Comments on: An amazing result

By: Another Damned Medievalist

Another Damned Medievalist — Wed, 07 Jul 2004 01:10:22 +0000

What is with you people? Seriously, there seems to be a real lack of understanding of the nature of football here, IMO. Like, “it’s a funny ol’ game, innit?” There have been and will always be many times when the “better” team loses to a “lucky” goal. After all—how many times have England played great games, made plenty of chances, and then gone out on penalties? But chances, although they may be really exciting, don’t count unless they’re put away. So if a team plays deft, exciting football, creates lots of chances, but lets through a goal to a less imaginative team who play at a consistent, yet not so entertaining level, who’s better? Greece beat Portugal twice in the same tournament. I thought the Czechs should have gone through, but they didn’t, despite playing some of the most beautiful football I’ve seen for ages. Holland had one of their best showings in a long while. Sorry to rant, but justice and football have little to do with each other—Urs Meier’s performance proves that! Sometimes really good teams get hit be a bunch of injuries. Sometimes, the hardworking underdogs win—but more credit to them. No one seems to have noticed that the Greeks have done amazingly well just to get to the finals and then out of the groups. It can’t all have been luck. Oh—and the game doesn’t need more goals. I’ve seen 0-0 draws that were as exciting as 5-4 nailbiters. It’s the chances and the saves that give the excitement factor, not whether there are lots of goals.

By: Yann

Yann — Tue, 06 Jul 2004 21:27:06 +0000

Reuben, One final point… Sports pundits earn their salaries conducting post mortems. Had Portugal scored in the 65th minute and gone on to protect their lead, the sports pages would be filled with stories explaining how the “better” team won (and how Greece had run out of miracles). Or something along those lines. They are terrible at foresight and terrific at hindsight. Were football matches decided entirely by a single coin toss, they would still fill entire columns explaining why heads won on this day and tails lost. All of which is to say that while I enjoy reading (some) sports writers I would hardly put much stock in their “explanations”.

By: reuben

reuben — Tue, 06 Jul 2004 21:02:23 +0000

No, I wouldn’t bet my house on Greece. But I do think they outplayed Portugal, and that seems to be an opinion shared by most of the UK’s sportswriters and television pundits. Here are a few examples: Guardian: http://football.guardian.co.uk/euro2004/comment/story/0,14584,1254916,00.html Guardian again: http://football.guardian.co.uk/euro2004/matchreport/story/0,14583,1254186,00.html Times: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13750-1169303,00.html BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/euro_2004/3866041.stm BBC again: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/euro_2004/3865353.stm The Independent: http://sport.independent.co.uk/football/internationals/story.jsp?story=538463 The Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2004/07/06/sfnhan06.xml&sSheet=/sport/2004/07/07/ixfooty.html And again from the Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2004/07/05/sfgpor05.xml Note that in at least the final article, the writer laments the effect Greece had on the games they played (much as Williestyle has done), but believes that the Greeks outfoxed and outplayed the Portuguese. I would be interested in seeing a selection of articles stating that that Portugal outplayed Greece. (Disclaimer: I don’t read POrtuguese.) And finally, just one snippet from that first Telegraph article, because I was so impressed by the incident he references: “Let’s go back to a Portugal free-kick 10 minutes from time on Sunday night. Deco and Luis Figo were standing over the ball and the atmosphere in the stadium was tense. The pressure was starting to tell on Greece as they defended their lead, and perhaps in the past it might have caused them to lose their shape or forget the defensive principles that had been drilled into them. “Not this time. The line of Greek defenders was too deep and to solve the problem Stelios Giannakopoulos called them out. When that didn’t work the midfielder walked behind his team-mates and physically pushed them away from their own goal. As they pressed out they took the Portugal players with them and did not concede any space in the penalty area. The resulting cross was harmless.” Anyway, it’s been a fun debate and we’ll agree to disagree. Talk to you next season. Cheers

By: Yann

Yann — Tue, 06 Jul 2004 20:31:40 +0000

Reuben, Yes, Greece won. But I saw the match just as well as you did. Portugal’s (“significant”) chances were far better than those of Greece and they had a lot more of them. I.e. (see my tape-of-the-match-minus-30-seconds argument above) they outplayed Greece. I’m not unhappy that Greece won. They were the plucky underdogs, they gave it their all, and it’s always nice to see a new national name on the cup/trophy. But please don’t try to convince me that on any other day, under similar circumstances, you would bet your house on Greece!

