World Cup Corprolalia

By: T.R. Slyder, TRSlyder@yahoo.com, @AndyDisco on Twitter


- It seems like the 2010 World Cup is becoming a lot like the NCAA men's basketball tournament has been lately. Since kids are leaving college ball increasingly early, the smaller schools have pulled a lot more upsets. The reason is that the smaller schools graduate more of their players and that team is likely to have a cohesive team that is battle tested, has veteran leadership and oftentimes, has played together for a few years. When it comes to crunch time, the battle-tested, savvy veteran teams seem to be doing better against the favored, high-flying youngsters. It seems as though team cohesiveness really does count for something.

England's poor 2010 World Cup showing supports this theory. Algeria had no business tying them, but they did. One reason for England's slump is that they haven't played together. They're basically an all-star team and are playing against actual teams- albeit, teams that are less talented (so far). No professional soccer players play more games in a given year than English Premier League players. All of that club ball is cutting into National Team practices, film sessions, etc. A similar case could be made for France and Spain as well.

The upsets that have taken place have all benefited cohesive teams who lack multiple premier league players with club ball obligations, and victimized the teams with the most marquee talent.


- An investigation should be undertaken to look into how the referee in the U.S. vs. Solvenia screwed up as badly as he did. It looked like he had an interest in keeping the goal total low.

- I'm standing by Germany despite their wonky loss today. Miro Klose getting sent off like 10 minutes into the game kind of tinkled on their offense. So the kids got a baptism by fire and played on their own (kinda poorly). Michael Ballack would have helped there.


- England looks humiliatingly bad.

- One team has a dude named Shabalala. I really hope a racehorse gets named after him sometime soon because I would be way-too-interested in hearing Tom Durkin give him a stretch call.

- Mesut Ozil looks like Peter Lorre.

- Brazil's coach's name is Dunga and they have a player named Kaka. If fecal sounding names is a good thing, Brazil is a shoe-in to win the world cup.

- Is the tradition of holding hands with kids before the game really necessary? When did this tradition start? and why? and Whose idea was it? Unless they're Make-A-Wish kids, it's just odd.


- The announcer with the Scottish accent is just too hard to understand. Furthermore, two accented dudes in the booth can be a bit much. A jingoist, I am not, but it just takes more energy to decipher them and I'd rather focus that energy on watching.

- Despite England's struggles, I like their chances on Wednesday. The reason is that they're playing at Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium. Why is that significant? Because you can't spell "Mandelay" without the "Mandela". That link may be NSFW. It's for Mandelay cream (Man delay cream) that is the featured "male genital desensitizer" at stayerect.com.

- I have learned a bit about the world from the world cup. I didn't know a few of these countries existed. Like, North Career, South Career, and South Africker,

- This English team might be wussiest English sporting entity since Tim Henman's annual Wimbledon collapse in the semis or quarters after getting all of England wussydom's hopes up because he beat a lower-seeded player and this could be his year! The first Englishman to win Wimbledon since Moses's dad did it. I love it when a stereotype comes together.

UPDATE:

I thought of two more.

-Did U2 sponsor this World Cup or something? Enough of them already. It's bad enough they seem to do the Super Bowl every 3 years. And the Grammys. And any aid/relief telethons. Just enough. Not them. Not now.

-A while ago Jeff Van Gundy told a story about watching Rasheed Wallace during practice. During the scrimmage a foul was called on Wallace which he vehemently denied doing. Being a shooting a foul, the fouled player went to the free throw line and missed his first free three throw. Wallace then turned to the ref and said, "Ball don't lie." As if to imply that the ball refused to go in on an unjust call.

Well considering how France got into the World Cup and how they are doing now, I have to agree with Rasheed. Ball don't lie.

-THIS is bad as hell!!! I will tell you how it works, since it took me a minute to figure it out. You highlight the bubble to see which game the dot represents. (for this example I recommend going to Germany's 4-0 win over Australia on the bottom left). So you click on it and it takes you to a streaming twitter stream/feed kinda thing. Scroll down so you can see the moving time bar along the bottom to see which part of the game is being highlighted. The bigger the world bubble, the more mentions on Twitter that topic has had. So you can see the explosion of activity during goals.

That is a really, really cool concept.








That's how I roll.

Is Boston Contagious?

By: T.R. Slyder, TRSlyder@yahoo.com, @AndyDisco on Twitter


You know Boston's two most famous sports chants are not pro-Boston, but are instead anti-opponent- "Yankees Suck!" and "Beat LA!"?

I was thinking about that during the US World Cup game when I heard the chants of "U-S-A! U-S-A!" and I wondered if we follow the Bostonian precedent it will only be a few years before we start chanting "Mexico Sucks!" instead of "U-S-A! U-S-A!"






