Poor Ireland, Poor Me

Oh, Thierry. You are my favorite. So elegant, so fluid, so effortless. The game looks so easy when you play it. And you exude class. On the pitch, a leader and a player's player. And off the pitch, a spokesman for playing the game the right way, a figurehead in the fight against racism, clearly intelligent and thoughtful. So French, really, but in the good way: handsome, stylish, a cavalier attitude. Again, just plain classy. That is, of course, until now.

The scoreline says that Ireland lost this tie on aggregate, but I feel, quite selfishly, like the biggest loser here. My favorite soccer player of all time is the sports villain du jour, and Raymond Domenech remains gainfully employed (still, my God!). It's true that Ireland did themselves proud with that performance (they must be exhausted) and yet its impressiveness will be overstated and grow in memory thanks to Henry's Tony Parker imitation. That's how things work. The narrative is clear here, and soon all we remember are the headlines. The Irish were playing so well! (And yet they spurned their chances...) The French were folding! (But in extra time, they had what is 95% of the time called a penalty ignored...) AND THEN! Enter the villain. The ball was handled, the goal was scored, and the brave Irish wrongfully, horribly, sent home with nothing to show for their efforts. What's inside the parentheses will be long forgotten.

I am going to ramble now. Is it too much to ask that a player be completely honest in this situation? It may be. I don't know. Let's say that in the heat of the moment, Henry plays that ball with his hand and crosses it for Gallas to score. The French have been mostly outplayed throughout the game. They're going to be left out of THE WORLD F***ING CUP if they lose. How much flak from his countrymen does he take if he immediately runs over to the ref, holding his hand in the air, pointing to Gallas and says "disallow the goal, I handled the ball," and then France goes on to lose!? I honestly don't know. Of course, it's better if he never handles it at all, but as damning as the video evidence may be, nobody knows what's in his head. Is it better to be respected by the footballing community at large or loved, albeit secretly, by one's country? Because while the French fans and the French press can now play the role of the gracious, empathetic winner ("we always wanted to advance, but not like that - how shameful of Henry!"), you can bet they're much happier with this outcome than if the headlines were proclaiming one of the great soccer upsets in recent years. They're not the ones who will be waiting four more long years before a chance to compete at perhaps the world's greatest sporting event. I know that in a perfect world, Henry would have immediately run to the ref and told him to disallow the goal. And regardless of whether the ref listened, he would never have celebrated the way he did. We don't live in that world.

And now it's been admitted by the man himself. (Henry is far too smart to deny - he knows the camera sees everything.) But what does UEFA do about it? What does FIFA do? Hopefully, this gets video replay installed in these high-stakes matches and Platini's head out of his own glorious buttocks.

Oh, Thierry. All of this doesn't change the fact that for a number of years, you were the world's best pure goalscorer. And that you will be remembered as one of the all-time greats for both club and country. What it does mean, however, is that like Maradona, like Zidane, you get a big black stain on your record. Even Wenger couldn't bring himself to say it was you. He said "someone's hand" was responsible. If only it were just "someone." But now, when I say your name the listener (assuming he cares at all about soccer) will think two things: 1) what a player he is/was, and 2) what an cheat/fool/hothead (all three for Maradona, plus cokehead). That second part makes me sad. When I wear the jersey that has your name on it, will random people (some not even Arsenal supporters) still give me smiles and a thumbs up? I don't know if I even want them to. Alas, another hero lost...

Why I've Been Absent

Juan called me out the other day, and it's totally true: I've been nothing but a big fat dead carcass when it comes to this blog. I'm the Lucas to his Gerrard, the Diaby to his Fabregas. His shoulders should ache from carrying me on his back, and his lungs must hurt from all the disappointed sighs he must emit when he opens this blog and finds that SURPRISE! I have haven't added a single thing to it.

So let me go ahead and give the reasons why I've been absent, in no particular order.