By: reuben

reuben — Tue, 06 Jul 2004 19:24:19 +0000

O’Toole You’re misinterpreting me. As I’ve said before, I don’t care if Greece’s victory is statistically meaningless. This is where you and I differ. Also, just because Portugal had more possession and more chances on goal doesn’t mean they outplayed Greece. Possession and chances are two of the key factors leading to victory, but there are others. Not just being lucky and/or good enough to be able to put the ball in the back of the net, but, for instance, what I would call significant possession and significant chances. Sure, Portugal had the ball a lot, but I would argue that for most of that time, Greece, with their phenomenal defence, were actually dictating play. Likewise, due to Greece’s brilliant marking and tackling, Portugal’s chances were almost invariably poor. Here’s a hypothetical for you: Let’s say Team A has 70% of the possession and manage to have 40 chances in a match. But let’s say Team B have a cross between Peter Schmiechel and Spiderman in goal, and he manages to save every shot. Is the fact that Team A doesn’t score down solely to luck? Statistically, it would appear that way; after all, with 40 chances, surely you should score eventually. But in my hypothetical, luck will play a role (not even my Spidey Schmiechel can stop everything) but the incredible skill of the goalkeeper plays a major role too. This is what Greece’s defence did. Re the luck of headers, didn’t Greece score on several set pieces during the tournament? You can argue that this was luck, and maybe it was. But maybe it was also discipline and brilliant planning, and maybe the reason other teams did so poorly on set pieces is due not jsut to bad luck but to insufficient practice or discipline. Just to take one example of the latter, did Holland give up that key header solely because of luck, or at least in part because Edgar Davids looked like he was leaning against a lamp post waiting for a nightbus? On the subject of luck, another thing I love about football is that we genuinely don’t know what percentage of Greece’s set piece success was down to luck and what was down to practice, skill, etc. The mystery of that is fabulous. Anyway, I’ve crapped on a bit. We’ll have to agree to disagree on what’s important to us. You seem to want outcomes that reflect statistical breakdowns. I’m quite happy with what I saw over the last four weeks. As I said before, Greece aren’t the best side in Europe*. They’re the champions. I think that’s kind of cool. (* Though I do think they outplayed Portugal.)

By: O'Toole

O'Toole — Tue, 06 Jul 2004 18:53:02 +0000

Reuben (et al), I don’t know why people who are adamant atheists and rigorous scientists outside a pub (or even inside one) can argue with straight faces that there are teleological explanations for something so chancy and statistically meaningless as Greece’s 1-0 win over Portugal. Portugal had 10 corners to Greece’s 1. Greece scored on its single chance. Why? Simply because they did. On this particular day. Call it luck (my preference) or whatever you like. But unless and until Greece can repeat its feat over a statistically significant period of time they are not the better team. Not last Sunday (when they were clearly outplayed by Portugal), not today and not even, I expect, in the near future. If you don’t put the ball in the net, you ain’t gonna win. THere’s luck involved in that, sure, but that’s not all that’s involved, and the presence of luck doesn’t necessarily make an outcome less valid. To repeat, no one is questioning the “validity” of the result (i.e. no offside, no foul, and so on). What we are questioning is the validity (if you will) of what you are reading into the 1-0 result. If I had told you, before the match, that Portugal would have 60% of the possession, 10 corners to Greece’s 1, 17 shots to Greece’s 4, and so on, you would be perverse to conclude that Greece would “outplay” Portugal, wouldn’t you? Of course the outcome depends entirely on someone putting “the ball in the net”… Duh! But the fact that Greece outscored Portugal 1-0 means only that data which normally predict a Portuguese victory can never guarantee one. Nothing more. If you think you have more pertinent (measurable) predictors of victory than shots, chances, possession and so on, by all means describe them, but I am at loss to see how “putting the ball in the net” can be measured in advance of it occurring.

