We're only a few days into the London Olympics and the Games have already served as an
all-consuming distraction for a large portion of the planet. One group that has not been distracted
from their primary focus, even while attending Olympic football matches, is that of Blackburn fans
(and their chickens) who really, really want the club's manager, Steve Kean, and ownership group,
Venky's, as far away from their club as humanly possible.
The whirligig that is international week has left me struggling for time as we approach the mundane
predictability of the SPL.
So this week's SPL preview has been drawn entirely at random.
Not by me.
I've shipped in a glamorous assistant, a glamorous assistant who is the number one draw every
Wednesday night at a "gentleman's club" cabaret in Newcastle.
In this special podcast I recorded for Forza Futbol, I talked to Professor Stefan Szymanski,
economist and author of the recently published Soccernomics 2nd edition. Stefan is a Professor of
Kinesiology at School of Kinesiology, University of Michigan and is an author of various books on
economics in sports.
I gave up trying to talk to people about randomness in football about three years ago.Â
Rationally we know that in any given season the same Fulham team might finish 7th or 17th without
changing a thing (injuries, bounces of the ball, etc) but we're not interested in this. In this
game everything must have a reason and a culprit and there's no point trying to suggest
otherwise.
Players and Fans are the two key ingredients that make football the beautiful game.
The skill and the atmosphere, the suspense and the uncertainties, sometimes even a randomness of
poetic and physical forms.
Football will always be this but there are some parts of the game that now exist in a parallel
universe to the game/play outlined above.
Sometimes EPL matches are worth watching for the randomness that occurs in the stands, such as
in yesterday's match between Sunderland and Queen Park Rangers in which, if you watched closely,
you would see a Sunderland fan celebrating Nicklas Bendtner's goal by standing and hugging/jumping
with his dog.
No words. Hit the jump for a cinematic look at my immediate reaction to coming across this truly
bizarre photo of Frank Lampard and some kid. Thanks a lot, Tumblr.
Kid N Play
First, let me say welcome to those visiting this here blog only because a certain cranial-heavy
pop fad was tagged in the post.
We trawl through a lot of football videos here at OTP, but when you spot one entitled Emile Heskey
vs Neymar it tends to stand out from the crowd. And so we are featuring it purely on the grounds of
randomness. Is it a post-modern statement on the hype surround young footballers in the YouTube
[...]
Fernando, we know you're out there. And we want you to know we care.
Carra.
It's been a traumatic 10 or so days for you.
You moved to a new city, one so full of promise yet one so new, so unfamiliar. You initially
longed for the comfort of home, and the company of many of your Scouse friends.
Six of our boys yes, Bob was in the house participated in EA Sports' official FIFA 12 Pro Player
Tournament on Wednesday at Cobham. Cue the inevitable trash talk and the birth of Romelu "I love
the silence" Lukaku.
That's right. Our young Belgian enforcer emerged from the wreckage triumphant, topping fellow
18-year-old Josh McEachran by a 4-1 scoreline in the final.
Add this one to the list of things you never expected to see. Ever.
After you're done admiring a certain pregnant woman's thickness, fast forward to 2:16 and check
for a rather familiar blue top amongst the crowd on the porch. Carefree, bitches.
You can't make stuff like this up. England's Brave John Terry was today, amid training and
fighting this bizarre racist abuse claim, to serve as grand opener at Reptile Kingdom near Cobham.
Wait, what?
Terry, of course, did not show up, much to the dismay of many, including the young one
below.
Reckon Andre broke this out after he secured Meireles at the eleventh hour, leaving Daniel Levy
with a great big pile of misery in the form of Luka Modric. Kick it.
EA Sports, proud (for better or worse) creators of the gargantuanly successful FIFA gaming
series, have been making friends with everybody lately. Running round making club-specific deals
instead of focusing on improving the product how wonderful. But I digress. This new-found
friendliness from EA continues today, with Chelsea announcing an official partnership with the
conglomerate for the 2011-12 season.
A Drogba joined a Malouda today at Dijon, just not the ones we're familiar with.
Not these two
Dijon, who will compete in France's top flight for the first time in the club's history this
season, announced the signing of Freddy Drogba on Wednesday. Freddy is, of course, the younger
brother of The Mighty One.
Branislav Ivanovic's young son takes the opportunity post-match yesterday to break away from the
pack and show off some dribbling skills. And then, he shoots he scores! Only five more goals to
catch up to his dad for the season!
Ashley Cole shot my mum last week. The drama has since been immortalized in digital form, first
by Taiwanese television and now by some crafty fucks with degrees in software engineering.
No disrespect, of course. This is good, real good.
The trolls have also agreed to a similar contract. It really is quite flattering, you know?
And kind of sad.
Well done, sirs.
You beat us. Twice. You deserved all six points. Congratulations. Now, how about moving on to
bigger and better things? Yeah, like focusing on the mighty Wigan.
The enigma that is Salomon Kalou was on full show Tuesday at the Stadium of Light. A superb
shift as foil to Didier Drogba overshadowed by a second-half miss so glorious that it managed toÂ
bemuse the hell out of all of us. Bemusing us, it's what King Salomon does best.
Looks like the club is already recovering some of that British record transfer fee.
Movin' units
Marketability. The Mirror today has a story regarding the retail madness that has been
Fernando Torres shirt sales. Since the Spanish striker joined Chelsea from Liverpool on Monday
night, the club have reportedly sold a billion No.
On Sunday night Toby and I took in Sutton United v Notts County in the FA Cup second round
proper (a trip to Doncaster was on offer to the winners).
No giant killing here. County eventually sauntered to a routine victory, but there were alarms
along the way, notably when Sutton were awarded then missed a penalty on the verge of half-time
(shooooot!
Justin Bieber is in Britain for something or other. Girls everywhere are crying. Meanwhile, the
singer turned rapper took some time out from making said girls sob incessantly by hauling his
4-year-old girlfriend, Selena Gomez, to Stamford Bridge for a private tour.
So many of us blogger types have been obsessing over transfers for months now. It's only natural
really. Concrete news is at a minimum for the most part, and rumors are very much a welcome
diversion from the regular old norm.
Some, including us here at the Chelsea Offside, have even gone as far as to ask readers who
would be their dream signings this summer.
Last week I took a look at correlations between first half and second half rates of various
statistics for MLS players to help explore the question of whether the rates were primarily driven
by player skill or other factors. The upshot was that shot rate is pretty well correlated, but both
accuracy (shots on goal / shots) and conversion (goals / shots on goal) were all over the place,
indicating that factors other than player skill (which we'll call 'randomness') dominate those
rates.
