FIFA 2014 World Cup - Official Discussion Thread

[Iosif]

Haha, you could hear Klinsmann say "What the [Inks] is one minute!"

Yeah. I was expecting 2 minutes and possibly more the way Belgium was dragging things out, but I suspect FIFA wanted to avoid the possibility of another shootout.

Yeah, Blatter had a direct line into the ref's ear.

"No penalties Djamel, that's enough drama and excitement for this round!"

[Lief 🗽]

So proud of our boys. An amazing game too. No matter who wins this tournament (please not brazil or argentina though...) it'll be one of the best World Cups in many, many years.

I think Klinsi perhaps made a mistake in being a little too cautious and not taking the game to the Belgians until it was too late, but most of our players are young and promising (Yedlin, especially, has been sensational this World Cup) and will continue to improve. And for a team that most said would be lucky to earn a single point in what was obviously not a group of death because Germany and Portugal would win easily, they did very well.

[7,052,770]

most of our players are young and promising (Yedlin, especially, has been sensational this World Cup) and will continue to improve.

What age do soccer players tend to hit their prime?

[Keystone Phil]

most of our players are young and promising (Yedlin, especially, has been sensational this World Cup) and will continue to improve.

What age do soccer players tend to hit their prime?

Just see yourself out of the thread, Harry. You officially have no excuse to be here anymore.

[Lief 🗽]

most of our players are young and promising (Yedlin, especially, has been sensational this World Cup) and will continue to improve.

What age do soccer players tend to hit their prime?

Usually their late twenties.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Ugh, sorry for the US.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Can't think of a better advertisement for the sport than that game.

[Franzl]

Can't think of a better advertisement for the sport than that game.

And especially for a lot of American fans, it shows that 0-0 doesn't necessarily mean boring.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yes, a spectacular match. Wouldn't it be nice in Ingerland could show that level of commitment for a change? (lol, never happening)

[Tender Branson]

LOL:



The Pope (an Argentinian) watches the match with the Swiss Guard.

[Arturo Belano]

LOL:



The Pope (an Argentinian) watches the match with the Swiss Guard.

That awesome!

[7,052,770]

most of our players are young and promising (Yedlin, especially, has been sensational this World Cup) and will continue to improve.

What age do soccer players tend to hit their prime?

Usually their late twenties.

Ah, so two of our goal-scorers should still be improving 2 cups from now. Nice.


Nate Silver had an interesting piece on whether the USA has plateaued or will keep improving.

[quote author=538]From this perspective, the upward trend has been extremely steady. In fact, other than the 2002 team arriving in the quarterfinals a little ahead of schedule, it’s been almost perfectly linear. Since 1986, the U.S.’s Elo rating has improved by almost exactly 50 points every four years.

Imagine that the trend continues. Right now, the U.S. team’s Elo rating is nearly 1,850, which places it 15th in the world. Add another 50 points, and by 2018 it would be at 1,900 — somewhere around eighth or 10th in the world and near where Belgium and Uruguay and France are today. That’s a team that could be a dark-horse World Cup contender. By 2026, its Elo rating would be 2,000 — not far from where Argentina, Germany and the Netherlands began this year’s tournament.[quote]

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Not trusting the guy who gives Brazil a 40% chance of winning it all.

[King]

Not trusting the guy who gives Brazil a 40% chance of winning it all.

You do know he also gives Brazil a 60% chance of not winning it all?

[Franzl]

I'm a bit sceptical of some of the probabilities he's had for several matches so far.

[Lief 🗽]

oh god no: http://www.sportschau.de/av/audioloewsiebenspielerhabenleichtegrippesymptome100.html

[Franzl]

oh god no: http://www.sportschau.de/av/audioloewsiebenspielerhabenleichtegrippesymptome100.html

That's bad... At least Müller is apparently not (yet) affected.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

[King]

I'm a bit sceptical of some of the probabilities he's had for several matches so far.

But have any of them been proven wrong?

He gave USA the "absurd" 76% odds of passing through group heading into game three but it happened with very little doubt. He's been derided for giving the group winners too much of a chance for advancing to quarters, yet all they did. He gave Costa Rica-Greece near 50-50 with Costa Rica slight favorite and it went to penalties with Costa Rica winning.  His 20% odds for Algeria to beat Germany when the pundit world was saying 5-0, 6-0, 7-0 Germany ended up being wrong in that it probably should've been 40% for Algeria.

I'm not a huge fan of 538, but I can't say the football experts have shown they have any more of a clue than he does.