By: mc

mc — Tue, 06 Jul 2004 18:24:00 +0000

jeffrey: of course they are measures, but if you don’t have the team spirit it’s no good. Again, it’s not either/or, it’s both aspects. Put it this way. Greece has no Wayne Rooney. But Rooney cannot do everything by himself. Especially when the captain is nowhere to be seen. Anyway, Reuben already replied more clearly above. yann – I don’t think anyone said Greece are the new genius masters of football eclipsing anything before them. I certainly didn’t. Of course it’s a quick tournament and of course a big part of it is luck, as always, but it takes more than luck to go from “underdog” no one would bet on to winning against the best players out there. Portugal remain a more talented team, just like England or Spain or France, even if they were eliminated. But it’s not enough to have the talents when they’re not clicking together. That’s not rationalisation after the facts, that’s an obious reality. You could put together the best dream team you can think of but if they don’t put their potential into action they’re not going anywhere. Those “big” teams didn’t lose out of bad luck alone, they played under their level, for whatever different reasons. Greece winning wasn’t just about one goal, Portugal weren’t as good as they’d been just a while before. Maybe there’s too much delight in seeing the “underdog” win, but then, maybe there’s also a bit of stubborness in refusing to acknowledge that a lot of the big favourites simply did badly?

By: reuben

reuben — Tue, 06 Jul 2004 17:45:53 +0000

Sorry, mc, I still don’t see it. The argument or assumption seems to be that having more of the possession and creating more scoring chances is NOT a measure of how well a side plays as a team. Why? What are better measures of how well a side plays as a team? I would agree with you, Jeffrey, that these are key measures of how well a team plays. But they’re not the only measures, or even the primary measure. I suppose the primary measure is what you do with the chances you do create. And no, Yann, that’s not drunken rationalisation; it’s just how the game works. Have 60% of the chances and create three chances to your opponents every one and guess what? If you don’t put the ball in the net, you ain’t gonna win. THere’s luck involved in that, sure, but that’s not all that’s involved, and the presence of luck doesn’t necessarily make an outcome less valid. Just because Portugal won the battle of the statistics doesn’t mean that Greece’s victory is without reason. By the way, I caught a nice moment walking through London today. A Greek man was festooning his tiny little car with Greek flags – I counted 16 – and as people walked past him, almost everyone congratulated him on the win. (I can only imagine that he didn’t manage to get the flags on sooner because he’s been sleeping one off.)

By: Yann

Yann — Tue, 06 Jul 2004 16:55:26 +0000

Jeffrey Kramer, Of course you’re right. MC (and the others) are simply trying to rationalize what cannot be rationalized: Greece’s victory. By any normal measure of how a “team” plays, Portugal outplayed Greece. But Greece scored the single goal of the match, so now, after the fact, we are offered theories (the playing as a “team” business) that are supposed to explain this anomaly. I rather enjoy watching underdogs win, even when their triumph is patently due to luck. But these efforts to “explain” the result make no sense outside the alcohol-fuelled confines of a bar or pub.

By: Jeffrey Kramer

Jeffrey Kramer — Tue, 06 Jul 2004 15:35:54 +0000

By: Randy Paul

Randy Paul — Tue, 06 Jul 2004 15:25:07 +0000

Mc, Thanks for the kind words. Just for the record, however, the game I referenced seeing last August in Brazil pitted two teams in Brazil’s first division battling each other, palying in a stadium with a capacity of 120,000, both of which have won the National Championship and one of which (Corinthians) competed in the thus far one time only World Club Championship in 2000 in Brazil, and if I recall correctly won this competition. Indeed, for me the far greater shame for Atletico Mineiro was the fact that a team at the highest levels of the game gave no regard for defense and thus lost the game (the man advantage notwithstanding) and could have lost it on far worse terms.