1) I'm scared to jinx things. And by "things," I mean "Arsenal." Because I haven't felt this good about the team since the beginning of the 2007-2008 season. And before that (dare I say it?): 2004. I love the way they're playing: I love the swagger, I love the focus, I love how Vermaelen looks like evil Jude Law, I love the minimalist Fabregas goal-celebrations (taking a page out of Mr. Henry's book, of course, but then cutting loose for the one against Spurs, which I also love), I love Arsene trying to keep the team off everyone's radar, I love Gallas burying his crazy and performing like the world class defender he obviously thinks he is, I love the squad depth, and most of all, I love the football. Arsene says that soccer can be art, and if that's true, we're painting Picasso's on an almost weekly basis. So yeah, I didn't want to jinx any of that.

2) The Serie A is simply failing to capture my attention. In every single way. And maybe that's not fair, but let's see: Roma is pretty awful, Inter is winning the league despite not looking all that dominant, Juve are chasing, Fiorentina and Milan are in the mix. Are we sure they're not just rerunning last season and changing the names of the relegated teams for TV purposes? Juan, I'm relying on you to explain to me why I should care about a league that is falling behind the other two in the Big Three (and David Trezeguet's infectious smile after scoring goals is not a legitimate reason, though it is totally awesome). What (and who) should I be watching? Pato? Gilardino? Juve, after their big win over Atalanta? I need guidance here.

3) I'm waiting to see if Real Madrid's Galacticos will get worse. Because when they hit rock bottom (if this wasn't it, already), that's when I'll devote an entire page of this blog to my cackling, gleeful rants about how and why that team will never win anything.

4) The Pub. Instead of watching matches at home (or when I was employed, at work, but I'd never do that obviously) and then being able to immediately blog about it, I've been spending too much time at the Amsterdam Tavern. When I come home, fat and happy, full of donuts and Guinness (properly poured) for breakfast, all I want to do is take a nap. And when I wake, I've forgotten all the astute observations that I made about the games when I was watching. Things like "OHH WHY DIDN'T HE PASS THAT?" or "OHHHH! OHHHHH! THAT'S A F---ING AMAZING GOAL!" These are the kind of observations, yelled at a decibel level only reached with the assistance of alcohol, with bits of blueberry cake donut sputtering from my mouth, that make me such a respected and valued customer at the Amsterdam Tavern.

Yeah, that's about it. But to conclude: I will be posting more. I'm like Adebayor - just when you think you hate me and I'm worthless, I'll go on a phenomenal scoring run. (But inevitably, after I've convinced you that I'm a world class striker, I'll go back to being useless and in fact quite easy to hate.) Right.

Liverpool 2, Birmingham 2

This is just funny:



Also, I've got bad news here at TLOCA. The lack of recent posts has been due to a severe illness and subsequent death of fellow contributor James "Lucas" Stanley. He will be missed.

Welcome Back David Trezeguet

He's been back since September 12th but yesterday, with his late goal against Genoa, he debuted his trademark joy (pictured).


Juventus 2, Tasty Salami 2

The match started off with a bang after Camorenesi dummied a cross to an overlapping Vincenzo who struck well from outside the box. It was the type of play that pays homage to The Beautiful Game and its always nice to see Iaquinta on the score sheet. What was set out to be a trap game was on pace to end 15-nil and I thought, "what a shame to watch a record-setting match on a grainy, small, frustrating feed."

If you didn't know, Juventus made some very relevant transfers this off-season and while Diego, Felipe Melo, and Cannavaro may steal the headlines, the best one of them all was the acquisition of Fabio Grosso from Lyon. He needs no introduction, of course, but it is worth noting that he replaced my arch-rival and nemesis-till-death, Molinaro. And if you're not that familiar with Juventus, that's like replacing Nicklas Bendtner with Fernando Torres.

Before I forget, another hilariously pleasing signing resulted in Uruguayan Martin Caceres joining the Old Lady - seen here about to carefully end another man's career. The website mentions a tradition of Uruguayan players joining Juventus and at first I thought that pretty awesome until I realized these are the men responsible for my impending nervous breakdown. Caceres is only 22 and yes, he is a very promising Uruguayan defender. Which is to say, he's extremely rare. Here's to wishing him a long and prosperous career at La Juve and more importantly, la Selecion.

