so pissed…
10:40 AM – For the first time ever, Reyna comes out of a World Cup game. So he is hurt. Good. I feel bad about feeling this way but it’s how I feel – it was such a stupid, stupid play to get hurt on.
10:45 AM – GOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAL!!!! A take away by DeMarcus, a great cross to Dempsey who brilliantly strikes to finish and this game is tied baby! Their first “real” goal of the WC. Just now, a Czech player was given a red card. Things are looking up…
10:48 AM – And now they aren’t as more bullshit, this time thanks to the refs, has occurred. Ghana is awarded a penalty kick on a complete and utter senseless call. Although the striker looks nervous, he puts it away and Ghana is up now 2-1. I can’t believe this…
Half-time – Why is it that I feel as if only 3 penalty kicks have been awarded in the first round thus far? Figures that one would be against the US. I really feel that FIFA hates the US. I can’t even begin to go into it – one will think I’m a conspiracy nut. Plus, I don’t want to sound like Mark Cuban, the current “The Refs and League Hate Me” poster child. I do believe that the US can pull off an incredible comeback, but it’s going to be really difficult. They are re-reviewing the penalty kick and the announcer is saying “….not a penalty! In a game like this, you’ve got to really take a guy down, grab his hair…to get a penalty…” They report that Reyna’ injury is a twisted right knee, close to a torn ACL (which is what it looked like when he was flopping about on the ground). G-d, I hope the US plays out of their gourd and come back. “The next world cup is 4 years away – you don’t want to leave anything in the tank after these last 45 minutes.” I couldn’t agree more…and here we go – bon chance Les Etas-Unis!
11:10 AM – The US under Bruce Arena, their head coach, are 2-16-2 when trailing at half-time. Great stat. The announcer just complained about the grass not being match fit. I really hope the bitching doesn’t start already…who am I kidding, I’m bitching..
11:17 AM – The US has never won the 3rd game in the 1st round. Great stat. Thanks guys. The US has missed some chances and time keeps on slipping slipping slipping into the future.
11:26 AM – Its the 64th minute and I’m starting to get that sinking feeling. I know what the Aussie’s did against Japan but I’m not hopeful. Shot – POST! Damn it! McBride hits the post on a proto-typical McDiving header. Close but no cigar…
11:37 AM – Not much has happened of note. About 15 minutes are remaining in the match.
11:41AM – A hard tackle right outside the box. The US has a free kick and needs to capitalize on it. This is a very big play for them. What a crap ball! A horrible cross by Donovan and the ball sails out. Italy just scores again after a player literally dribbles around the Czech goalie. The Italians know how to get it done while Landon Donovan has not been a factor at all. So much for the “future of US Soccer.”
11:58 AM – Game over man, game over. The US had a lot of set pieces (corner kicks and free kicks) and had a lot of good chances towards the end but just couldn’t do anything with them which is what good footballers do – they convert those chances. It doesn’t matter what the FIFA rankings say, the US is not that great of a team. My ego has taken a bit hit here; I used to think we were so good and that we had really buiit on our success from ’02. They scored 1 goal in 3 games. Italy won but they lost. They are going home and hopefully will qualify for 2010 in South Africa. Damn it. My whole day is shot. All I say to say is, “3 Lions on the shirt….Go England!”

sports

The Onion's Take On The US's Relationship with Footie

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The Onion’s recent World Cup related article Devastated By U.S. World Cup Team’s First-Round Loss, Nation Grinds To Halt is so satirically funny it just has to be read and shared. My favorite part reads:

It is estimated that over 85 percent of U.S. households were watching the USA–Czech Republic matchup. And going into the game that most Americans have been waiting for, analyzing, and all but living for during the past four years, schools, offices, shopping centers—everything, in fact, except vital services—closed their doors as the game began.

Say you were from another planet, or the Midwest, and you didn’t know that The Onion is a humor publication nad that the article was a humor piece, the 85% would have been the dead giveaway. I’m not even positive that eight-tenths of one percent of U.S. households watched the match, forget about 8.5%.
I for one have felt lately that The Onion just isn’t as funny as it used to be. Hopefully, this article proves that they are back on track. Either that or I am just in love with all things footie right now. I can say for certain that one or both of those two statements is correct.

sports

Does a Red Card Really Matter? It Depends.

