Comments on: ESPN Can Predict The Future.

By: Iain

Iain — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 18:13:39 +0000

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!!?

By: sandrahn

sandrahn — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:55:47 +0000

“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).

By: matt

matt — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 07:02:37 +0000

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.

By: Steve

Steve — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 06:15:21 +0000

Uruguay? Enzo Francescoli is not walking through that door!

By: matt

matt — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 04:44:06 +0000

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.

By: Johnny

Johnny — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 02:30:30 +0000

¡Way to go Chile!

By: sscouser

sscouser — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 02:27:51 +0000

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.”

By: vespo

vespo — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:35:51 +0000

@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?

By: Jim

Jim — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 23:00:42 +0000

If it weren’t for an obsession with statistics combined with sports, how else would baseball survive?

By: mlyons

mlyons — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:36:31 +0000

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.