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posted by azrael on Monday June 23 2014, @12:44AM   Printer-friendly
from the did-you-see-that-ludicrous-display-last-night dept.

Physics professor Tom Murphy goes through the statistics of World Cup scores, trying to understand whether the winner of a match is a statistically sound measure of which team is truly better. He theorizes:

"[...] soccer is an amalgam of random processes whose net effect produces rare events - those more-or-less unpredictable events spread more-or-less uniformly in time. Whether a good or bad bounce off the bar, a goal keeper who may or may not prevent a goal, a referee who may or may not see an illegal action, a pass that may or may not be intercepted, and on and on: the game is full of random, unpredictable events."

Using Poisson statistics, the post argues that the low-scores and uncorrelated events of many sports games are surprisingly weak reporters of true team ranking; i.e. the results amount to "flimsy numerology".

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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Horse With Stripes on Monday June 23 2014, @12:54AM

    by Horse With Stripes (577) on Monday June 23 2014, @12:54AM (#58831)

    Whether the outcomes are statistically meaningful or not all depends on how much you bet on the match.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by forsythe on Monday June 23 2014, @03:12AM

      by forsythe (831) on Monday June 23 2014, @03:12AM (#58862)

      That was the first idea that occured to me: there exist bookies, and bookies make their living from figuring out exactly how much statistical meaningfulness they have to put on paper in order to satisfy their customers. If I really wanted to know whether sports have statistically meaningful outcomes, I'd see who is giving what odds, when, to which crowds, and, if I were friendly enough, ask them those odds were arrived at.

      If I were really interested, I'd follow up on the final paragraph of the article and see how this varies by sport. Then I could smugly start watching the sports where skill factors in highest. I suspect board games like chess, go, etc. would be on such a list, but there are some I'm not certain about (billiards, for example).

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 23 2014, @01:55PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 23 2014, @01:55PM (#58990)

        Your first idea is wrong. Bookies do not care about statistical chances that much, they only need to set up payouts so that they win in every outcome. They care a lot more about the ratio of people betting for team1 vs betting for team2. It is the same "risk-neutral" trick that is used in pricing financial derivatives.

        • (Score: 2) by forsythe on Monday June 23 2014, @04:22PM

          by forsythe (831) on Monday June 23 2014, @04:22PM (#59059)

          Sure, ratios of bets placed have a lot to do with it. But if you know enough statistics to see that the crowd is betting wrong, that's a valuable opportunity to milk them. That's what I'm talking about.

        • (Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Monday June 23 2014, @07:51PM

          by LoRdTAW (3755) on Monday June 23 2014, @07:51PM (#59124) Journal

          They usually only care about collecting their money. I once met a small time drug dealer/bookie through a friend (good kid but always hangs out with the wrong crowd trying to fit in with the tough guys). We actually wound up chatting a bit and I asked him about being a bookie. His answers were actually pretty simple:

          Guys place bets, wait for game to finish, then I pay out or collect. Most people lose as they try to go for the long shot to hit on the big odds (e.g. bet against the stronger team). Most people are scared of bookies and pay up when asked. He said he never had to hurt anyone physically as he isn't that kind of person. Some people need to be coerced which means a stern visit at night to their home along the lines of "where's my money? You better have it in X days." That is usually enough as they are too scared to push it further. He cuts those types loose as they are dead beats, never taking a bet from them again. A few times he has had guys disappear but he figures they owe even scarier people money.

  • (Score: 2) by iwoloschin on Monday June 23 2014, @01:02AM

    by iwoloschin (3863) on Monday June 23 2014, @01:02AM (#58833)

    Who cares?

    There's an objective way to measure performance in a particular sport, that is widely agreed upon by all participants (and by extension, spectators). Sure, luck may play into it, but doesn't luck play into every human activity? Some are more controlled than others (having better players, playing in an indoor stadium, etc) but others are unavoidable (a gust of wind, which way the goalie jumps on a penalty kick, etc). So long as all participants agree that lady luck may throw their hard work out the window, it's still a "fair" game since either team could be equally as lucky.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by kebes on Monday June 23 2014, @02:16AM

      by kebes (1505) on Monday June 23 2014, @02:16AM (#58850)
      No one's claiming this as a deep cosmic revelation; but it's interesting to think about.

      I would argue your point about the measure of performance being "widely agreed upon by all participants (and by extension, spectators)". You imply that all parties involved understand what's going on. But I don't think that's true. Die-hard fans obsess over stats, and ascribe considerable importance to them. Regular fans and sports commentators also ascribe significance to sports outcomes (though less obsessively); they weave a narrative that explains the shifting the score, and the final outcome. That narrative usually doesn't acknowledge that random uncontrolled variables play a major role.