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To continue on my “all things footie” theme, the International Hearld Tribune (IHT) had an interesting article a few weeks back which featured a statistical analysis of how much getting a red card and having a player sent off really matters to the teams playing. One would think that the team with more men would automatically have the advantage but that assumption is incorrect. Feel free to read the full-text after the jump to find out more.
Soccer: When taking a red card, timing can be everything
By Daniel Altman The New York Times
MONDAY, JUNE 5, 2006
Anyone who follows sports knows there are certain situations in which it is better to commit a foul than give an opponent a chance to score. But when, exactly, is the right time to incur the referee’s wrath?
Last month, the Champions League final in Paris between Barcelona and Arsenal presented such a situation.
In that game, Samuel Eto’o of Barcelona, the striker from Cameroon, was racing toward goal early in a scoreless match. Eto’o had already beaten Arsenal’s defense, and only Jens Lehmann, the German national team’s first-string goalkeeper, could stop him.
Eto’o, one of the top forwards in the world, nipped the ball past Lehmann, and it was then that Lehmann faced a decision: foul Eto’o and risk expulsion from the match, or let him pass for a certain goal.
Lehmann grabbed his ankle and sent him reeling. The referee, Terje Hauge of Norway, whistled the play dead and showed Lehmann a red card, thus ending his participation in the biggest match of the European season after less than 18 minutes.
Ronaldinho failed to score on the resulting free kick. But Arsenal had to play the rest of the match with 10 men instead of 11, and lost, 2-1.
Did Lehmann make the right decision from a statistical perspective? For Geert Ridder of the University of Southern California and his co-authors in research, the answer is yes.
They analyzed Dutch professional soccer from 1989 to 1992, using the assumption that the defending player’s objective was to minimize the probability of losing the match – a decent model for the Champions League final, and for the knockout rounds of the World Cup.
The researchers found that with two evenly matched teams, as a tournament’s two finalists often are, a player should foul to avert a certain goal anytime after the 16th minute. Lehmann acted prudently, with a minute to spare.
But what about games in the World Cup’s group stage? Michael Wright, a senior lecturer in management science at Lancaster University in Britain, and Nobuyoshi Hirotsu, one of his former doctoral students, used data from the 1999-2000 English Premier League to see what would happen if a defender instead tried to maximize the number of points his team took from the match. In the English leagues (and others around the world), as in the World Cup’s group stage, teams receive 3 points for a victory, 1 for a draw and 0 for a loss.
The Lancaster researchers, again looking at evenly matched teams, found that the defender should always foul to avert a certain goal if his team is losing by one or two goals, and should never foul if his team is leading by two goals or more. If his team is winning by one goal or the game is tied, the gains by fouling begin from 7 to 13 minutes through the first 45-minute half, depending on whether the team is playing at home or away.
Wright and Hirotsu also discovered that committing the foul increased the chances of winning much more for the team that is already leading. The gains for the losing team are not so large. But in a few situations, like when one team is leading by a goal between minutes 28 and 41, a red card against that team actually improves both clubs’ chances of winning; only the probability of a draw is reduced.
The question was recently asked in a different way by Marco Caliendo, a senior research associate at the German Institute for Economic Research in Berlin, and Dubravko Radic, an assistant professor of retailing and service management at the University of Wuppertal: How much does it matter that a red- carded player’s team is reduced to 10 men for the rest of the match?
They used records of the World Cup tournaments from 1930 through 2002 to measure the effect of red cards. To hone their results as finely as possible, they considered only red cards awarded when a game was tied and neither team had a home advantage.
Caliendo and Radic found that a red card did not give either team an advantage in scoring after roughly the 60th minute of a 90-minute match. Absorbing the card and the expulsion was clearly preferable to allowing a goal as the match drew to a close. Earlier in the match, however, red cards actually raised both teams’ chances of scoring, but the 11-man team gained a strong advantage.
So if Michael Ballack of Germany is steaming through the Costa Rican defense on Friday in the opening match of the World Cup, will the men at the back glance up at the clock before deciding whether to take him down? There is usually not time to think in such situations. But if it happens late in the second half, they shouldn’t think once – let alone twice.