That's how I roll.

Shots on Goal

By: T.R. Slyder, TRSlyder@yahoo.com, @AndyDisco on Twitter


I know this has been a low scoring World Cup, but what I'd like to know is if fewer shots on goal have been attempted? I have seen about 7 actual saves from goalkeepers so far, and I've seen at least 8938378940043908233737363 shots that were at least 2 yards wide of the goal and never had a chance of going in. When a team is down by a goal late in the game and they have an scoring opportunity, it baffles me when a player's shot misses high and wide by 15 yards despite the shot being taken from about 10 yards out.

With seemingly half of the goals we HAVE seen have been soft goals let in via goalkeeping bluders, I don't understand why more shots are not on goal.

Apparently losing is preferable to benefiting from a garbage goal.




That's how I roll.

How do you say, "I'm Wearing My Predictin' Pants" In German?

By: T.R. Slyder, TRSlyder@yahoo.com, @AndyDisco on Twitter


I'm picking Germany to win the World Cup.


They were my longshot pick before Michael Ballack got injured, then I soured on them when I heard Ballack was gone. Like many, I assumed that since Ballack was so good, the team couldn't replace him and would be much worse off without him. Then while watching Germany play against Australia (keeping mind that Australia is pretty terrible) I learned that the German youngsters had won the u16, u18 and u20 world cups. Now that class was in the world cup for the first time- Thomas Mueller, Mesut Ozil and Marko Marin, et al. and appear ready for the big stage. Being that they're youngsters the pressure isn't on them as much as it may be on Miroslav Klose, and the now-with-expectations Luaks Podolski and Bastian Schweinsteiger, who all appear primed and ready to make another deep World Cup run.

I tried to take into account how weak Australia was and how liking Germany after that game was like taking North Carolina in the NCAA tournament because they somehow managed to blowout 16th-seeded Rider, but I couldn't be talked off of Germany. What I impressed me most about Germany compared to the other World Cup favorites I watched was the calm that Germany felt in their opposition's zone. When the other teams would advance the ball deep in the zone, they start to speed up their game and rush things- kinda like a fish tank when you drain out 2/3s of the water and the fish swim faster and more frantically. But Germany was different- they looked just as calm, confident and composed as when they're sharing the ball at midfield. It reminded me of one of the tests psychologists use to evaluate a serial killer. While exposed to footage of a murder, a serial killer will show no elevation in heart rate: a murder scene doesn't faze them. It's just another part of life- you pick up a newspaper, you make a sandwich, tie your shoes, and murder some people. No big deal. I saw some of that in the German squad- dribbling in their zone, passing at midfield, or passing deep in enemy territory- they all looked equally collected and panic-free.

Spain is too wussy for me- they lost to us last summer for God's sake.
Brazil is strong as ever, but they're trying out a new brand of ball that I think is just going to be too much of a challenge for them to win. They will be dangerous as always, though.
Argentina is probably my second choice, but I think they will find a way to screw something up before their time in South Africa is over.
The Netherlands and England will have to show me a LOT if I am going to take them seriously in the world cup.













That's how I roll.

Good Article on Daley's TIF Policy Harming Teachers

By: T.R. Slyder, TRSlyder@yahoo.com, @AndyDisco on Twitter



http://www.progressillinois.com/posts/content/2010/06/16/chicago-teachers-increasingly-complaining-about-tif






That's how I roll.

Bill Simmons Being a Little Irregular

By: T.R. Slyder, TRSlyder@yahoo.com, @AndyDisco on Twitter


The top tweet was posted in early December, I think. The contradictory chat post was from last night (6/15/10) from Bill Simmon's NBA Finals chat cast thingy.




I hope no one asks for his daughter's life, but that does seem like an about-face from his previous policy. Or was that his grand coming out? It be like if Jake Gyllenhaal just went out on a date with a dude and when the paparazzi catch him he just shrugs and is like, "Well.....yeah. Did you really think I was straight? Do you really CARE that I'm gay? Ok then." Then went back to eating his dinner on his date?









That's how I roll.

Bad Day for Jesusophiles

By: T.R. Slyder, TRSlyder@yahoo.com, @AndyDisco on Twitter


A Hallmark-level, yet successful painter and crazed Christian, Thomas Kinkade did some stinko drivin. If Jesus is so good why does your art suck and why did you just get popped for endangering lives if you love him so much? Weird. It's almost like he's unintelligent.

$700,000 damage was done to Jesus in Monroe, Ohio. Jesus was struck down by lightning. Maybe a dyslexic somewhere said, "May I strike God down with lightning! Wait, I meant may God strike ME down!", but it was too late.


Better luck next week, Jesus.



P.S. Have you ever been so drunk that you have heckled Siegfried and Roy? Thomas Kinkade has.





