Australia's Technological World Cup Advantage 343
hotsauce writes "The BBC has a piece about how Australia is using software to gain an advantage in the World Cup. The Socceroos are running software that looks for patterns in attacks of the opposing team. It also shows the effectiveness of different response strategies by recording where attacks fail when countered. This is the first time Australia has reached the World Cup in 30 years, but a real test of the technology will come today when Australia must take on five-time and current world champions Brasil. The Socceroos talk about specific strategies for that game, also."
Technology makes people lazy (Score:5, Insightful)
Windows Admin Tools [intelliadmin.com]
Re:Technology makes people lazy (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Technology makes people lazy (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Technology makes people lazy (Score:2)
Having said that, the first goal was a scorcher. The second was a bit lucky.
Sounds good? (Score:4, Interesting)
Sounds good?
Jun 8th 2006
From The Economist print edition
Software: “Music intelligence” systems that can distinguish hits from misses could change the way pop music is made and marketed
IMAGE [economist.com]
THE versificator, a machine described in George Orwell’s novel “1984”, automatically generated music for the hapless masses. The idea of removing humans from the creative process of making music, an art form so able to stir the soul, made for a good joke when the book was published in 1949. But today, computer programmers working in a new field called “music intelligence” are developing software capable of predicting which songs will become hits. This surprisingly accurate technology could profoundly change the way pop music is created.
The software uses a process called “spectral deconvolution” to isolate and analyse around 30 parameters that define a piece of music, including such things as sonic brilliance, octave, cadence, frequency range, fullness of sound, chord progression, timbre and “bend” (variations in pitch at the beginning and end of the same note). “Songs conform to a limited number of mathematical equations,” says Mike McCready of Platinum Blue, a music-intelligence company based in New York, that he founded last December. Platinum Blue has compiled a database of more than 3m successful musical arrangements, including data on their popularity in different markets.
To the human ear, music has changed a lot over the years. Music-intelligence software, however, can reveal striking similarities in the underlying parameters of two songs from different eras that, even to a trained ear, seem unrelated. According to Platinum Blue’s software, called Music Science, for example, a number of hit songs by U2 have a close kinship to some of Beethoven’ s compositions. If a song written today has parameters similar to those of a number of past hits, it could well be a hit too.
Carlos Quintero, a producer and remixer at Orixa Producciones in Madrid, recently tried out another music-intelligence system, called Hit Song Science (HSS). “It practically left me in shock, it’s stunning,” he says. Mr Quintero’s production company now has the most promising demo songs it receives from aspiring musicians evaluated by Polyphonic HMI, the Barcelona-based developer of HSS and Platinum Blue’s only serious competitor. (Both companies perform analyses in-house, rather than selling software.) The results—consisting of a graph, numerical scores, computer-generated comments and suggested changes—help Orixa’s managers decide which songs to produce. Then, during the recording and post-production phases, Orixa uses HSS to reanalyse successive versions of each track for fine-tuning.
Belief in music intelligence is spreading, as Polyphonic HMI and Platinum Blue rack up bull’s-eye predictions of success, including “Candy Shop” by 50 Cent, “Be the Girl” by Aslyn, “Unwritten” by Natasha Bedingfield, “She Says” by Howie Day, and “You’re Beautiful” by James Blunt. Still, labels that use music intelligence generally prefer to keep quiet about it, so non-disclosure agreements are common. “No one wants people to think their decisions are coming from a box,” says Ric Wake, an American producer of two Grammy-winning acts who routinely employs Music Science. Even so, the names of many customers have leaked out. They include Capitol Records, Universal Music Group, Sony Music, EMI and Casablanca Records. Labels sometimes don’t tell even their established artists when they use music intelligence to help decide which singles to promote.
Revenues at Polyphonic HMI will exce
Re:Sounds good? (Score:2, Insightful)
We have the same thing today. It is called a "Britney Spears".
a number of hit songs by U2 have a close kinship to some of Beethoven' s compositions. If a song written today has parameters similar to those of a number of past hits, it could well be a hit too.
