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ESPN Can Predict The Future.
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ESPN has taken more than their fair share of stick for their football/soccer coverage, and for good reason. They’re American (despite dubbing themselves The Global Leader) and, by and large, they do American sports well. Others: not so much.
But they’ve gone off-script with their latest venture, the Soccer Power Index, designed to render World Cup 2010 moot. Much like every other acronym in the sporting world, they’ve compiled a list of rankings designed to tell us the fairest in the land. Unlike the other rankings systems, they don’t want the answer to the here and now. No, they want the future.
And don’t we all.
Why rate the teams at all? Well, from my perspective, we do it not because we’re interested in the past, but because we’re interested in the future. The SPI ratings are intended to be forward-looking. They’re intended to be predictive; every variable in the SPI has been tuned to give you the best possible objective and statistical forecast of how a team will perform in South Africa.
It’s a novel idea, yet one ultimately doomed to failure as that is simply the nature of football rankings system.
The methodologies require a four year major in SoccerPowerIndexology and it wouldn’t be imprudent to sail into the doctorate program as well. But then no one said predicting the future would be easy.
So from this we can decipher…
- Brazil will win number 6, which most should be predicting anyway.
- Fabio Capello’s semifinal or bust ultimatum wasn’t so imprudent, what with Peter Crouch scoring a perfect hat trick in the Third Placed Game.
- Diego Maradona will be canned, resign or die from bloating in the next 8 months, as there’s no way in hell they’re making it to the quarters with him on the sidelines.
- Italy & France will get bounced in the Round of 16 and both will deny that South Africa 2010 ever happened, much like 2002.
- Bonus prediction: Raymond Domenech will keep his job.
- Croatia will nearly make it out of the group stages, despite not traveling to South Africa. Presumably based entirely on Slaven Bilic’s coolness.
- The only African team to make it to the knockouts will be, rather disappointingly, Cameroon, where they will not win a game.
- Home advantage is a myth. South Africa: 65th.
And all this makes the rankings both curious and brilliant, as they house a built-in mechanism which renders them near inarguable. Can you predict the future better than them? Are you the reincarnation of Nostradamus? Didn’t think so.
Well, there is one argument easily made: Guus Hiddink won’t win one in the knockouts with Russia?
Bullshit.
agree with everything nick said.
minor error: “The only African team to make it to the knockouts will be, rather disappointingly, Cameroon, where they will not win a game.” #11 cote d’ivoire
If Americans really thought predictive statistics and rankings like this were determinative, do you think we would be as sport-obsessed as we are? We like to assign probabilities, but we like it when those probabilities are defied even more.
If it weren’t for an obsession with statistics combined with sports, how else would baseball survive?
@mlyons – you have it right. the entire sport of college football is predicated upon a rankings system that is always inherently biased towards what people feel is about to happen. not to mention the preseason rankings of the teams – in what other sport are the teams actually organized in the standings BEFORE a single game has been played, and it actually matters?
Let’s use the ongoing FIFA Under 17 World Cup Nigeria 2009 as our case study.
On the bottom of http://malawi.worldcupblog.org/team-news/fifa-u-17-world-cup-nigeria-2009-final-group-standings.html post you will find a table for the Overall Team Standings after the end of Group matches. Brazil was on # 17.
On the http://malawi.worldcupblog.org/team-news/fifa-u-17-wc-nigeria-2009-sweet-sixteen-bracket.html post you will find the names of the teams that have made it to the Semi-Finals to take place tomorrow. Brazil, Germany, Argentina, Italy didn’t make it.
Switzerland (debutants) made it to the semis after beating Brazil, Germany, Italy and others.
FIFA Under 17 All Time Ranking: http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/fifafacts/mencompu17/51/98/45/fs-206_01e_u17.pdf
Switzerland not on the list because this was/is their first time to qualify for the FIFA Under 17 World Cup.
ESPN Can Predict The Future?
I agree with you Chris that “it’s a novel idea, yet one ultimately doomed to failure as that is simply the nature of football rankings system.”
¡Way to go Chile!
this is the same guy who runs baseball prospectus and 538.com. of course his numbers aren’t perfect but hes better at this sort of thing than most…or at least the most exposed guy that is better at this than most.
not to get nerdy defensive or anything but the guy pulling out random upset games would be called exceptions to the rule. i mean really no one is claiming that they’re able to predict the outcomes of single games…they’re predicting which teams will do the best based on past results.
Posted from 
United States
Uruguay? Enzo Francescoli is not walking through that door!
also i read a little bit more about, i havent read the whole primer…but it takes into account the form of players for their clubs then projects that into what they think the best possible lineup or i guess the most recent “best 11″ etc that the coach has been picking.
Posted from United States
“Brazil will win number 6, which most should be predicting anyway.”
I’m a Brazilian rooting for my team but I don’t believe this, no matter how often people say it. First, the winner of the Confed Cup never goes on to win the wc. Second, whenever Brazil are the favorites, THEY ALWAYS CRAP OUT. They generally win when there aren’t any expectations of them.
And third, while Brazil have certainly put together an excellent run of games, they’ve shown that they have a great deal of trouble against certain teams that demand more creativity and guile from the midfield than Brasil currently have. Relying on Kaka as the only true creative player in midfield is not always enuf. A 0-0 against Venezuela, going 2 down against the US in the first half of the Confed Cup final, struggling against Bolivia at home (not in La Paz) and other such examples shows this. An intelligent, experienced manager like Capello can exploit this. We saw the same problem in the U20 wc final in which very talented Brazilian kids simply could not get enuf creativity to get past Ghana’s strong defense (or be clinical enuf in front of goal).
Posted from United States
I beg to differ that they do American sports well; I subscribe to ESPN N. America to watch the NHL & their matchday coverage is abysmal! If they can’t do their own sports well; what hope do they have with football?
Also; the fact that they have EPL rights is a joke! The EC competition commission made Sky give up their monopoly but now you have to pay an extra £10 a month for ESPN as well- surely this makes a mockery of the whole reason for the “competition” commission!!?
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This system stems from the tendency of Americans to assign numbers and use and misuse maths in sports. Truth of the matter is there are a lot of significant uncontrollable factors which cannot be assigned a numerical value. These include team cohesion, tactical systems, the venue itself, and the referee. That’s what makes football so exciting. Indeed, such a numerical system precludes unthinkable events like the US beating England in 1950, Germany beating Hungary in 1954, or France’s being ousted in 2002. Besides who would enjoy watching a game with a predetermined result?