That's how I roll.

Looking for a way to Humiliate Your Horse? Have it Race Goldikova

By: T.R. Slyder, TRSlyder@yahoo.com, @AndyDisco on Twitter


Goldikova, the European version of Zenyatta or Rachel Alexandra kicked more male horse hiney today in England in the Group 1 Queen Anne Stakes.




With her being a miler and Zenyatta and Rachel preferring more of a Classic Distance, I wish they could compromise and race in a 1 1/16th or 1 1/8th race, kinda like how Donovan Bailey and Michael Johnson raced in that 150 meter race.

I digressed, though. The point is Goldikova is awesome.







That's how I roll.

One Metric to Determine Best World Cup Betting Value

By: T.R. Slyder, TRSlyder@yahoo.com, @AndyDisco on Twitter

I combined easyodds.com's aggregator for the (betting) odds of each team to win the 2010 World Cup with Nate Silver's world cup (winning) odds to arrive at, given these two sets of data, the dollar amount that a person can "expect" to win with each bet.

What the numbers really tell us is that, for Spain, if it wins you would win $450 on a $100 bet (100 X 3.5 odds + the 100 back that you bet = 450). In combination with Silver's win percentage, that means that you have a 14.85% chance of winning $450. When you do the math, you get an expected return of $66.83 on a $100 bet.

In a sense it's like in Fletch when Chevy Chase says something like, "there's a 50/50 chance of survival. But there's only a 10% chance of that happening.".

So here's the breakdown. I went with only the top 9 teams in descending order of betting odds favoritism. I show their odds, their win payout, then the win %age as predicted by Nate Silver

Country- Gambling odds= (Payout if they win)- Silver's Win %age = Payout * %age


Spain- 3.5/1= ($450) 14.85%= $66.83
Brazil- 4.5/1= ($550) 22.39% = $123.15
Argentina- 6/1 ($700) 10.35%= $72.45
Holland- 8/1 ($900) 10.03%= $90.27
England- 8/1 ($900) 8.18% = $73.62
Germany- 9/1 ($1,000) 4.11% = $41.10
Italy- 16/1 ($1,700) 1.86%= $31.62
France- 25/1 ($2,600) 1.51%= $39.26
Portugal- 25/1 ($2,600) 3.54% $92.04


The single biggest explanation for this is that Nate Silver gives Brazil a huge relative chance (22.39%) of winning the World Cup, over the next likely candidate, Spain at 14.85%- or about 33% more likely. So by Silver's metric, Brazil is a clear favorite, but the betting odds have them listed as a slight second favorite.

We all know that a chain is only as strong as it's weakest link and, some of Silver's win percentages seem questionable (is Brazil really 5 times more likely to win than Germany? or .33 more likely than Spain?), but again, I wasn't claiming to personally swear by all of this data, I'm just saying, "Hey, I did this and thought you might be interested.".


A Few Clarifications for Gambling Rookies

You may be asking what the difference is between betting odds and win odds, since after all, the betting odds are the odds to win it all. The difference is that Silver's win odds, are (his interpretation of) the objective odds to actually win it. The betting odds at various betting sites, are generally an accurate reflection of the probability of winning, but are ultimately designed to entice betting. They are running a business after all.

To help illustrate the difference between the two, consider a hypothetical: If me, you and 9 of our friends fielded a team in the world cup, we would have a 0% of winning (true odds), but the odds-makers would offer a bet on us anyway, just to entice betting, thereby making them money. They would give us odds of 750,000/1 (gambling odds), and gladly pocket the money that our friends bet on us, or people accidentally/drunkenly wager on us, knowing full well the odds of us winning is zero.

Now take that theoretical into a real life example. Instead of you, men and 9 friends, imagine you are in England selling bets to the English betting public. They know damn well English fans WANT to bet on England, regardless of the odds, thereby making it a seller's market. So if England really has a 10/1 chance to win, the oddsmakers want to sell odds at 8/1, since it's a seller's market. And if England does win, that will save them 20% of all payouts. However, the betting public can also shop around a little and take whoever gives the highest odds. This may give our sportsbook incentive to drop their odds to 9/1 in order to offer more value.

Most of the oddsmakers represented at easyodds.com are from England, so in this exercise, I'm not sure how close to true odds these sports books are because so much of their betting is hinged upon taking money on England.


Note: All of the odds used were current at the time of writing.




That's how I roll.

Lookalikes v 35.0- Mesut Ozil and Peter Lorre

By: T.R. Slyder, TRSlyder@yahoo.com, @AndyDisco on Twitter

Exciting German World Cup team member Mesut Ozil and Hollywood Legend from Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon, Peter Lorre, look a lot alike.























































































That's how I roll.