Archive for March, 2010

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World Cup Bracket


2010
03.26

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Posted in Soccer | No Comments »

With all the talk about brackets for the NCAA tourney, and seeing this article on dynamic duos, I was inspired to do a World Cup bracket.  There still could be a lot happen.  There could be so crazy Togo-esque shooting or just simple injuries.  I got the layout of the below from Wikipedia, so please respect their Creative Commons license.  I’m not going to do game scores, but I’m leaving the matches here just so people can have that info available here.

Here are some of my thoughts. First, despite in the past home field advantage playing a huge role in the World Cup, with Brazil being the only team to not win on their continent, I really can’t see the African teams doing any better.  South Africa may be the weakest team in the competition.  The big African countries seem also destined to disappoint.  Algeria, Nigeria and Ghana could all get out of their group stage, but I don’t see them going too much further.  Nigeria’s new coach could prove not to be a perfect fit immediately and Algeria is so inconsistent I could also see the finishing last in their group.

It will be cold, but European players are used to playing in the cold European winters.  It may slow down Spain, but Torres plays in England and the rest of the team certainly plays elsewhere in Champions League action.  The European teams are also going to be on their own time zone or close to it.

Group A is the toughest call.  South Africa, though weak, could surprise in the first round.  France has the talent to win it all, but is so dysfunctional you wonder if they will even make it out of the group.  Mexico is probably sending one of their best squads ever, but who knows if they can survive the previous coaching debacle.  Uruguay’s chance rest on Forlán as far as I’m concerned.  I don’t know if anything short of winning it will save Domenech’s job and I could see a USA-98-like performance coming from them.  Ultimately, despite their talent, I don’t see them getting out of the group.

Things get tough to call in the semifinals with Germany vs. Spain.  Will Spain show up like they did in the Confed Cup?  If so, the Swiss or Honduras could play spoiler.  You have to like the Swiss and Chile, conditions-wise.  Ultimately, I guess I see the curse of winning off European soil to continue.  Dunga seems to have good control of his team.  It’s hard to argue with the team that wins the top qualification out of South America, the top team in ELO rankings and the second team in FIFA rankings.

Matches

See also: 2010 FIFA World Cup schedule

All times are South African Standard Time (UTC+2)

Group stage

(more…)

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Any Given Sunday


2010
03.22

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Posted in College BBall | 1 Comment »

Yesterday (you know, the day I was supposed to have this article done…), a Sunday, Manchester United defeated Liverpool to go atop the EPL with no one able to catch them with games in hand.  I just wanted to mention that as a ManU fan and to keep you from thinking this was an NFL post. ;)

The title phrase was coined by Bert Bell in 1958 in regards to what is now called ‘parity’ in the NFL.  For those of you not in the US, Sunday is ‘the’ day for the professional American football.  Sure, there’s Monday Night Football and the occasional Thursday game, but Sunday is the day.  If you ask me, the NFL (and the MLS, but that’s another post entirely) have too much parity.  This is going to get a little off subject, but indulge me.  No one wants to see a team buy a championship, but Real Madrid and the New York Yankees have both proven you simply can’t do it.  I could see it being possible in the NBA, with only 5 players on the court, but the closest thing the NBA has seen to the Galácticos, the 2004 Lakers, proved not to be a winning formula.  The draft in the US or youth programs in Europe add enough spice to see a team like Montpellier HSC atop Ligue 1 or Åtvidaberg FF in the top league of a country.

Sustained greatness is certainly possible, winning championships is not (depending upon how you define greatness, of course).  If you look at Barcelona, a lot of those world-class players came through their system.  Even Messi, an Argentinian, spent four years in the Barcelona youth system.  ManU also has had regulars Paul Scholes, Wes Brown and Gary Neville come through their youth system.  Neither of those clubs opposed to buying either; Zlatan (affectionately known as BigZ) is a clear example of that.  I’m not going to argue that ManU’s youth system is anywhere close to Barca’s, but it’s telling that they made bigger news with selling to Madrid than with any of their pickups.  All of this is to say that money cannot buy championships.  Rich clubs still have to buy quality players that fit in their system and also make sure they are developing the best youth sides lest someone catch them.  Champions League and such changes the equation a bit, but that (like MLS parity) is another post altogether.  Even when the money is stacked against you, or even if you don’t play on Sundays, “any given Sunday,” a team can win.

