Soccer 2017-2018

a c i d.f l y

a c i d.f l y

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Razzes said:
No, I don't watch soccer outside the Euro and World Cup. I know def+counter atk is a legit strategy goddamnit: the weaker team wins all the time doing this. It's just lame that in football you're never that far off 50/50 odds even when one of the team is complete trash with the ball and has 0 scoring opportunity in the whole game. It just seems broken to me. It's also incredibly boring.

I watched Spain victory in the Euro and World cup, and many of their wins weren't that decisive or convincing. Many of them 1-0 that could have easily ended in a coin flip penalty kicks at 0-0. It's telling that what you call extremely successful translated into something like 60% prob of winning per game against teamsthat had basically 0 scoring chance vs them. Seems broken to me. At least they could use "best of" format to tame that variance, like in NHL.
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When folks say this, I just feel like they haven't watched enough games, or don't actually understand the dynamics, don't really know the players on the field, the pacing and how players on the field are managed, it all adds up. Yeah, there's a random and luck factor, but then the Eagles won this last Superbowl. Overall the better team tends to win (just look at Athletic Bilbao), but you can never beat bad luck, just as it is in any sport.
 
Szlia

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From a game design perspective, I feel one of the main appeal of soccer is that domination is not always converted into score. In basketball, the team that dominates is getting stops and is scoring baskets: the domination is materialized on the score board. In soccer, domination is materialized by ball possession and scoring opportunities, but not necessarily goals. It allows for the dominated team to "bend but not break" and, as a consequence, it allows for weaker teams to beat stronger ones.
 
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Merrith

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The simple way to put it is in a low event (goals) sport, luck could play a very large factor or you see a lot of underdogs manage to win games using defensive strategies. There's a very large different between teams putting 10 guys behind the ball and teams that look to counter attack with speed against teams they know are going to maintain heavy possession. Spain and the old Barca teams are poster children for having so much of the ball any team that tries to maintain possession 50/50 against them will just get crushed most of the time.

Penalties and how decisive they can be in games are another factor. You have Spain break through and score today, but Pique puts an arm up and it gives Russia a penalty to get back in the game. That's all part of the deal though, and because goals are such low events they become very exciting events. Upsets do happen, but we also get games like France/Argentina that are just fun as hell to watch.
 
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Razzes

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a c i d.f l y said:
When folks say this, I just feel like they haven't watched enough games, or don't actually understand the dynamics, don't really know the players on the field, the pacing and how players on the field are managed, it all adds up. Yeah, there's a random and luck factor, but then the Eagles won this last Superbowl. Overall the better team tends to win (just look at Athletic Bilbao), but you can never beat bad luck, just as it is in any sport.
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Read Merrith post he is spot on. low goal count implies large luck factor. You would need many games between 2 given team to know truely which team scores more than the other. In the end, Spain is still better than Russia, as shown by the fact that they had slightly more scoring chances. These scoring chances would convert into more goals in a "best of" format with enough games.

So saying the best team tends to win in soccer is a joke. Look at how many "historical upsets" we have every world cup. Including every time the world cup champion gets eliminated in the group stage. These upsets aren't actually huge statistical upsets, it's just that even crappy teams can win against great teams by playing defense, even if they don't touch the ball until penalty kicks.

Russia had 25% of winning this game. Top 5 team vs some garbage rank 70 team. Those "huge" upsets we see in soccer? They translate into 3-1 odds.

The best team in NHL tends to win, or in NBA. Not in FIFA.
 
Merrith

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Razzes said:
Read Merrith post he is spot on. low goal count implies large luck factor. You would need many games between 2 given team to know truely which team scores more than the other. In the end, Spain is still better than Russia, as shown by the fact that they had slightly more scoring chances. These scoring chances would convert into more goals in a "best of" format with enough games.

So saying the best team tends to win in soccer is a joke. Look at how many "historical upsets" we have every world cup. Including every time the world cup champion gets eliminated in the group stage. These upsets aren't actually huge statistical upsets, it's just that even crappy teams can win against great teams by playing defense, even if they don't touch the ball until penalty kicks.