Beethoven barely scraped by in his day. Many consider his music too far ahead of its time to be appreciated in its time, which
Re:Sounds good? (Score:2)
Re:Technology makes people lazy (Score:5, Interesting)
I *DOES* help strategy, NFL teams have been using similar techniques for years to analyze what their opponents might do in a given situation. This is especially critical in American Football, where the defenses don't have time to react to what is actually happening in that instant the ball is hiked. Its the difference between stopping a play in the backfield or giving up a 6 yard play. In soccer, being able to anticipate where a play is going could reduce the amount of running a team has to do, keeping players fresher and getting them into position sooner. This would yield a pretty good advantage, but probably not enough to overcome the gap between a great team and a mediocre one. More to the point, its more likely the great team is already doing similar analysis, and just not chatting about it.
Forgive my ignorance but... (Score:2, Interesting)
Football is a more flowing game. There are a few set plays that get played out, they make up an extremely small part of the game due to the dynamic nature.
Therefore I would suggest that Football it is far more difficult problem domain than NFL for analysis to an arbitrary level of confidence.
Re:Forgive my ignorance but... (Score:5, Insightful)
,br. Actually I would suspect that its the opposite. Because of the start-stop nature, American Football has *ALWAYS* been more strategic, knowing the opponent is going to run vs short pass vs long pass on the next down is an obvious advantage, and so the opposition takes pains to avoid patterns. In soccer/football, the player is the one making the strategic decisions, constantly while under immediate pressure; my guess is he makes those decisions instictively. Instictive decision mean patterns, even if they aren't immediately obvious. This is what computers do, they data mine looking for patterns. This isn't "Player A passes right 75% of the time", this is "Player A, in a 1 on 1 situation with no other players in a 20 foot radius will attempt fake X when approached from the left front 80% of the time". Or maybe which side is the goalie strongest at defending? These are people who are making a living and dedicating their lives to this game, 80 hours a week minimum would not be unusual. The only thing that would be more difficult would be analyizing the data, and not being a soccer fan I'm not even sure about that.
Re:Technology makes people lazy (Score:2)
Hrm...
So we should go back to using typewriters and white out?
Should we throw out Excel and go back to handcranked calculators?
Should airforce pilots pull out a map, compass, and manual bombsights instead of using software guided munitions?
Should weathermen go back to looking at almanacs and if it will rain tomorrow by looking at the sky?
Software isn't a crutch... It is a tool. Having the tools is one thing, but knowing how to use the tools i
Re:Technology makes people lazy (Score:2)
Technology didn't do it today... (Score:5, Informative)
Well technology didn't quite cut it for the Australians today. Brazil took the game 2-0.
On the other hand, the Socceroos played very well. They had at least two open goal chances. It came down to old-fashioned skills. Australians were excellent in creating chances, but just couldn't finish off. Brazilians had two great goals in the second half. But their super-star Ronaldo put out another so-so performance. According to one commentator:
"Ronaldo's performance was better than against Croatia - but not by much. He played the pass for Adriano to score but cuts a dejected figure as he trudges off to consoling pats from the dug-out."
Technology is of course changing the games, but probably online games [wineverygame.com] more than soccer!
Re:Technology didn't do it today... (Score:3, Informative)
Beauty of this game is that a slight change of strategy can completely obsolete this kind fo preparation. Besides, all coaches and team experts watch videos and can very reliably identify weak (and strong) spots of a team without any technological help.
Re:Technology didn't do it today... (Score:2, Insightful)
No matter how much technology they use the success of a game at this level will always come down to old-fashion skills. Even if the Australians had some kind of nanotechnology [azonano.com] the game will always come down to the will to win. There isn't any technology yet that can keep someone from mentally choking.
Re:Technology didn't do it today... (Score:3, Funny)
If there was, I'm sure Phil Mickelson would have bought it. Clearly he did not.