The same is true in college basketball. (You didn’t see that coming, did you?)  Especially on Saturdays, it would seem.  Unless you live under a rock or don’t live in the US, Northern Iowa beat Kansas Saturday.  Millions of brackets blew to the wayside with that game.  Mine did, but Purdue helped bring it back to respectability.  The unpredictability of the tournament is what gives it so much of it’s luster.  My roommate and I discussed how it compared to the FA Cup.  One of the differences is FA Cup games aren’t played on a neutral site until the final, but it’s much different from that too.  For those of you on the other side of the pond, you can think of a similar sort of excitement toward the giant killing.

One of the things I loved to do as a kid and that I haven’t done in years because I haven’t had time is to redo my bracket after each round.  Let’s try this again.

MSU over NIU (originally had KU)

OSU over UT (original pick)

Syracuse over Butler (original winner)

KState over Xavier (originally had Pittsburgh)

UK over Cornell (original winner)

WVU over Washington (original winner)

dook over Purdue (original winner)

Baylor over St. Mary’s (original winner)

Not going to go through the other games now, but I now say a Syracuse/dook final with UK and OSU in the Final Four.  I hope that’s not how it turns out, but that’s what I expect.

Games are starting again on Thursday and then on Friday, but…any given Sunday.

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Quick thoughts on NCAA tourney


2010
03.14

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Posted in Basketball, College BBall | No Comments »

First off, I follow UK, Wisconsin, UNC, Gardner-Webb, Alabama and Murray St and outside the SEC, I’m not watching a lot of games.  My roommate is a Nova fan, so he keeps me informed on the Big East.  You’ll likely see some East Coast bias in my bracket, but the Pac 10 was obviously down this year.  I don’t have a western team making it to the sweet 16, unless you count Kansas, Baylor and K-State.  A lot of that is just the matchups, UNLV vs. Kansas, OSU vs. OSU, Gonzaga/’Cuse, BYU/K-State.  The best teams in the west are just not supposed to make it to the final 16, based on seedings.  The exception is New Mexico.  You got to pick upsets somewhere, right? Marquette is definitely a quality side, and they pass my winning record in the conference barometer.  GT, on the other hand, does not…first round exit for them.  Other than NC State, Marquette did not lose to a team not in the NCAA tourney.  Either way, the winner of that game is losing to West Virginia, but that’s a tough one.  Once I realized my bias, I picked Richmond over St Mary’s.  That one’s a toss up.  The loss to USC is the real blemish for St. Mary’s otherwise they lost mostly close games to quality teams and had two wins over non-conference teams now in the tourney.  They lost by 2 to Vandy.  There are more quality wins on the Richmond side, but also more head-scratching losses.  Meh, reverse-bias.

The Dayton loss is the big blemish on Old Dominion’s record, but I still think they can beat a Notre Dame team with injuries.  Sure, they are in the Big East, but they also finished 8th.  I think the only reason they are so high is they couldn’t justify giving Georgetown a 3 and Notre Dame an 8 with the same in-conference schedule.  Admittedly though, Big East conference schedules can be VERY misleading with their crazy scheduling system.

Losses at Colorado and at home to Alabama have me scratching my head about Baylor. Beating Texas 3 times at the end of the season is no big accomplishment.  After starting 17-0, Texas went 7 and 9.  Will the game against Nova being in their home state propel them to victory? Either way, I’m confident dook wins the next game.  The loss at UConn is the question mark for Nova.  Ultimately, I’m going with Baylor.  I already have 3 Big East teams in the Elite 8 and I have the Big 12 losing the 3/2 matchup in the west.

You’ll notice I have Murray St going to the sweet 16.  This is wishful thinking, but if they get past Vanderbilt, I’m confident they can win the next match.

This is the point where I was going to link to my bracket, but since Yahoo! won’t let me do that until the 18th, I’ll just have to add it then.

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FIFA Shoots They Score!! …Or Did They?


2010
03.08

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Posted in Baseball, Soccer, The Olympics | No Comments »

Well, it’s hard to have breaking news on a weekly blog entry, no? NY Times beat me to it, but it’s still relevant (hey, they just posted this morning!).  Times Online (UK) did too, and to no surprise, I find their commentary better informed.  Before this becomes a link fest to organizations that have covered the topic before me, I just want to say what I think and why.

I’m frustrated with the power of FIFA (there are only 8 votes counted on these things??).  No sporting organization is nearly as powerful as FIFA.  I hate that FIBA rules are different that NBA (and to a lesser degree IIHF/NHL), but without that tension there’s a monopoly. US sports don’t have monopoly status in the same way because college sports are separate and very important.  Also, whatever you think about it, the US Congress isn’t afraid to step in.  I have a hard time believing the UN is going to pose sanctions on FIFA-nation though.