[Franzl]

It's pretty impossible to prove probabilities wrong. He also gave Brazil a 78% chance of advancing over Chile, which I said was absurd at the time and which wad confirmed. (The really odd thing was that Brazil beating Chile was supposedly only 2% less probable than Germany beating Algeria. I know of no serious pundits that were predicting 6-0 for Germany. At the same time, unless Silver is a capable fortune teller, I don't see how he could habe foreseen Germany playing so terribly.

I'm not saying Silver's statements are necessarily "wrong", but some of them don't seem logical, particularly in relation to each other.

[Lief 🗽]

This is my problem with Nate Silver. He presents his predictions as merely "probabilities." So he does not predict that Brazil will advance, but instead that Brazil has a 78% chance to advance or whatever. But if Brazil wins, he and the media applaud him for correctly predicting that Brazil would advance. But if Brazil had lost, he would have just said, "Ah, but I said there was a 22% chance that they would lose, so I'm not wrong!" To check whether or not his probabilities are right, you'd have to look at if, over time, a team with a 78% chance to advance does actually advance in 78 out of 100 games. You can't just say, "Oh, he got the winner in all 8 games right, he's a soccer prediction genius!"

[Franzl]

This is my problem with Nate Silver. He presents his predictions are merely "probabilities." So he does not predict that Brazil will advance, but instead that Brazil has a 78% chance to advance or whatever. But if Brazil wins, he and the media applaud him for correctly predicting that Brazil would advance. But if Brazil had lost, he would have just said, "Ah, but I said there was a 22% chance that they would lose, so I'm not wrong!" To check whether or not his probabilities are right, you'd have to look at if, over time, a team with a 78% chance to advance does actually advance in 78 out of 100 games. You can't just say, "Oh, he got the winner in all 8 games right, he's a soccer prediction genius!"

It's the same intuition that makes people speak highly of pollsters for calling the winner right even if off by 5%. But a poll saying R+1 is often regarded as incorrect if the result is D+1.

That said, I don't think the sample size is sufficient for statistics to be of much use for most World Cup matches. Too many unique factors play a role to be able to give a serious, objective estimate of probability.

[Edu]

I'm a bit sceptical of some of the probabilities he's had for several matches so far.

But have any of them been proven wrong?

He gave USA the "absurd" 76% odds of passing through group heading into game three but it happened with very little doubt. He's been derided for giving the group winners too much of a chance for advancing to quarters, yet all they did. He gave Costa Rica-Greece near 50-50 with Costa Rica slight favorite and it went to penalties with Costa Rica winning.  His 20% odds for Algeria to beat Germany when the pundit world was saying 5-0, 6-0, 7-0 Germany ended up being wrong in that it probably should've been 40% for Algeria.

I'm not a huge fan of 538, but I can't say the football experts have shown they have any more of a clue than he does.

All of the things you mentioned (USA having a great chance to go trough in the third match, The group winners advancing, Costa Rica - Greece being a pretty tight match and Germany not winning 7-0 or whatever) seem to be in line with what most people have been saying or predicting.

I mean, all of the group winners were the favorites in every match in the round of 16, Everyone predicted that Germany wasn't going to give much of a damn in the last match (in fact most talked about a pact to make the US go trough) and that the USA had a huge chance of getting to the next round and like Franzl said I don't remember anyone claiming Germany would beat Algeria 7-0 or whatever, but maybe I listen to different people.


Not saying that he's wrong, but the stuff he wrote is similar to the consensus. I hardly think that he's been better than the regular pundits.

[7,052,770]

This is my problem with Nate Silver. He presents his predictions as merely "probabilities." So he does not predict that Brazil will advance, but instead that Brazil has a 78% chance to advance or whatever. But if Brazil wins, he and the media applaud him for correctly predicting that Brazil would advance. But if Brazil had lost, he would have just said, "Ah, but I said there was a 22% chance that they would lose, so I'm not wrong!" To check whether or not his probabilities are right, you'd have to look at if, over time, a team with a 78% chance to advance does actually advance in 78 out of 100 games. You can't just say, "Oh, he got the winner in all 8 games right, he's a soccer prediction genius!"

Yes, absolutely that's how he should be judged. At the end of the World Cup, someone should analyze his probabilities for each game and see if, for example, he was "wrong" around 1/4 of the time he said there was a 75% chance. I suspect we'll find out his odds were very good.

[Keystone Phil]

Stop sucking the life out of this beautiful place with discussion of Nate Silver's stupid probabilities and other odds.