In fact, Uruguayan nationals keep popping up all over the place lately. I watched the Real Madrid v Villareal match just the other day and who do I see but two Uruguayans, Eguren and Diego Godin. The best part about that video is that Carlos Tevez, who's knows Godin well, gives him a cheap shot and it's Eguren that confronts him with a sarcastic, he's not really hurt but you're the exact same asshole I remember you as, lecture. Anyway, moving right along.

It's after half-time at this point, all knotted up at 1's. Juventus lacks the final pass during attacking plays to lead to any relevant chances on goal. When Juventus struggles it's because the midfielders play long-balls over the top rather than use the fullbacks for a slower build-up. It sort of comes with the territory in the Serie A. Not soon after a seemingly innocuous run down the sideline for the Cured Meat suddenly turns malicious and a header is smashed home near post. I'm listening to the Italian announcers and could have sworn I heard the name Crespo.

This sends me scrambling to Gamecast, that pathetic excuse for following a game and I see H. Crespo has apparently scored. No, now I know I'm crazy. Hernan Crespo? Yes, it is. The man who could never quite fill the shoes of Gabriel Batitusta (could anyone) is on loan at Genoa. Not only that, he just put them ahead. Daggers - 76'.

Then Iaquinta scores - disallowed dubiously for offsides. Then Chiellini scores - disallowed dubiously for offsides. Am I witnessing a scandal? The replay shows Trezeguet, who flicked it up for Giorgio, onside by a full two yards. What's going on here?

I'm irate until, yep, David Trezeguet scores the equilizer and follows up with his spot-on impression of the happiest man on earth. The smile is contagious and just like that I'm ok with 1 point.

Welcome back David. I've missed you.
(actual game photo -->)

Pandora's Box

"Impelled by her natural curiosity, Pandora opened the jar, and all evil contained escaped and spread over the earth. She hastened to close the lid, but the whole contents of the jar had escaped, except for one thing which lay at the bottom, and that was Hope."
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Uruguay
at Ecuador
vs Argentina

Best Case Scenario: Somehow after losing to Peru, Uruguay still has control over their own fate. Colombia was a must win and they did; which is the only reason they're in this post at all. If they win out they could finish as high as third, which is so silly I don't even smile when I think about what they've put me through. Goal differential gives them the tie-break over everyone still chasing and two wins will see them auto-qualifying.

How They Can Back In: A draw to Ecuador and a win against Argentina still puts them through assuming that neither Venezuela, nor Colombia win their remaining two games. Venezuela has Paraguay and Brasil, and Colombia has a desperate Chile - who still need 1 point to clinch - and Paraguay. This scenario would also eliminate Argentina and the entire population of Montevideo would die with delight. Actually die of happiness. It would also effectively ruin any flicker of bilateralism remaining between the two nations.

What Can't Happen: So long as Venezuela, Argentina, or Colombia keeps winning they must follow suit.

Portugal
vs Hungary
vs Malta

Best Case Scenario: Portugal, on the other hand, does not control their own destiny. They must win their next two and require that Sweden acquire no more than 4 points in their remaining two against Denmark and Albania. They also need to win one of their remaining two games by more goals than Sweden wins it's lone game to beat the tiebreak. Remember that all of this is to finish 2nd with the opportunity to continue qualifying.

How They Can Back In: Sweden must lose out and Portugal can draw their remaining two games to overtake the Swedes on differential. Not exactly likely with Albania on the schedule.

What Can't Happen: Realistically they must win-out and hope that Denmark beats Sweden. Sweden's magic number is 4.

Israel
vs Moldova
at Switzerland

Best Case Scenario: Israel must win out and Greece and Latvia must both lose 1 of their remaining two games. They play each other so that's unlikely considering Luxemborg and Moldova are their other two opponents.

How They Can Back In: Greece and Latvia draw in their match, and neither squad wins by more goals in their last games than Israel wins in its two combined game. That puts Israel in second on goal differential.

What Can't Happen: Israel cannot lose because at least 1 point will be disseminated between Latvia and Greece since they play each other.