Of course, as I mentioned, FIFA isn’t the only global organization, but the only one that can even claim to be in the same ballpark is the International Olympic Committee (IOC).  Yes, the Olympics are huge, but  the Olympics only happen once every four years (let’s not kid ourselves, much as I personally love the Winter Olympics, they are a side show).  FIFA’s once-every-four-years event, the World Cup, is bigger in some respects than the Olympics.

It’s a little off-topic, but I think it’s worth going down this FIFA vs. Olympics debate briefly.   There were 715.1 million viewers for the 2006 final and total viewership was 26.29 BILLION (down from just under 26.4 billion in 2002…different time zones and such).  Before the soccer-hating Americans rush in to claim that USA Today reports 40 Billion viewers, let’s think about this a bit more.  How many countries compete in the Olympics?  Let’s guessimate…all of them.  The UN says 192, so let’s go with that (even though that’s low due to multiple examples like Puerto Rico).  There are 32 countries competing in the World Cup.  192/32.  That’s exactly 6 times more.  Not all countries are the same size of course, and some of the big ones aren’t even in the World Cup: Russia and China are notable.  India, with it’s billion people, has never qualified for the World Cup.  They are too busy playing cricket.  China has only qualified once for the World Cup.   I think it’s safe to say on time slot saturation, the World Cup is doing a better job.

I think that little tangent was important, but it’s not really the point. FIFA operates all the time (not saying the IOC doesn’t plan for the summer games for four years, but that’s not what I mean).  Every year there are EPL games.  Every year there is a UEFA Champions League.  Every year is a Copa Libertadores.  These, and every other top teir league and tournament around the world, is governed by FIFA.  When the MLS tried to do things the ‘American’ way (read: ridiculous), FIFA stepped in and was going to withhold cash.  I think it’s really hard to impress upon someone who doesn’t follow the game just how powerful FIFA is.  Any analogy is going to be ridiculous, but let me try.  Let’s image that the European leagues in basketball were dominant powers in the world.  The NBA is a powerful league, often thought to be the best, but the NBA teams aren’t the best teams in the world.  The Lakers, Celtics, Bulls, Pistons and Cavs all have worldwide popularity due to their past and present stars, but Uppsala Basket had an unstoppable center in the 70s and were a best team in the world for a while.  The Munich, Milan, Rome, Paris, London and Barcelona teams could any year be the best team, even if top-to-bottom the NBA is still the greatest league.  This is more-or-less, the way the EPL is now.  Let’s say the top 2 teams from the NBA enter a NorthAmerican/European tournament akin to UEFA Champions League.  The Celtics and Lakers dominate these spots (domination in the NBA doesn’t happen like domination in European football, but that’s another story) and teams like the Bucks are less interested in winning the league and more interested in knocking off either the Lakers or Celtics (let’s for get the conferences here) to get that NATO League spot.  Now, let’s say that the NBA really didn’t like the trapezoid lane, but to cash in on the millions of dollars of the NATO League, they had to follow FIBA rules.  If you can imagine this, you can imagine the power of FIFA.

We’ve established that I don’t like FIFA’s power (even if I do adamantly believe in standards), that the World Cup is ridiculously huge and that that power I don’t like FIFA actually possesses.  What we have not established is that video replay is a good or bad thing.

I do *not* think video replay should be the start of things.  I do, however, think a chip in the ball to determine if it crosses a goal line would help the game.  How many goals are scored in a game?  I don’t have stats, but let’s say 2-1 is a common score.  Just as common as 2-2 and 1-1 so it balances out to three times a game.  Thus, technology is going to come into play, let’s be generous, six or so times a game (ok, that’s not being generous to current officials, but you know what I mean).  If I’ve got Americans reading this, I’m probably preaching to the choir.  We love video replay in American football, basketball, hockey and baseball.  There was a fight in baseball because of it’s “tradition” and that’s the same fight FIFA is putting up.  Up until World War II, the norm was for countries to have protectionist economic policies.  Up until the invention of the printing press, the tradition was for people to be illiterate.  The world changes and while I do think it’s important for people and organizations to stick to their roots, those roots weren’t established in stone.  They were established in a changing world.  One that is changing faster now than it ever has before.  Perhaps that’s why there is a backlash of traditionalism from FIFA and from the MLB.  With technology and communication changing on a daily basis, we want to be able to sit on our couch and watch the same game we’ve always loved.  Well FIFA, I’ve got news for you, I didn’t have an high definition TV a couple years ago.  It made the games better, not worse.