sports

World Cup Investment Strategy

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I read in the Wall Street Journal about a study written by Alex Edmans of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Diego Garcia of Dartmouth College and Oyvind Norli of the Norwegian School of Management. They found that World Cup losses deliver a statistically significant market decline the next day, with greater impact on small stocks. Winning provides little benefit, as national supporters apparently price in their team’s victory.
An example of this came in the 2002 World Cup quarterfinal, when 86% of British fans polled mistakenly thought England would beat Brazil — ranked as the world’s best team — while the most generous bookmakers saw only a 42% chance of English victory.
Based on this study then, one could implement this type of “World Cup” investment strategy: Choose a game where the likely loser of a big game is a country of great soccer patriotism and broad share ownership and, say the authors, “short futures on both countries’ indices” to get maximum return from the asymmetry that losers get hit harder than winners benefit.
As the authors says, “It may offer the surest road to victory.”

sports

Orgy of Sports

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This past weekend I enjoyed what could only be deemed as an orgy of sports and loved (for the most part) every minute of it. Now, I’m not just talking about any type of sports. I’m talking about the sports that the good old U S of A could care less about. While I did catch 3 Yankee games, for the most part I spent my time watching football, I mean soccer, and hockey and you know how popular those are with MUS (Mainstream United States). Here is a run-down of how I spent my Saturday and Sunday:
Saturday
8:45 AM – I arrive at Kinsale Tavern to watch England/Paraguay and enjoy a few pints of Guinness for breakfast. The bar is packed and there are many Crosses of St. George in the crowd (I have one on myself) though there is no chanting or singing. England wins one nil as Paraguay heads a wicked David Beckham cross into its own net. Many people will talk for the next few days about how bad England played and how tired they looked. Regardless, they lead Group B with 3 points.
11:00 AM – 12:30 PM – I play 2 on 2 football, I mean soccer, with 3 new friends that I met at the pub at Carl Schurz Park. We work up a good sweat and work up a thirst for more beer. Within 5 touches of the ball I am craving an organized game so badly that I almost cry. I have flash backs to my traveling team years and envision a not so distant future where I am playing on an organized team again. No food is yet in my system.
12:30 – 1:05 PM – Back at Kinsale to watch Sweden/Trinidad and Tobago. More Guinness and still no food. I leave at halftime to get Jessie some Advil and a heating pad as she awoke with a huge pain in the neck. I can say for certain that it’s not me.
1:10 PM – Upon returning to my building, I bump into Fritz, a porter who is sweeping the steps out in front, who comments on my shirt. He asks, “Did you watch the World Cup this morning buddy?” and we proceed to strike up a convesation about all things footie. Soon it veers into a discussion about our footie past. It turns out that not only did he play, he still plays (he seems to be in his 40’s) but that used to play for the Haitian national team. Who knew? What I do know is that we’ll be trading scores and quips for the rest of the month. Sweet.
1:15 – 2:00 PM – After I get back from the errands, I sit on the couch, play doctor (the real, not the kinky kind) and watch the rest of Sweden/Trinidad and Tobago which amazingly ends in a draw. The goalie on T&T is ridiculous and I have no idea how Sweden doesn’t score 20 goals. I also finally eat something – a small grilled cheese sandwich which tastes delicious.
3:00 – 5:00 PM – Argentina/Ivory Coast is on TV and I’m on my couch watching it. I also flip back and forth to the Yankee game but they are losing and I’m not happy about it so I try not to pay too much attention. Argentina withstands a late Ivory Coast charge to win 2 -1. I have now seen 4 out of the first 5 World Cup matches and am feeling pretty pleased with myself.
5:15 PM – Jessie and I take a walk around the UES. We wind up going to dinner at Jasmine Garden, a Thai restaurant, near our apartment. The waiter notices my England shirt and comments on the game – “Yeah Beckham!” We talk footie for a bit and later in the meal he brings me a second beer even though I didn’t ask for one. Before I can say anything, he says “For the World Cup – go USA!” I shake his hand and give a heartfelt thanks. I for one cannot remember the last time a waiter bought me a beer in a restaurant. In fact, I believe this may be the very first time, at least in a restaurant which a family member does not own. I declare yet again that the World Cup friggen rocks.
7:00 – 7:45 PM – I crash out and nap on my apartment’s floor to recharge and dream of football. Okay, maybe the last part isn’t true.
8:00 PM – Game 3 of the NHL Finals is on TV – NBC no less. NHL Hockey on NBC is weird. They are in love with Edmonton which is kind of odd, considering they are Canadian. I understand that they are a better “story” than Carolina but the coverage is very slanted towards the Canuckleheads. During the second verse of “Oh Canada,” the singer Pierre something or other holds his microphone in the air and lets the 20,000 odd fans belt out the national anthem. They are incredibly loud, sort of on key and it gives me tremendous goose bumps. The crowd sings for a full minute of so. Man does Canada love hockey. I have never seen anything like this before, except at rock concerts when the singer screams “You know the words!” and lets the audience sing a chorus or two or maybe at one of the Yankee playoff games I went to post-9/11 in 2001. I decide Pierre sounds like a good name for my first born son and that Pierre DeJeff Lipson has a nice ring to it. The game itself is great. The action is fluid and very fast paced. That being said, I pretty sure that that a repeat of “The Golden Girls” on Lifetime will still get higher ratings when all is said and done. No one in the US cares about hockey. Okay, a few people do, yet I would hazard to guess that they are the same people that also care about soccer. The sports are very similar if you think about it. They each primarily feature low scoring games and highly praise not just goals but all the passing that lead up to goals as it is so difficult to actually score. In each the announcers voices rise and fall like 15 foot waves over and over again: “A pass up the left…now a cross to the right…a SHOT! OH!! JUST WIDE!!!!” Maybe I like these sports because I was never the uber-ladies man throughout my junior high and high school years. I would get close to hooking up a lot but often would never quite score, which is just like football, I mean soccer, and hockey. I think I have the beginning of a PhD thesis here…