      The point here is that the small-number statistics and closely-matched skills of competitors means that the outcomes are largely random. That the final 'winner' doesn't represent the "truly" (statistically-significantly) superior team. I agree that the "true rank" doesn't matter in the sense that the game has some arbitrary rules that are used to decide who ultimately wins. The game is fair in that sense. But the true nature of the outcome is, in fact, mostly not acknowledged by fans; and in fact isn't even fully appreciated by the players (who largely buy into superstition about 'hot streaks' and so forth).

      Again, none of this is a world-altering revelation. And being aware of it doesn't undercut the inherent fun of watching sports. But it is, apparently, not obvious to the majority of sports enthusiasts.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 23 2014, @01:04AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 23 2014, @01:04AM (#58836)

    Soccer is an awesome game. Maybe it hasn't caught on in the US because TV stations dislike the lack of commercial breaks.

    • (Score: 2) by SlimmPickens on Monday June 23 2014, @01:36AM

      by SlimmPickens (1056) on Monday June 23 2014, @01:36AM (#58843)

      Maybe it hasn't caught one because games that score 1-3 times in 90 minutes are extremely boring.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 23 2014, @01:54AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 23 2014, @01:54AM (#58845)

        > Maybe it hasn't caught one because games that score 1-3 times in 90 minutes are extremely boring.

        I doubt it. Average american attention span isn't out of line with that of the rest of the world.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 23 2014, @10:24AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 23 2014, @10:24AM (#58939)

          It is. Americans are used to commercial breaks every few minutes. There are studies showing that it does affect their attention span.

          • (Score: 2) by SlimmPickens on Monday June 23 2014, @11:59AM

            by SlimmPickens (1056) on Monday June 23 2014, @11:59AM (#58955)

            I'm Australian btw. This [youtube.com] is my football.

      • (Score: 2, Funny) by kogspg on Monday June 23 2014, @03:57AM

        by kogspg (850) on Monday June 23 2014, @03:57AM (#58873)

        They just need to change each goal to be worth something like 8 points. That way each game on average will have a higher score than say baseball or football games but below tennis and basketball.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 23 2014, @12:15PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 23 2014, @12:15PM (#58962)

        You think the only interesting parts of a game are the goals? Maybe you'd like watching pure penalty shooting. ;-)

      • (Score: 2, Interesting) by bart9h on Monday June 23 2014, @02:13PM

        by bart9h (767) on Monday June 23 2014, @02:13PM (#58998)

        Soccer goals are rare, and that's what makes them special. Watching your team score against a rival on the stadium is a moment of bliss, like an collective orgasm. And, trust me, this is not an exaggeration.

        I'd rather watch 90 minutes soccer game and see my team score once, than watch a basketball game and watch my team score 34 times.

        • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday June 24 2014, @04:47PM

          by urza9814 (3954) on Tuesday June 24 2014, @04:47PM (#59477) Journal

          We have hockey for that. Faster game though, more, constant movement since everything is on ice. Gotta cater to those ADHD attention spans ;)

      • (Score: 2) by Rivenaleem on Tuesday June 24 2014, @04:14PM

        by Rivenaleem (3400) on Tuesday June 24 2014, @04:14PM (#59466)

        The time the US hosted the World Cup (1998), they tried to increase the goal size so more goals would be scored, making it a more interesting game. The motion was denied by FIFA.

    • (Score: 2) by NCommander on Monday June 23 2014, @06:30AM

      by NCommander (2) Subscriber Badge <michael@casadevall.pro> on Monday June 23 2014, @06:30AM (#58889) Homepage Journal

      Funny, as an American, I find football/soccer to be one of the few sports I can actually tolerate watching on TV, and semi-follow the World Cup as I find it rather interesting to watch. I'm in a fairly small minority in that respect though.

      --
      Still always moving
      • (Score: 2) by isostatic on Monday June 23 2014, @09:52AM

        by isostatic (365) on Monday June 23 2014, @09:52AM (#58932) Journal

        I'm British, and I find football/soccer to be on of many sports I find the most mind-numbingly boring thing to watch. Golf and Basketball are probably below football, but not by a lot.

        Now Ice hockey, Tennis, Baseball, all of those are acceptable.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 23 2014, @12:18PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 23 2014, @12:18PM (#58963)

          Tennis? There are few types of sports that are more boring than tennis.

        • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 23 2014, @12:52PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 23 2014, @12:52PM (#58970)

          I'm British, and I find football/soccer to be on of many sports I find the most mind-numbingly boring thing to watch.

          Sour loser? >:->

      • (Score: 2) by RaffArundel on Monday June 23 2014, @12:58PM

        by RaffArundel (3108) on Monday June 23 2014, @12:58PM (#58973) Homepage

        I'm in a fairly small minority in that respect though.

        I'm not sure that is as true as it was five years ago. The US match yesterday was "standing room only" at the pub where I go every Sunday. It may be World Cup fever, and we will mostly go back to ignoring "professional soccer" once it is over, but it was much louder than pretty much any other sports event in recent memory.

        With the caveat that I have to have "my team" for pretty much any sport to care enough to watch a game. Here are some things that I think put me off from football/soccer in the beginning:

        1. Growing up (grumble-cough-snort) decades ago, soccer was that low maintenance thing we did during recess/P.E. The authority figure would put out some pylons if we weren't actually on the soccer field, and the ball, and say "you can only kick it, put it in the goal" and go drink coffee. Every other sport was "taught" - rules, techniques, etc.

        2. The clock counts up, and there is an unknown amount of stoppage time. All of our clock-governed sports count down - giving them a sense of urgency. I seem to recall the game even going past the time - where the officials had some sort of arbitrary "we are done playing" thing and once you see that abused, it calls into question the time keeping completely.

        3. As much as I like really technical teams passing the ball on the attack, most games aren't that way. Here is the "boring part" for me - that "let's kick the ball towards their goal, hoping someone on my team gets under it" strategy, and you watch both teams lob it across the field. This is probably why I like the World Cup the most - you get to see some very good technical players.

        4. Pretentious fans - dare I say, this sport in the US has some serious hipsterness. Here are a few points, if you are a fan and talking to someone just getting into the game, assuming you don't want to alienate them. That number the score starts at is a zero, so when you obnoxiously shout NIL! at the person, you aren't helping. Second, the offsides rule isn't obvious no matter how often you tell someone that watching their first match. Third, there are a lot of players whoring for a card when they flop, making reference to "pads" and "real men" when a player trips himself, and the new person calls bullshit with all the drama and rolling around, only encourages the idea that all players are drama-queens.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 23 2014, @04:52PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 23 2014, @04:52PM (#59069)

      [snark] Yes, because soccer isn't commercialized at all in Europe. [/snark]

      Americans have baseball, football, basketball, and even hockey to fill their professional-sports needs. Adding another means either splitting the sports audience five ways instead of four ways, or dropping one of the existing popular sports. The latter option seems the more likely of the two, and frankly seems like a real possibility in the next few decades (soccer is getting more popular; there's a north american league now, after all). Personally I'll be happy as long as baseball remains popular enough to sustain itself.

  • (Score: 2) by cafebabe on Monday June 23 2014, @01:11AM

    by cafebabe (894) on Monday June 23 2014, @01:11AM (#58838) Journal

    So, the argument here is that the metric of success isn't representative of skill or effort? That's fairly universal.

    --
    1702845791×2
  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by kebes on Monday June 23 2014, @02:07AM

    by kebes (1505) on Monday June 23 2014, @02:07AM (#58847)
    Reproducing the comment I left on the blog:

    The analysis seems correct; in fact, I would go further and say that sports outcomes are statistically insignificant by design.

    What I mean is this: in many sports leagues, the rules are designed to keep the teams as balanced as possible (e.g. lower-rank teams being given first-pick of new players). The overall intent is to keep the game "interesting" (and thus lucrative) by having matches be "close calls" and so on. If one allowed technical prowess to accrue and concentrate, some teams would dominate so severely that it would become boring. Overall, the intent of the organizers is to keep the matches close and unpredictable; to make them fun. But this inherently means that the outcome of a season is a poor measure of actual ranked team quality: the results are statistically insignificant by design.

    This isn't to say that all sports are equally random. Single-elimination tournaments are very bad at identifying the "true rank", but rigorous round-robin style tournaments are much better. Some sports have more randomness than others. Competitions like the World Cup or the Olympics, where each faction is putting forth their absolute best team, at least don't suffer from some of these 'artificial levelling' effects.