Technology DID do it today... (Score:5, Interesting)
They had two clear chances to equalize Brazil's first goal, but couldn't quite get there.
Then, late in the game, Brazil helped themselves to a freakish goal off a goalpost rebound, which made the score 2:0.
Australia losing to Brazil ONLY 2:0 is a testament to the Aussie's coach, Gus Hiddink, fearless play, and, very probably, the software that you're saying "didn't do it".
Look, I know you don't really understand "soccer" but this is as if, off the back of a crushing Superbowl victory, the best team in the NFL played the wooden-spooners, and ONLY won by one touchdown...
Re:Technology DID do it today... (Score:2, Interesting)
By the way, FIFA rankings are absolute nonsense. What can you expect if
Re:Technology DID do it today... (Score:5, Insightful)
You are correct... How can we believe the USA soccer is ranked #6, ahead of Germany, Spain (as of the date of this post, from http://www.fifa.com/en/mens/statistics/index/0,25
Rankings are not a good index at all. Australia just lost it.
Re:Technology DID do it today... (Score:4, Interesting)
Any kind of rankings are far from perfect. The Edmonton Oilers are close to winning the Stanely Cup even though they barely qualified for the playoffs.
Re:Technology DID do it today... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Technology DID do it today... (Score:2)
Re:Technology DID do it today... (Score:3, Insightful)
The rest of the world (FIFA especially) spend a lot of time wondering about why the USA doesn't really get into 'soccer', and the theory
Re:Technology DID do it today... (Score:4, Interesting)
A few theories:
a) Money - you can't make millions domestically playing soccer
b) Fame - A soccer star isn't going to get the chicks while pimpin' on the LA club scene. Most don't realize how well they would do with the ladies internationally.
c) Toughness - at least the perception. I understand soccer "gamesmanship" where a guy gets fouled lightly and gets carted off on a stretcher. But most people in the US just see it as weakness.
d) TV - most US sports are TV friendly. Play is typically chest level or higher, making it easy to track the ball (this is why hockey sucks on TV, but is awesome in person). And the gameplay starts and stops allowing for commercial breaks. This makes the networks more interested in broadcasting and promoting such events
e) Ties - in the US it's all about winning and losing, ties are worse than losses.
f) Game flow - or rather lack of in US games. The start-stop nature of US sports means every play has a result. A 4 yard run is a "win" for the offense, while a 0 yard stop is a "win" for the defense. The flow of soccer means exciting results only happen from a build-up of plays.
It's not like people hate soccer in the US. Most athletic kids played in a soccer league at some point of their life, it just isn't seen as a "professional" sport. Baseball and hockey are dying, maybe it will give room for soccer to take more of the limelight. Though please let me see games from Europe because MLS is the equivalent of the XFL.
Re:Technology DID do it today... (Score:2, Insightful)
Since I'm from Europe,
Re:Technology DID do it today... (Score:4, Informative)
Anyway, all of this is a digression, but the point is that this is a known problem with the current rankings, and one which is expected to be fixed shortly.
Re:Technology DID do it today... (Score:3, Interesting)
BTW, Australia played just fine; the defense did their homework and annulated the Brazilian attacks for the whole first half and part of the second one. They just lack goal, but a tie would've been a much fair result. I still expect to see the
Re:Technology DID do it today... (Score:2)
Picking nits. (Score:5, Informative)
First off, the Aussies aren't ranked 88th, they're 42nd [fifa.com]. Quite a bit of difference between the two.
Secondly, there aren't any wooden spoons here. (That would be American Samoa [fifa.com] at 205th.) Every team in the World Cup is good, or else they wouldn't be here. Yes, there not all at the level of Brazil, but every team here can play.
[My prediction: Argentina.]
Re:Picking nits. (Score:2)
Focused, technical and it shows.
Brazil, Italy, Croatia, Japan, Aussies all played their games more or less fine, but nothing to write home about.
