Revisiting Football in Australia – 20 years on

Recently, Optus Sports run a four-part series on football in Australia.  It covered the evolution of the A-League, the debate defining Australia’s football future, the vision for fixing football in Australia, and the women’s game in this country.  While there’s a lot in these four lengthy articles that I’d like to dig my teeth into, especially the time that’s past since I’ve had myself a good football rant in this forum, for now, I think a higher priority for me is to revisit the three posts I wrote back in 2001/2002 about football in Australia, which I’ve dug out from the Wayback Machine archives and reposted here.

There’s heaps of gold in these articles written 20 years ago, some scarily accurate (broadly speaking) predictions/suggestions like the move to the Asian Confederation, the move away from incompetent ex-Socceroos coaching the national side, and the restructured national competition.   So, over the next few weeks, I will dust off my football ranting hat, delve into my past diatribes, and share with you some hopes, predictions and/or visions for football in Australia beyond 2022.  At the very least, it’ll give me something to write about in 2042.

For now… just watch this space for some content.

Real Indication of Olympic Greatness Revisited Again – BTUSAF 2021

Another Olympics comes to a close, and Tokyo 2020 (aka “Tokyo 2021”) has been been a great success despite the many challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. Yes, the stadiums were without crowds, and it was a year late, but the fact that it went ahead at all is amazing. Many naysayers were poo-pooing the Olympics… Tokyo 2020 is specifically for going ahead in the middle of a pandemic, but also the Olympics in general for the financial burden it usually puts on host cities/nations. While I acknowledge that the criticisms of the IOC are well deserved, and the concerns are valid, and am disappointed by the over-commercialisation of sports… whenever the Olympics come around, I prefer to put a pin in my cynicism for two weeks and enjoy the sporting spectacle that I’ve always loved about the Olympics.

The Statistics Always Lie – A Look At The Socceroos WC2018 Chances

I stumbled upon a link on the ABC News website titled “The stats don’t lie: Australia’s gargantuan World Cup task” which took me to James Maasdorp’s article titled “Comparing the Socceroos to the giants of world football through goals, appearances and social media”.

Unfortunately, for James, he seems to have forgotten that “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”  There are a heap of statistical misrepresentations (I’m reluctant to call James a liar) in the analysis presented, and I hope to address just some here.

Now let me first state that while I do not necessarily disagree with James’ point that the Socceroos have a tough road ahead in Russia; I merely have an issue with his poor use of statistics to try to support it.

First, his use of Number of Players in the ‘Big 5’ Leagues.  This ignores the quality of players going around in the other leagues; one could argue that the top players in other leagues such as Belgium, Netherlands, Turkey, Brazil or Mexico, are as good as or better than the average in Spain, England, Italy, France & Germany.  Also, while, yes the number of players in the ‘Big 5’ is an indicator of the depth of talent the selectors had to choose from, in the end, each team at the World Cup only gets to select 23.  Similar issue with presenting the Appearances stat.

Next, the use of Goals Scored and Combined Goals & Assists in these ‘Big 5’ leagues is a fundamentally flawed measure because it doesn’t allow for the number of players from the countries in those leagues.  Obviously, a country with way more players in the ‘Big 5’ will score & assist in way more goals.  If you allow for the number of players, i.e. Number of Goals & Assists per Player, Australia ranks 8th which is pretty good compared to our Group C opponents Denmark, France and Peru ranked 11th, 22nd and 24th respectively.  (FYI – Egypt is ranked #1).

Now, just for shits-and-giggles, let’s look at the Appearances per Player… Australia is ranked #1 on this measure.  Peru is 5th, Denmark 6th and France 19th.  What does this tell us? It could be argued that it shows the quality of the players in the ‘Big 5’ from the country, i.e. that they’re actually playing in the leagues more regularly, and this also allows for quality defenders and goalkeepers who would be under-represented in the Goals and Assists figures.

I could slice and dice these stats a few other ways, but in the end, all I would prove is what I’ve shown above, i.e. STATISTICS LIE.

Stock Image c/o https://www.pexels.com/photo/grass-sport-game-match-47730/

On the other stats James presents… FIFA18 rating, Social Media Following (SMF), and Transfer Market Valuation (TMV).  The SMF figure is completely irrelevant… yes, there may be a correlation between the quality of the player and his following, but correlation is not causation… otherwise, Kim Kardashian would be playing at the World Cup (but then again, USA didn’t qualify).  FIFA18 ratings and TMV are historic measures of the individual, Russia 2018 is a one-time event, now, and football is about the team.  If past World Cups have shown us anything is that great player and teams often fail when the world is watching, minnows often topple football powerhouses.  How many people expected Cameroon to beat Argentina in the opening match of 1990, or Costa Rica to beat Scotland later that same tournament?  How many predicted Senegal to defeat France in 2002?  Or Switzerland’s victory over eventual winners, Spain in 2010? What were these players EA Sports FIFA stats?  What were the TMV of the Cameroonians, Costa Ricans, Senegalese & Swiss?