    And yet, when matching-up extremely competent athletes in a very small number of trials (as is the norm in professional sports), the outcome will be mostly random. The uncontrolled random variation is a much larger signal than the minor variation in athlete/team abilities; to average-out that randomness would require much more sampling than spectators find fun. This is of course fine in the sense that people enjoy watching it, so the system works. But the point is that if people ascribe deep significance (pride, even) to the outcomes, then they are fooling themselves.
    • (Score: 5, Interesting) by c0lo on Monday June 23 2014, @03:28AM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday June 23 2014, @03:28AM (#58866) Journal

      Overall, the intent of the organizers is to keep the matches close and unpredictable; to make them fun.
      ...
      And yet, when matching-up extremely competent athletes in a very small number of trials (as is the norm in professional sports), the outcome will be mostly random.

      Interesting hypothesis, but... how it fits with the Michael Schumacher/Roger Federer/Tiger Woods: did the long-is years they practically dominated (contenders have had statistically lower chances against them) made F1-racing/tennis/golf so notable boring that the races/championships registered lost revenue?

      (yes, I noted you started your "analysis" mostly in the context of "team sports"; however, towards the end of it, you suddenly assert the same happens for "extremely competent athletes". One of my personalities, the "contrarian" one, felt the compulsion to search for counter-examples).

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 1) by ramloss on Monday June 23 2014, @04:13PM

      by ramloss (1150) on Monday June 23 2014, @04:13PM (#59056)

      "What I mean is this: in many sports leagues, the rules are designed to keep the teams as balanced as possible (e.g. lower-rank teams being given first-pick of new players). The overall intent is to keep the game "interesting" (and thus lucrative) by having matches be "close calls" and so on. If one allowed technical prowess to accrue and concentrate, some teams would dominate so severely that it would become boring."

      But wouldn't this disprove your thesis that sports outcomes are statistically insignificant? Bear with me a little:

      If a team that concentrates a league's talent wins so often it is boring to watch, does it not mean that the results (winning) are statistically linked to talent?

      Also, if a league promotes equal team quality and this results on matches depending basically on randomness, does it not mean again that save random noise, results are statistically linked to talent (i. e. teams are equal save some random event tipping the scale)?

  • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday June 23 2014, @03:48AM

    by aristarchus (2645) on Monday June 23 2014, @03:48AM (#58870) Journal

    "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County". A record of achievement means nothing when you have a pound of birdshot down your gullet. And of course, only a sucker bets on something that is not a sure thing. But maybe that is the point. If we could know who would win, what would be the point of the match, and more importantly, of betting on it? We need randomness, we want randomness, but only a randomness that bends towards us. As P.T. Barnum said, one born every minute. Suckers, that is. Don't bet. Play yourself! It's fun. No, I mean Soccer! Running nearly full tilt for 90 minutes? What could be more fun than that? And so, does it really matter who wins, anyway??

    • (Score: 2) by etherscythe on Monday June 23 2014, @10:36PM

      by etherscythe (937) on Monday June 23 2014, @10:36PM (#59156) Journal

      Play yourself!

      That's pretty much my feelings on the subject. If I'm not playing the game in question, I don't care. Although it is nice to win sometimes - it's a psychological reinforcement that you're doing it right.

      --
      "Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"
  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by TheLink on Monday June 23 2014, @03:48AM

    by TheLink (332) on Monday June 23 2014, @03:48AM (#58871) Journal
    it's just that in some sports are so competitive that a #1 team/player on a bad day will lose to the #10.

    Doesn't mean that it's meaningless. Since the #1 on a bad day will still beat #1000.

    And the winning team of the World Cup is still far more likely to be one of the top teams than the one of the bottom teams.

    The real problem with the World Cup is for some teams the players haven't played with each other for very long - they normally play with other teams. So there isn't much team history to get statistics on the team strength. You cannot measure team strength by using individual player stats - you have to go by team strength. A team could be weaker than expected despite having strong players if the players can't play together well.

    And the measure of team strength is defined by how often they win or lose, and the winning margin ;).
  • (Score: 1) by q.kontinuum on Monday June 23 2014, @07:16AM

    by q.kontinuum (532) on Monday June 23 2014, @07:16AM (#58895) Journal

    Are such findings by any chance linked in any statistically significant way to the current success of the scientists favored team?

    --
    Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
    • (Score: 1) by Dogeball on Monday June 23 2014, @02:02PM

      by Dogeball (814) on Monday June 23 2014, @02:02PM (#58992)

      Murphy is an Irish surname.