Argentina looks nice and focused.
Re:Technology DID do it today... Nope (Score:5, Interesting)
First goal was scored by a player who can only hit the ball with his left foot, the defender didn't force him onto his right, didn't close down and Brazil scored. Everyone in the world knows Adriano is only left footed, you would have thought the technology would have stressed this a little more.
And yesterday the US (by any reasonable ranking system about the same level as Australia) played Italy to a standstill and a draw with one less player on the park.
Technology helps in coaching, but what really helped the Australians and the US was guts and effort from the players.
As one commentator said today
"Imagine the talent of Brazil with Australia's work ethic"
Re:Technology DID do it today... Nope (Score:2)
Please dont try to change Brazilian footbal: its beautiful as it is, even if in the end they are not the best ever.
Re:Technology DID do it today... (Score:2, Interesting)
Uh, the last time they played, in 2001, Australia actually beat Brazil. Goes to show software was better in the olden days.
J
You don't understand American football (Score:5, Insightful)
Now in World Cup soccer/football the talent level is very uneven. In reality out of the 32 teams in the World Cup only maybe 6 are serious contenders. Of course in the NFL only 12 of the 32 make the playoffs. Yet all 12 have a serious chance of winning, the Steelers who won Super Bowl XL, were ranked 6th out of 6 in the AFL playoffs.
I understand that the World Cup is on a national talent level and that perhaps makes it an uneven field of play. Yet it has to be said that only a very few teams have a chance of winning in the World Cup. And the chance of a lower tier team winning the World Cup is almost impossible. Out of 17 World Cup championships only 7 teams have won with 5 of those teams having won twice or more.
Re:You don't understand American football (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:You don't understand American football (Score:3, Insightful)
Really comparing the NFL to the World Cup is a bad idea because they are different types of leagues. I think that was my overall point.
Re:You don't understand American football (Score:3, Interesting)
Interestingly enough, no. On average, in one hour of soccer (real time) you are likely to see just as many goals as you are likely to see touchdowns in one hour of American football (real time). That's including normal stoppages, but excluding the breaks between halves/quarters. The numbers are astonishingly close, or at least they were that last time I ran them, which admittedly was many years ago.
The reason there is
Re:Money talks (Score:4, Informative)
No they aren't. Good players are bought and sold around the world, yes, but for club teams. The top teams in the Champions League this past season were as good as some of the best national teams, as Chelsea, Man U, Arsenal, Barcelona etc. all have starting lineups comprised almost exclusively of players that play for their respective national teams. But that doesn't change the country they play for.
An individual player can choose the country they play for based on fairly tenuous family connections (many of the German team players, for example, were born in Poland), and thus a particularly good player may choose to play for a national team more likely to win the World Cup. But this requires something like a grandparent to have been born in that country (I'm not sure of the exact rules.)
Re:Money talks (Score:3, Informative)
http://football.guardian.co.uk/theknowledge/story/ 0,,1785937,00.html [guardian.co.uk]
Playing with foreign players can cause some distrust when they do not perform at away games...
http://worldcup.reuters.com/spain/news/usnL2772974 4.html [reuters.com]
An interesting blogg about the last World Cup's national mix...
http://usasoccer.blogspot.com/2006/05/world-cup-20 02-roster-breakdowns.html [blogspot.com]
A Time article about the French team for the 2002 World Cup noted that they
Re:Money talks (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Technology DID do it today... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Technology didn't do it today... (Score:5, Informative)
Anyway, Australia did fine - and deserved a bit more than finishing two goals down. The first half atleast was very well thought from the tactical point of view, and if this software helped them achieve this, well, it worked just peachy.