Russia had 25% of winning this game. Top 5 team vs some garbage rank 70 team. Those "huge" upsets we see in soccer? They translate into 3-1 odds.

The best team in NHL tends to win, or in NBA. Not in FIFA.
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Actually I was implying that luck was a factor, but probably not to the degree you are saying it is. I was mainly trying to point out the major reasons why you will see big upsets. You play enough games, they're going to happen, and in this tournament there are some teams that have hurt themselves with their strategies/lineups/overall play in some games, as well. See as much as playing defensive and maybe getting a penalty can result in 1-1 games that go to penalties which can result in an upset, or a 1-0 upset win by the team that defends most of the game...the fact that goals ARE so low event means an attacking team that is controlling most of the play also only needs one lucky sequence to score a goal against what otherwise would be a masterful defensive performance.

Saying the best team in NHL tends to win is just wrong btw. Not saying there aren't super strong teams that do go through and win the Cup some years, but comparing the NHL to the NBA isn't even close as far as that goes.
 
Ossoi

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Razzes said:
. I know def+counter atk is a legit strategy goddamnit: the weaker team wins all the time doing this. It's just lame that in football you're never that far off 50/50 odds .
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lol, ok
 
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Ossoi

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Razzes said:
it's just that even crappy teams can win against great teams by playing defense, even if they don't touch the ball until penalty kicks.

Russia had 25% of winning this game. .
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ok, with each post you're revealing your lack of knowledge/experience of football.

That whole Spanish generation (at least the Barcelona players) represented PURE Possession style football - it was called tiki-taka and was the idea that you have as much possession as possible, pass it as much as possible, make clever movements and create openings that way - it was all about denying opponents the ball

As previously mentioned, that generation has peaked, plus Spain sacked their manager a DAY BEFORE the tournament began. If you have 75% posession and can't outscore your opponent you don't deserve to win.

Rather than keep arguing about a subject you know relatively little about, read the "countering tiki-taka" section of this article - Tiki-taka - Wikipedia

The TLDR is that it's not about going toe to toe with better players

And the fact that lesser teams can triumph via tactics over better players is exactly what makes football great. This World Cup has been brilliant because all of the "bigger"/better Countries are getting knocked out

Also a decent analysis Tiki-taxi for Spain as style becomes vice against Russia’s rearguard | Barney Ronay
 
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dizzie

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Think in this world cup we had not seen a really defensive game up until the Russia game yesterday. There's been alot of goals and open attacking open play in most of the games. The quality of football has been exceptionally entertaining. Spain played pretty poorly, you would expect them to score against that Russian side but they showed no imagination at all in their attacking play and it cost them the game. Playing defensively can still be risky, you only need some creativity in midfield and a decent finisher(s) or a team who can play for set pieces and all of a sudden your defensive plan has gone out the window.

It's really great to see the teams that usually dominate getting knocked out. Hopefully we will see a smaller team win it this time, a la Greece in Euro 2004.
 
Zindan

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Razzes said:
Read Merrith post he is spot on. low goal count implies large luck factor. You would need many games between 2 given team to know truely which team scores more than the other. In the end, Spain is still better than Russia, as shown by the fact that they had slightly more scoring chances. These scoring chances would convert into more goals in a "best of" format with enough games.

So saying the best team tends to win in soccer is a joke. Look at how many "historical upsets" we have every world cup. Including every time the world cup champion gets eliminated in the group stage. These upsets aren't actually huge statistical upsets, it's just that even crappy teams can win against great teams by playing defense, even if they don't touch the ball until penalty kicks.

Russia had 25% of winning this game. Top 5 team vs some garbage rank 70 team. Those "huge" upsets we see in soccer? They translate into 3-1 odds.

The best team in NHL tends to win, or in NBA. Not in FIFA.
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Yea, the Russian goalkeeper or some other player said that they went into the game wanting it to end on penalty kicks.
 