By: reuben

reuben — Tue, 06 Jul 2004 14:58:08 +0000

Peter writes: An abbreviated tournament like Euro 2004 proves nothing. That’s fine by me. It was still damn good fun – and for most of us, that’s enough. Things don’t have to be statistically meaningful to be important. Few would call Greece the best team in Europe, but we do call them the champions. I think that for a great majority of fans, the fact that the former doesn’t always equal the latter is a good thing. Who knows, maybe it even appeals to the little man/underdog in all of us, just as the wonderful talents of Brazil appeal to our love of skill and show. Football has a bit of something for everyone, I think (except when it comes to rationalists and tournaments, perhaps). And to crap on just a little bit more, when Yann writes that ‘all the explanations for [Greece’s]“success” are meaningless’ he misses the point in at least a couple of ways, I think. One: no, they’re not meaningless. Without luck, Greece wouldn’t have won. But they also wouldn’t have won without skill, discipline and some of the best tackling I’ve ever seen. Just because they got lucky doesn’t mean that they aren’t good, or even very good. If Latvia had got just as lucky, they’d have still have been watching the quarterfinals from home. (And if it irks you that a merely good team can win a major tournament, rather than the honour being reserved for those we consider great – eg Italy?! – then we’ll just have to agree to disagree.) Two, and perhaps more significantly: I notice that you put the word “success” in scare quotes, implying that because there’s the presence of luck and the lack of a long term sample, it isn’t real success. Thankfully, success is success even in the absence (as you see it) of clear explanations. Ain’t life grand?

By: Yann

Yann — Tue, 06 Jul 2004 13:46:04 +0000

Sorry guys, but Greece was clearly outplayed by France (if I had to to give it an arbitrary numerical rank I’d say by a ratio of 10 to 7), by the Czechs (6 to 4) and by Portugal (6 to 4). They won each game because they were lucky on a single chance, while their oponents were unlucky in all of theirs (crossbars hit, goalposts, shots centimetres wide, and so on). That’s all it amounts to. Were you just to have arrived from another planet (and hadn’t heard the results) and shown the matches on tape, with just 30 seconds excised from each recording: the winning goal, there is no way you would guess that Greece had won. I agree with O’Toole: the Greeks won simply because they were luckier. Were they to repeat this over a entire season—or, seeing as we’re talking about a national team, over several years and several tournaments—then we’d begin to rank them up with the favourites. Until then, all the explanations for their “success” are meaningless.

By: mc

mc — Tue, 06 Jul 2004 08:16:58 +0000

o’toole: randy paul is exactly spot on – think about it, there is a reason you get higher scores of the kind you describe in small local level tournaments and in amateur matches, whereas they tend to be the exception in high-level contexts. I remember one match in the last world cup, I think it was Germany vs Saudi Arabia, 8-0. It was terrible to watch. SA was obviously crap. A score like that would be next to impossible if you got two teams on an equal level. Of course it’s nicer when there’s more attack and goals but what matters is that there is a same level to start with and a good game, high scores alone don’t make up for that. Players today just tend to be less inventive and daring also because they’re caught up in a bigger system that crushes creativity and where individual stars count more than team spirit, and off the pitch celebrity can overshadow anything else. jeffrey kramer, if you re-read the phrase you quoted, the answer is already there – playing as a team vs. bunch of individuals.

By: Jeffrey Kramer

Jeffrey Kramer — Tue, 06 Jul 2004 05:55:15 +0000

Portugal had more possession, they took more shots, and more of those shots were on target. But it was the difference between a team playing as a real team, Greece, and a bunch of individuals, Portugal. I don’t understand this. If you keep more possession and create more chances, aren’t you by definition playing better as a team?