As for Australia, i agree - it boiled down to individual performances (and physical strength; the speed diference between both teams was staggering). But don't count them off already; they're still second place in the group and have a solid chance of getting into the next round. I've seen a lot of Australian matches (WC classification mainly), and i liked what i saw. A team that plays like a team, always in order, which only lacks a bit on the goal definition. Besides, Aussies are just cool
Re:Technology didn't do it today... (Score:5, Insightful)
You can have all the computers and scientists in the world working out strategies etc, but in this game it can all be destroyed by a single moment of genius from someone who grew up in a shanty town without ever seeing a computer.
Re:Technology didn't do it today... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Technology didn't do it today... (Score:5, Insightful)
They don't have the American/Australian soulless attitude that sport is about mechanically working out in the gym, or following strict, dull instructions from the coach. In Brazil, sport is about expression, about creativity, about style and panache.
That is something that the dominant Olympic countries will never understand. No matter how much money they throw at it, no matter how many 'Institutes of Sport' they make, no matter how much they can 'bench', no matter how fast then can run a 40, they will never have the passion, the creativity, the joy for the game necessary to win the World Cup.
And thank fuck for that.
Re:Technology didn't do it today... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Technology didn't do it today... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not surprisingly, the very best Aussie rules footballers come from Australia, and the very best gridiron footballers come from America.
Probably you're right that Australia and America will never win the World Cup. But that's because our very best athletes are playing the codes that they want to play, because of the culture they have behind them.
Re:Technology didn't do it today... (Score:2)
If you can call that a so-so performance... I've called it a disaster several times :)
But, anyway, this post it to say that Brazil was using computers to input strategies and position better the players at 2002 (not exctly the same way). I don't know if they still do that, sice it is another coach, but it is not that new.
Re: (Score:2)
Good strategies when playing Brasil (Score:4, Funny)
Did well in the first half (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Did well in the first half (Score:5, Funny)
Processing... (Score:4, Funny)
Strategy:
"Sorry lads, a few more bugs to work out! Lads? Nooooooo..."
Australia is playing very good (Score:5, Insightful)
They came from behind in their first game, and played "mano a mano" against Brasil today, and i would say they even played better. They had bad luck with the score.
I think they will win their next game against croacia and go to the next round.
So maybe this software is actually helping them
Re:Australia is playing very good (Score:5, Informative)
They are the only non-communist country to have a state subsidized Institute of sport which has no other goal but to "make our guys win". And they are doing a bloody good job at it across the board.
They make winning a matter of science in all sports. They run full hydrodynamic analysis on their swimmer performance using an approach not dissimilar to the one used to analyse results from a wind tunnel. They use thermal imaging, P-NMR on muscles during load to optimise pre-even training, etc. They have something like 200+ PhDs a year in sports related biochemistry, medicine, physiology and a few other related fields all working in that sports institute (sorry forgot the name).
Taken along with their other efforts software for pattern analysis on a football field does not strike me as odd. In fact, it would have been surprising if they did not do it.
Re:Australia is playing very good (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Australia is playing very good (Score:3, Interesting)
Not the only one.
Make one guess why Norway with its 4.5 million inhabitants and gulf-stream warmed climate is among the best (if not the best) winter-sports nations in the world :)
Re:Australia is playing very good (Score:5, Interesting)
The Americans have a state subsidized dept. of defense which has no other goal but to "make our guys win".
I do think Australians are a little parochial about sport, and I do wish that more australians would play than watch on TV. Australians are on average, quite unhealthy. I also wish more money would be spent on other research, but perhaps not at the expense of sports research. (Less money on defence instead?) I think the drive for being good at sport is perhaps a little bit of arrogance, we like to think we're better than average, but in fact we're pretty much on target for an economy of our size.
Disclosure: I trained at the AIS, and my nephew is currently training for the australian swim team.
Re:Australia is playing very good (Score:2)
Sorry but, from what I saw in the second part, they were quite bad even at catching the passed balls.
Re:Australia is playing very good (Score:5, Insightful)
I think their performance has more to do with managing to acquire the services of Guus Hiddink (a man who was coaching championship-winning teams in the 80s, when none of this modern technology was around).
Also their players have four more years of experience playing in Europe's top leagues which can't hurt.