Turkey
at Belgium
vs Armenia

What Can't Happen: It's bleak for the Turks, hence my skipping of the other sections. The reason is because Bosnia cannot win either of it's two games, nor cannot it draw both games (because of GD). Bosnia has Estonia and Spain left on the schedule so it's not completely crazy. Again, hope is the agenda here. Obviously Turkey must win out and it wouldn't hurt to accumulate an 11 goal margin to win the tiebreak either, otherwise known as the song, Turkey feat. Memphis Bleek

France
vs Faroe Islands
vs Austria

Best Case Scenario: Raymond Domenech gets struck by a bus before October 10th

How They Can Back In: Serbia earns no more than 1 point against Romania and Lithuania along with France winning their remaining two by a margin of 9 goals.

What Can't Happen: If Serbia wins any of its next two, ladies and gentleman they will have automatically qualified for the world cup. Also, if somehow France only draws (or less) it's remaining two and Austria wins out, France is gone.

Egypt
at Zambia
vs Algeria

Practically all of Africa is still up for grabs but the Egyptians, a squad I think could do some things in the World Cup, is down 3 points to Algeria and needs some help.

_____________________

As I watched Andres Scotti's improbable, looping, momentum-defying header slowly bounce across the line to give Uruguay a 2-1 lead over Columbia I couldn't help but wonder about that feeling - hope. "Hope," by its definition contains an irrational element to it. Now, with this two year qualifying campaign coming to an end, I've wondered about the Greek mythology of Pandora's box. We all know the story; it was opened releasing evil and despair on the world but it also released Hope. What this terrible qualifying campaign has made me wonder about is the word, "but" in the previous sentence. Why is there this universal understanding that Hope is not just as evil as the other things released from the box? Why do we assume Hope is a good thing? And why would do we seem to take for granted that Hope is the countermeasure to the other evil qualities. It's a ludicrous notion and I've come to realize this after Uruguay ropes me back in for another month of this interminable qualifying horror story.

October 10th and 14th - those are the dates when this will all finally end and I can once again find solace in the facts, regardless of the outcome. I've gained a new appreciation for reality and it seems to me that the story of Pandora's box is a hilarious double entendre that we've all been missing for the last hundreds of years.

Ha.

Fun With Statistics Part 1 - Relegation

Welcome to the first installment of Fun With Statistics. In this post TLOCA will examine the unique system of relegation. Does the system work? Let's take a look.

Since the year 2000, the following point totals have been relegated from the Premiership to the Football League Championship, formerly the First Division. Starting from the campaign that ended in 2000:

24, 31, 33, 26 ,34, 34, 28, 30, 36, 19, 26, 42, 33, 33, 33, 33, 33, 32, 34, 30, 15, 38, 34, 28, 36, 35, 11, 34, 32, 32

It's approximately a normal distribution and without Derby (2008 - 11 points) the distribution fits a bell curve even better.



Perhaps the data are skewed to the left* but that is understandable when you consider how payrolls are also heavily skewed to the left. I digress, as payroll stats is a topic for another day.

So with a reasonably normal distribution we can use the standard deviation to tell us if relegated teams are statistically different from those that remain in the top flight.

If you know a little bit about stats then enjoy, otherwise just skip to the punch-line below;

let y = relegation points
and we'll model them with N(30.6, 6.49)

Using a 95% confidence interval, which is to say, we're 95% confident a particular relegation score is between two values based on the numbers, we get

30.6 points plus/minus 3.4 points, or , an interval of (27.2 - 34.0) points**.

Does the system work? If the system works then the three worst point-totals are justifiably being relegated each year. We only care about the upper limit - 34 points - and how many times a team has been relegated when earning more than 34 points. If you glance at the data;

24, 31, 33, 26 ,34, 34, 28, 30, 36, 19, 26, 42, 33, 33, 33, 33, 33, 32, 34, 30, 15, 38, 34, 28, 36, 35, 11, 34, 32, 32

you'll see it happens quite a bit. The question though, can be asked in a better way. How many times was a team not relegated when earning 34 points or less. Even if West Ham several years ago was relegated with 42 points, which they were, they were still one of the worst 3 point-total teams that year. The system works on a relative basis, sending down the 3 worst teams relative to the others. That happened to be a year of high parity near the bottom, so sorry West Ham.
The key then is to find those teams that are no different (well, 95% confident that they're no different) from relegation teams in the past but still managed to stay in the Gloryship.