Sunday
9:00 – 11:00 AM – I am awake and on my couch watching Netherlands/Serbia-Montenegro play while flipping back and forth to the French Open Men’s Final. Americans really don’t care about tennis either. This truly is the weekend of all weekends for the underdog un-MUS sports fan. Holland wins 1 – 0 on a brilliant text book goal by Robben. I am especially impressed because he was called off-sides about 2 minutes before on an identical play. Like a true pro, he learned his lesson so that when they tried the play again, which they immediately did, he executed it perfectly. Man, I am so psyched to play again. I cannot wait to be done with grad school next year so that I can join a football, I mean soccer, league. Right now, I just don’t have time. In a year, or less than a year, watch out!
12:00 PM – I bike cross-town to walk my cousin’s dogs thus missing the Mexico/Iran match. I am not that upset. While I like Mexico as a country, I hate their football team and Iran, well, let’s not go there right now. This post is supposed to be about sports, not about politics. As an aside, the Puerto Rican Day Parade is going on and every 10 seconds I hear someone shouting “Boriqua!” My neighborhood is a mess. There is a vendor selling hot nuts on the corner of 85th and Park which is a completely incongruous site. There are more cops on my block than in some some small cities. I only just now learn through the power of search technology that “boriqua” means “a Puerto Rican” or “Puerto Rico” as it was the name of the island before the Spanish arrived. The crowd is loud-loud-loud. My block is filthy. Bingham is annoyed when I take him on his afternoon walk though he is so cute that he stops the people shouting “Boriqua!” in their tracks. Instead they simply go “awwww” and want to pet him.
2:30 PM – I watch some of the Yankee game while waiting for the next WC game to start and get a call from my buddy Dave. “I have some friends here – why don’t you come over?” I hop back on my bike and head to his apartment.
2:55 – 5:00 PM – Dave has 2 TVs. When I arrive, one has on the Yankee game and the other has Portugal/Angola. Dave asks me if I want a beer. I laugh and say “What do you think?” We proceed to drink many. Portugal wins 1-0 but the Yankees blow the game in the 8th and lose 6-5 thus getting swept at home mind you by Oakland. That is the only downer of the weekend. After both games are over, the only sports left on TV before the NBA Finals is College Baseball and Nascar. While Dave loves it, I hate Nascar. They drive around in a circle 500 times. I just don’t get the attraction. I head home to reconnect with Jessie, who was away for the day.
8:00 PM – Jessie and I go to dinner at Zocalo, a Mexican restaurant and one of our favorite restaurants in the city. I comment on Mexico’s 3-1 win to our waiter and we chat about the WC. He mentions that he is in America and therefore roots for the US too. He walks away and I mention to the Jessie that the recent debate on immigration must have him spooked – “He’s trying to make sure we don’t report him to the Federales!” I recognize that what I said is very politically incorrect but I must point out that it also is quite possibly true.
9:30 PM through the end of the evening – The NBA Finals are on TV and I sort of care. I would like Dallas to win even though I strongly dislike the entire state of Texas because I view the Mavericks as “The Internet Team” (due to owner Mark Cuban) and therefore make a special allowance for them. Dallas does win. Yay. I’m much happier about the fact that I’ve seen the first 6 out of 8 World Cup matches. Not too shabby I must say. It reminds me of when I was in Ireland in ’98 and how I just sat in a pub with my friend Rebecca ALL DAY LONG watching the matches. We didn’t care who was playing who – we just liked to watch, and to drink ice cold Guinness. So I’m a footie fanatic – whatcha gonna do ’bout it? Nuttin? I thought so. Oh wait, you just don’t care enough to do anything. Well, that works too as I’m a lover and not a fighter. I walk Mr. B one more time and go to bed dreaming of dribbles and crosses, of juggling the ball 100 times before it touches the ground and of an improbable US run at the title (which after today’s utter disaster does not look that likely).