2:0 (Score:3, Insightful)
Funny (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Funny (Score:2)
One experiment does not a scientific study make. And Brazil are nice guys. And they have Sepultura and Soulfly.
WTF!? Spoiler Alert, Mod Parent DOWN! (Score:5, Funny)
THANKS A HEAP
Re:Funny (Score:2)
So 0x2 the test maybe was succesfully.
Re:Funny (Score:2)
Re:Funny (Score:2)
Re:Funny (Score:2)
I'm sure it's not just Australia... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I'm sure it's not just Australia... (Score:3, Interesting)
3-0 down in the first half against Milan in the Champions League final.
3-1 down in the second half against West Ham in the FA Cup final.
Looks like the computer really helped prepare for those two games.
I hadn't heard that Benitez was a fan of any given software. I do know he's a thinker, a tactician, a man who prepares to minute detail. So it doesn't surprise me that he's open to using modern tools and techniques.
However, make no mistake: Neither game was won with computer software. Both gam
Flawed Technology (Score:3, Insightful)
NOT FAILED Tech -- more like pattern analysis (Score:3, Insightful)
Statistics have a fundamental flaw (Score:2, Interesting)
And finally, thanks to your comment, I have an opportunity to rant on my disbelief in statistics. Because, as seen today, Brazil won not because it was better on the field as the statistics and patterns might show. Brazil won due to their incredible luck. Not their technique, not their tactics. Australia had a more convincing game attitude th
Worse yet... (Score:5, Funny)
software (Score:3, Insightful)
So they are using software to search for patterns
big deal i think that the biggest strenght of that team lies in
the enormous barrel of talent and experience that their coach, the dutch Guus hiddinck has(NL)
He's the one that made Korea win against my all-time favorite Italia in the previous worldcup
He also coached a lot of big teams: Barcelona, Real madrid,
anyway it's nice to see them using software but don't ever think
that's the main reason they are performing so well for a relative rookie team
Anyway that's just my opinion as a belgian footballfan
Re:software (Score:2, Insightful)
Anyway I wanted Australia to draw the match, they deserved it. And Brazil thinks they can win any match just by showing their opponents the "Verdeamarelha" (Green-Yellow T Shirt) as if it were some kind of winning card.
We might not have won the world cup game... (Score:4, Informative)
I don't know how many different countries competed [ http://www.tzi.de/4legged/bin/view/Website/Teams2
The challenge is to program sony AIBO dogs. Every year the finalists' code is publically released so the bar rises every year. (since everyone can use the winners' ideas in their own submissions).
Brazil 2 x Australia 0 (Score:2, Redundant)
USA technology (Score:2, Funny)
-1 Offtopic, -1 Flamebait
Re:USA technology (Score:3, Interesting)
While the OP is modded as funny, there's actually a grain of truth here.
(Full disclosure: I work in this area. In Australia. For the AIS [ais.org.au]. I'm currently working on two software/firmware projects involving rowing and boxing, in fact.)
Let's suppose you're some researcher who has a new technology (picking an example at random from our group [abc.net.au]) that they want developed into something useful. Let's further suppose that it could have a number of applications. For example, let's suppose it could have uses in h
Like the old joke goes... (Score:5, Insightful)
So, yeah, computer analysis has been around for ages in many sports. Take the mega-infield shift teams put on for Big Papi, for example. Still doesn't help if the team doesn't have sufficient skill to use the information.
Software vs. Brazil? (Score:5, Interesting)
Nobody would normally expect the "Socceroos", a team of mediocre skills to be able to compete with Brazil. They are totally outmanned respect in every respect, talent, culture, skill and tradition. The evaluation of this softwware needs to be done at a different level, looking at its predictions and result. And more likely the predictions should be made examining a different data set than what a match against Brazil would provide.