Quineloe

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Szlia said:
From a game design perspective, I feel one of the main appeal of soccer is that domination is not always converted into score. In basketball, the team that dominates is getting stops and is scoring baskets: the domination is materialized on the score board. In soccer, domination is materialized by ball possession and scoring opportunities, but not necessarily goals. It allows for the dominated team to "bend but not break" and, as a consequence, it allows for weaker teams to beat stronger ones.
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It's a pretty simple equation.

The more scoring takes place in a game, the less likely the underdog is to win. If we changed football to have an average of 10 goals per game, it would always be the top teams that won.
 
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Razzes

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Ossoi said:
lol, ok
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You can easily comprehend that sentence. Winning "all the time" can mean winning near 50% of the times. All the times here did not literally mean every time. It is an hyperbole maybe, so you know I'm aware def+ counter atk is a good strategy for weaker teams.

Also I'm aware Spain plays for possession and that's how they shut down their opponnent. Saying Spain doesn't deserve to win if they don't score with 75% of possession is complete non-sense. Their opponent doesn't deserve to win either if they haven't touched the fucking ball the whole game. In the end, you guys simply choose to side with the weaker team. That's cute and romantic but Spain is still much better than Russia and would win 3times out of 4.

dizzie said:
Think in this world cup we had not seen a really defensive game up until the Russia game yesterday.
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You haven't been paying attention. Ton of matches were snoozefest with a couple of VAR penalties in there to inflate the goal count of this world cup. The good thing about Video Replay is that it favors the attacking side, and thus usually favors good teams.
 
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Gurgeh

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It's not unusual for a soccer team to go 10 or even 20 matches without a loss, that's something that simply wouldn't happen if odds were close to 50/50. France for example has 26W/6D/8L in its last 40 matches, Brazil is at 27/8/5, Belgium 29/7/4. The likelyhood of a "bad" team winning the WC or the Euro, is close to 0. Now soccer isn't just about who's got the most talent of the field. Now luck is of course a factor, but is it even larger one than in other sports ? I don't know, see how RM can win 3 CL in a row, half of the CL being knockouts, how likely would that be if luck was the deciding factor? How do 4 clubs win 30 out of 60 champions league if luck is the deciding factor ?
 
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Szlia

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Ossoi said:
Denmark 92, Greece 2002.
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Denmark had a great team in 92. Greece was a bit of a perfect storm though.

To paraphrase a french analist: Russia is not like 2002's Greece. The greeks would never have allowed themselves to score more than one goal in a match, even against Saudi Arabia! :p
 
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Brando

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For the Spain/Russia game, I think firing your coach 1 day before the start of the WC showed up here. They're tactics were muddled and Asencio's inclusion was a disaster. It seemed it took until ET to finally figure out what they were doing and it was just a jumbled mess at that point. Russian's doping did have an effect here in that while they did sit deep they weren't passive, they pressured a good 30yrds out from goal all the way to the final whistle while never letting anybody settle on the ball and made it very difficult.

To Razzes point, it's never close to a 50/50 which is why the smaller team will adopt those tactics as they're probably going to lose and this is their only chance to get something. And even then the team that is expected to win that game normally do. Manchester City won the league with 2 or 3 losses and every game they dominated the ball and the other team tried to play like Russia. Spain didn't lose during the game today, they lost on penalties which is basically a coin flip and not a representation of which team was better.

But that's what makes soccer exciting and interesting in that anything can happen in 90 or 120 minutes on the field regardless of the way the teams look on paper.

So far this morning, it took Brazil 20-25 minutes to remember they were Brazil. They should pull this out but we'll see.
 
Ossoi

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Szlia said:
Denmark had a great team in 92. Greece was a bit of a perfect storm though.

To paraphrase a french analist: Russia is not like 2002's Greece. The greeks would never have allowed themselves to score more than one goal in a match, even against Saudi Arabia! :p
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I was 11, they were definitely outsiders - they never even qualified for the tournament and replaced Yugoslavia - it doesn't get more unfancied than that.

Just reading up on it and the competition only featured 8 teams!
 
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