This has happened only once in the past 10 years. In 2005, West Brom was not relegated but only earned 34 points. So in essence, 4 teams should have been relegated that year, not 3. But hey, one in thirty ain't bad.




Next up - Promotion


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*I know intuitively the data look skewed to the right. Statisticians for some silly reason have accepted the fact that skewed to the "left" means the "hump" is on the right side. ...I don't like it either.

**I took out the outliers, Derby, Sunderland, etc, and the average with interval still rounds to 34 points. I even took out the top 3 and bottom 3 point totals and the point total is still 34 points. Rounding in this case is OK because a team must earn an integer value for points.

What We Knew, Didn't Know and This Weekend

I was 90 seconds away from calling the Chelsea v. Hull City fiasco. I had even parlayed my Hull prediction into a full post from Jim with the title, "why Juan is smarter than me." Drogba left me with nothing instead. Damn you Didier.

Then Hull went and got worked over by Tottenham, more on them later, making my top table prediction a foolhardy one. Fear not Hull-ites, only 2 of your next 12 games are against top 6 teams (from last year of course). That's partly why I predicted you'd get off to a hot start, but hey, I'm just a crazy asshole anyway right! (sigh. so bitter...)


What we knew;

• Michael Owens does in fact, suck. Moreover, United's woes in front of goal is no fluke. Their goal totals in the Premiership over the last three championship years are in decline - 83, 80, and 68 last year. This is with Cristiano, of course, and he's kind of a goal-scorer. This year they're on pace for 19! Arsenal, on the other hand, is on pace for 190. This analysis makes it clear that United will struggle this year and Arsenal will break every record imagineable. Annnnnnd... done.

• TLOCA is a bit pessimistic when it comes to Arsenal. I'll come down off the ledge if we get three from a starving Portsmouth team this weekend and I'll buy you a drink if we beat United in 2 weeks. Until then, I'm enjoying the breeze up here.

• Chelsea is really annoying. FFLampard hasn't even gotten going yet.

• Adebayor loves money.

What we didn't know

• That Arsenal's Denilson and Song have been doing work in the offseason. I would have thrown Bendtner in there as well but he played as himself against Celtic. Arsenal's successes this year have come without key contributors; Arshavin has been solid but stymied in the final third and the same goes for Van Persie. Fabregas has clearly stepped up to the challenge but he tends to get off to hot starts. The EPL has and always will be about depth and the final half of the season so let's not crown Arsenal yet.
  
  
• Tottenham looks very crisp. They've created 50 scoring chances in two games and look unfortunately fluid in attack mode. Aaron Lennon looks like he's made a jump and so does Jermaine Defoe. I don't like this one bit.
  
  
• That Birmingham and Burnley would look so frisky. Birmingham surprised me with their poise and build-up against United in their 1 nil loss and Burnley did the unthinkable just a few days ago. The confounder here is that they both looked good against United so we'll have to wait a few more games to absolve them of relegation talks.
  
  
• There have been 16 games played thus far and none of them have ended in a draw. Last year, 26.3% of matches ended a draw. That's kind of weird**, no?

This weekend;

Arsenal vs. Portsmouth - No points in two games and the schedule doesn't get easier for the Mouth. They have Citeh, Bolton, Aston Villa, Everton, Wolves, Tottenham coming up - all losable games. Ouch.

Birmingham vs. Stoke - The friskies collide to see who will be crowned most frisky.

Citeh vs. Wolves - The more we all see Manchester City, the better.

Wigan vs. ManUtd - a must-win this early in the season? More on this in a future post.

Liverpool vs Aston Villa (monday) - my guess is we'll leave with no further answers about either team but thoroughly entertained.





Until then

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**In fact, the probability of 16 games all ending with a win/loss result is .0076, or, under 1 in a 100 chance. 1 in 128 to be exact.