Re:Software vs. Brazil? (Score:2)
There's no soccer team that belong to the top that don't have a ton of imagination, individual skill, and versatility in their team to be able to efficiently play many sorts of different tactics. If a computer
Germany vs. Greece (Score:4, Funny)
The sketch depicted a football match between philosophers representing Greece and Germany, including Plato, Socrates and Aristotle on the Greek team, and Heidegger, Marx and Nietzsche on the German team. Instead of playing, the philosophers competed by thinking while walking on the pitch in circles. This left Franz Beckenbauer, the sole genuine footballer on the pitch (and a "surprise inclusion" in the German team, according to the commentary), more than a little confused. Confucius was the referee and Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine were the linesmen."
I forget who finally "gets it" and does a goal rush. Very funny sketch, what with the announcer enthusiastically describing what is basically nothing happening.
See also http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~ebarnes/python/internat
great (Score:2, Funny)
Re:2-0 for that bull crap software (Score:3, Insightful)
Meanwhile, we who live in the real world can see a country that's an underdog of the football world trying a new idea to help tip the balance back their way a bit.
Stay in your little fantasy world
Re:2-0 for that bull crap software (Score:2, Redundant)
Let's compare:
On one hand
A long anonymous post on Slashdot rubbishing a new technological idea.
On the other:
The real-life decisions and actions of professional world-class coaches.
Every single time anyone ever does anything new, you can come to Slashdot and see a million reasons why it'll crash and burn. Dozens of nerds get to feel like kings for a day because they rubbished the actions of someone successful and a few of their peers agreed with them.
And it's complete and utter bullshit. How the fuck d
Re:2-0 for that bull crap software (Score:5, Funny)
Re:All that technology and soccer is still BORING! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:All that technology and soccer is still BORING! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:All that technology and soccer is still BORING! (Score:2)
It's "Football". While luck does play a part -as in any other game- football is not "random" by a large stretch.
Low scores don't have enough occurences to factor out coincidence. It is hard to see strategy and skill turn directly into scores (or lack of scores in the case of defense).
Sorry, but you're not looking enough then. Catch a tape of Argentina-Serbia to see the effect
Re:All that technology and soccer is still BORING! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:All that technology and soccer is still BORING! (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree partly. My intention was to mention both theories and strongly stating the one I think is right, for the reasons stated in the external link and all the information we have at hand. I don't think that makes me look like an idiot. I didn't hide any infor
Re:All that technology and soccer is still BORING! (Score:2)
Re:All that technology and soccer is still BORING! (Score:2)
Sure, because you said it. And I already know you take your sources seriously.
> Asociation football? Yeah, maybe you forgot that the game is played by teams, an association of players. And also the football clubs are named after that so? maybe I can't read between of the lines of what you're saying because English ain't my main language. Anyway, if I'm w
Re:All that technology and soccer is still BORING! (Score:4, Insightful)
Look at the olympics, the americans dominate them almost every time. Imagine if some larger percentage of those athletes played soccer instead?
Lucky for us, that's not the case, and we get to enjoy the world cup without having to be annoyed at the americans dominating yet another precious thing in the world
Re:All that technology and soccer is still BORING! (Score:2)
US league. There are over 250 million people to serve with matches, compared with the multitude of leagues in Europe. Football stars in Europe earn less than even ice hockey stars in the NHL do. However, I belive that would be the end of football as I care for it. As the USA gets more power in the football world, they would change the game to suit them better. Probably
Re:And they lost... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Today's game proved what really matters (Score:3, Insightful)
Tactically Australia were supreme today, Brazil's game was shut out almost entirely which is exactly what you'd expect if this software (combined with an excellent coach) was doing it's job. Brazil were permitted very few real opportunities to do what
Re:Software vs. Brasil (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly. The most effective way to beat the huge amount of programming, data entry and analysis of computers is to simply change behviour. Socceroos did well to keep up with the Brazilians, but Too-Fat Ronaldo was more assistance to them. When Brazil finally bench The Fat One and start Robinho in his place, it's all smooth sailing.