I have hope for the Socceroos.  At their best, even with their current squad (which seems to be lacking the calibre of past Socceroo World Cup teams), they can beat Peru and Denmark… and what gives me hope in their opening game against France, is Le Bleu’s ability to self-destruct… despite its strength.

All that said… I won’t be holding breathe on a Socceroos victory…. Because I’ll probably be screaming at the TV, barracking for the Green & Gold.

A-League VIII – Round 1

It’s been a long time since I publicly tipped on A-League, and am going to try my hand today at this weeks opening round of Season 8.

Despite the coaching changes since last season seeming to suggest this should be a win for the blue side of Melbourne, I’m going to tip with my heart and say the Heart will beat Victory tonight.

Wellington will spoil Del Piero’s welcome to the A-League,  but defeating Sydney.

Glory will take out their revenge on the Roar.

Central Coast will be too strong for the Wanderers.

Heskey will impress for Newcastle as they teach Adelaide a thing or two… no mercy will be shown the already depressed Reds, coming off their aggregate loss in their Asian Championship League efforts.

So… they’re my tips for this weekend.  If they’re any good, I might do this again.

Real Indication of Olympic Greatness Revisited – BTUSAF 2012

Eight years ago, following some debate at the time, I did some analysis of the medal tally from the Athens Olympics to determine the greatest sporting nation of the 2004 Olympics. Well, I’ve had some time on my hands during these Olympics (due to my recent knee surgery) and I’ve done the same calculations for the London 2012 Olympics.

Doing some online research, I was able to discover weight ((400g source: http://www.coinweek.com/bullion-report/olympic-medals-are-still-made-of-precious-metal-but-contain-less-gold/)) and composition ((Available at http://www.coinweek.com/bullion-report/olympic-medals-are-still-made-of-precious-metal-but-contain-less-gold/)) of each of the medals at the 2012 Olympics. The breakdown:

  • Gold Medal – 5.36g of Au, 370g of Ag, 24.64g of Cu
  • Silver Medal – 370g of Ag, 30g of Cu
  • Bronze Medal – 388g of Cu, 10g of Zi, 2g of Sn

Then, applying these breakdowns to the market values ((Source http://www.wolframalpha.com/ Date: 5th of August 2012)) of metals on the international market at the time of the Olympics, we’re able to calculate the value of each of the medal. Giving:

  • Gold – US$605.89
  • Silver – US$329.52
  • Bronze – US$2.88

As was the case 8 years ago, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) appears to be the best indicator to a nations success at the Olympics. The correlation between the nations medal haul value and GDP ((0.8196 using Excel’s correlation function)) is much higher than the correlation between medal haul value and population ((0.4678 using Excel’s correlation function)), evident by just looking at the Top 10 of the Official Medal Tally:

Rank Nation Rank (GDP) Rank (Pop)
1 United States 1 3
2 China 2 1
3 Great Britain 6 16
4 Russia 11 6
5 South Korea 15 19
6 Germany 4 11
7 France 5 15
8 Italy 8 17
9 Hungary 47 48
10 Australia 13 37

Also, evident from the above table is that Hungary did exceptionally well at London 2012 Olympics, given they’re in the 40’s for both GDP and Population, yet managed 9th on the Medal Tally.

Now it would be possible to manipulate the statistics in numerous ways to get whatever result we desire, as The Age proved already… but we’re really interested in finding out which country was the greatest at the London 2012 Olympics… so as we did in 2004, we look at Value of the medal haul as a percentage of the nation’s GDP, and then we normalise it to that of the USA (USA selected again b/c they once again topped the traditional tally) to come up with the “Better Than USA Factor” (BTUSAF) Tally.

So, here it is, the 2012 Olympic BTUSAF standings:

BTUSAF Rank Official Rank Nation BTUSAF
1 50 Grenada 300.72
2 18 Jamaica 107.65
3 20 North Korea 76.21
4 39 Georgia 52.93
5 56 Mongolia 41.53
6 69 Montenegro 30.87
7 24 Ethiopia 30.83
8 50 Bahamas 30.30
9 28 Kenya 30.17
10 16 Cuba 24.20
11 26 Belarus 20.23
12 9 Hungary 18.50
13 34 Lithuania 16.33
14 14 Ukraine 14.82
15 30 Azerbaijan 14.04
16 60 Armenia 13.78
17 50 Uganda 13.71
18 25 Croatia 13.63
19 12 Kazakhstan 12.02
20 15 New Zealand 11.74
21 47 Trinidad and Tobago 11.60
22 49 Latvia 9.76
23 42 Serbia 9.61
24 69 Botswana 8.54
25 45 Tunisia 8.17
26 42 Slovenia 7.73
27 46 Dominican Republic 6.99
28 27 Romania 6.83
29 69 Gabon 6.76
30 63 Estonia 6.75
31 19 Czech Republic 6.66
32 47 Uzbekistan 6.04
33 4 Russia 6.04
34 69 Cyprus 5.53
35 17 Iran 4.06
36 5 South Korea 4.00
37 3 Great Britain 3.97
38 29 Denmark 3.16
39 69 Guatemala 3.06
40 10 Australia 2.89
41 13 Netherlands 2.79
42 63 Bulgaria 2.68
43 23 South Africa 2.63
44 38 Colombia 2.15
45 2 China 2.15
46 41 Ireland 1.76
47 37 Sweden 1.62
48 7 France 1.55
49 30 Poland 1.55
50 6 Germany 1.52
51 59 Slovakia 1.49
52 8 Italy 1.47
53 50 Algeria 1.47
54 35 Norway 1.44
55 21 Spain 1.40
56 33 Switzerland 1.36
57 63 Puerto Rico 1.29
58 58 Egypt 1.18
59 1 United States 1.00
60 32 Turkey 0.98
61 42 Argentina 0.98
62 57 Thailand 0.80
63 22 Brazil 0.64
64 11 Japan 0.63
65 39 Mexico 0.60
66 50 Venezuela 0.60
67 36 Canada 0.56
68 69 Portugal 0.55
69 60 Finland 0.54
70 63 Malaysia 0.54
71 75 Moldova 0.32
72 60 Belgium 0.28
73 63 Chinese Taipei 0.27
74 79 Tajikistan 0.20
75 63 Indonesia 0.18
76 55 India 0.15
77 79 Afghanistan 0.07
78 79 Bahrain 0.05
79 75 Qatar 0.02
80 79 Morocco 0.01
81 75 Singapore 0.01
82 79 Kuwait 0.01
83 75 Greece 0.01
84 79 Hong Kong 0.00
85 79 Saudi Arabia 0.00

So… once again, the title of best sporting nation at an Olympics (factoring for medal value on the International Metal Exchange and GDP) goes to a Caribbean nation, this time Grenada, thanks to it’s first ever Olympic medal and it’s tiny GDP. Jamaica up to 2nd from 3rd in 2004. Cuba, 1st eight years ago is now down in 10th.

Australia’s showing is a dismal 40th, a far cry from it’s 15th in 2004. This could be put down to the fewer golds this time round, but also a factor is the stronger economy. Guess we can’t have everything.

Gold Coast Football Club

"GC" - Gold Coast FC's mascot

"GC" – Gold Coast FC's mascot

So the AFL have announced the name and colours of its next expansion team… the “Gold Coast Football Club“.

The biggest surprise is that they’ve opted to not give the club a nickname… largely because they couldn’t get the one they wanted, i.e. “Sharks”.

So, from this, one can only guess that they’re leaving it up to the clubs. and/or leagues, fans to come up with one, and we all know that the fans of opposition teams will not be too kind with what they come up with.

So… my thoughts are, given their location, and their mascot, that everyone should start referring to this new club as the “Gold Coast Budgie Smugglers“.

What do you think? Will it catch on?

Beijing 2008 – Football – Australia v Serbia

Just watched Australia’s opening football match of the 2008 Olympics against Serbia on Channel 7 and have been "inspired" enough by a few things to get me out into the bungalow on a cold, Melbourne, winter night to vent blog about it.

Firstly… Channel 7.  The nerve of them to broadcast this on a delay of TWO HOURS.  If they didn’t want to do a proper job of broadcasting the games, they shouldn’t have bid for them.  I vaguely recall being equally disgusted with their efforts four years ago with their coverage of the Athens Olympics.  A sign of the standard we’re to expect of the next two weeks?  Let’s hope not.  At least the guy commentating the game for Ch7 was okay.  Knew the game and made an effort to pronounce the names correctly (got most of them right too).  That brings me to my second point.

Secondly… ABC’s radio commentary was of the game was SHOCKING.  I listened to about 15 minutes of the match and one of the commentators (David Morrow I think is his name) didn’t know the game and couldn’t pronounce his mothers maiden name if it wasn’t "Smith".  He was clearly a rugby commentator as he kept referring to the goal-line as the "by-line"… and on several occasions during the time I was listening, he made negative stereotypical comments about the sport.  Made me want to write to the ABC and complain… thought I’d vent here instead.

Finally… the match itself .  What can I say about the Olyroos?  Uncoordinated, uninspired, unbelievably lucky to come away from this with a 1-1 draw.  Their play had "Graham Arnold" stamped all over it… when will the FFA realise that this guy is a dead weight around the neck of the sport for this counrty.   Get rid of him already.