      Nice try, though

      • (Score: 1) by q.kontinuum on Monday June 23 2014, @02:17PM

        by q.kontinuum (532) on Monday June 23 2014, @02:17PM (#58999) Journal

        Irish? Strange, can't find them in current WM setup either. Maybe it was a statistical glitch they didn't qualify [wikipedia.org]? ;-)

        (Just teasing. I couldn't care less about which nations participate in the world cup or which one wins. I'm not playing, and I certainly don't need any borrowed pride earned by some multinational soccer-team employed by some soccer-organisation by pure coincidence residing in the same country as me. Sports is something I either do or don't practice, it's not to watch except for pure entertainment value.)

        --
        Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
  • (Score: 2) by Sir Garlon on Monday June 23 2014, @11:30AM

    by Sir Garlon (1264) on Monday June 23 2014, @11:30AM (#58950)

    I dispute the assertion in TFS that "soccer is an amalgam of random processes ..."

    A physics professor, of all people, should know and always bear in mind the processes that are truly unpredicatable (quantum physics) and those that are too complicated to predict (human behavior). Nothing in a soccer game is random: everything is the result of human skill and decision-making. If the ball doesn't go quite straight when a player kicked it, it's because the player kicked it imperfectly. And no one can kick a ball perfectly, but many people are much better than, say, me.

    Furthermore, I took enough statistics to be very suspicious of anyone who models processes as random without first doing at least some hand-waving to establish the independence of these so-called "random" events.

    --
    [Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
    • (Score: 1) by q.kontinuum on Monday June 23 2014, @12:14PM

      by q.kontinuum (532) on Monday June 23 2014, @12:14PM (#58960) Journal

      Nothing in a soccer game is random: everything is the result of human skill and decision-making.

      Are you certain, quantum theory is not involved in decision making? Where are decisions made? In parts humans take decisions and rationalize them later, which means the decision making process is a subconscious process in the brain, which *could* be decided by a single Neuron flaring, or not. I would assert that quantum theory theoretically can have an effect by single electrons tunneling or not tunneling.

      Practically I agree that the non-deterministic behavior of particles on quantum level have probably little influence on the outcome of a game. But practically, I would assert that the influences other than the capabilities of the team (wet patch on the lawn, weather, uneven goal-posts etc.) are unpredictable enough to be perceived as random.

      --
      Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 23 2014, @01:01PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 23 2014, @01:01PM (#58974)
      The contention here is not that sports are 100% random (by which the author is invoking the usual statistical 'uncontrolled variable' meaning). In fact, the assumption is that there is, in fact, a "ground truth" with respect to ranking. The contention is that the outcome of a single match/race has low statistical power in terms of assessing this "true ranking".

      If you look at the performance of an athlete or team averaged over a large number of matches, you have enough statistical power to assess the rankings. However, the outcome of a single match may not be meaningful. So, for instance, if Tiger Woods wins 95% of high-level tournaments in a given year, but then only wins 32% in a subsequent year, you can probably legitimately say that he has become worse (and/or his opponents have become better). However, if you're looking at the outcome of a particular tournament (or his performance on a single hole), then you shouldn't read too much into the outcome. The 'problem' (to use too strong a word), is that many sports commentators and enthusiasts will read quite a lot of meaning into those individual events. E.g. they will try to weave a narrative to explain the outcome (rattled nerves, home field advantage, hot streak, etc.), when random variables (wind gusts, moisture distribution on the ball, etc.) may have been just as meaningful... So the point is that we frequently don't have the statistical power to determine the proximal cause for the outcome of a match/race. (We want a simple answer like "the winner was the best athlete"... but that may or may not be the case.)

      It's also worth pointing out that this 'low statistical power' arises from the fact that we're putting a bunch of highly competent athletes against one another: they are all highly skilled and highly consistent; but this narrow gap in abilities makes the non-ability factors more determinant. Obviously if you put an Olympic athlete in a competition against a normal person, the Olympian will win by such a wide margin that you will have more than enough statistical power to conclude that the Olympian is better.

      You can of course refine the analysis by modeling the real source of these 'random' variables, including more realistic inter-dependencies between events, etc. This will yield a more robust model of the system, but won't change the underlying qualitative result: that there are enough uncontrolled variables that the outcome of a single match (between similar-skill teams/players) has relatively low statistical power.
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by bart9h on Monday June 23 2014, @02:36PM

    by bart9h (767) on Monday June 23 2014, @02:36PM (#59011)

    (Brazilian here, fan of Flamengo, and I regularly go to Maracanã stadium to watch the games.)

    What makes soccer different from most other games is that being better is by no means a guarantee of being successful.
    In soccer it's always possible for the weaker team to win the match, because of the very reasons stated in the summary.

    The physical, technical and tactical aspects surely are important, but they are regularly overcame by the psychological state of the players, like motivation, concentration, confidence, etc.