sports

Footie Fanatics Unite!

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The World Cup started about an hour ago. I’m currently in a bar with a laptop, borrowing someone’s wi-fi signal, watching Germany play Costa Rica, drinking a Stella and doing work. Footie Fever has infected me and I guess the only cure will be for July 10th to arrive (the final is 7/9). I thought for sure that I wouldn’t give 2 shits about the Germany – Costa Rica match. Then, at around 11:47 AM, 13 min to kick-off, I started to get all sorts of squirrelly, feeling trapped in my cube and desperately craving a TV so that I could watch the orgy of footie known as the World Cup.
So, I grabbed my laptop and headed downstairs to the bar/restaurant directly next door to my office. Luckily enough there was an unsecured signal available and here I am on cyberspace. Yeah, so I haven’t posted in what feels like months (but is really weeks). Yesterday, I cared but right now I don’t care. I have many posts stored in my brain, ones about topics like how the LIRR train announcements in Penn Station are now fully electronic (boo!) but those will have to wait. I’m watching soccer, I mean football damn it! England is playing at 9:00 AM tomorrow and I will be at a bar by 8:45. USA’s first match is on Monday. I cannot wait!

ramblings

News Europa

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Two weeks ago I flew across the pond and was in jolly old London. I went to visit my sister, who blogged about our visit on her great site. She’ll be heading to Ireland this weekend, stopping in Dublin and parts unknown. I am very jealous. Here blog can be found in the left nav and is quite good, especially if you’re an Anglophile.
In football related news, the US has climbed to 5 in the FIFA world rankings, the first time it has ever cracked the top five. It’s group though at the World Cup consists of the Czcheck Republic (#2), Italy (#12 – i think) and Ghana (#50) so I have my fingers crossed that they’ll play up to their ranking. Many have claimed that their group is this year’s “Group of Death” and I don’t disagree. If you thought I was talking about American football, check the title of this post.