Should India Do Better?

According to the excellent book Why England Lose or Soccernomics in the United States, countries that have large populations and good economies should do well in international football. This brings the question, why have India only qualified for 1 World Cup, which they didn't even play in? India has a large population and a fairly good economy despite high poverty levels. What gives?
According to Why England Loses, and regression research done by the authors, twice the population is worth .1 goal, twice the GDP is worth .1 goal, and having twice the experience is worth .5 goals.
To tally the goal scoring, you figure out the ratio of, for example, population of country/population of opposition and multiply the coefficient for either population, GDP or experience. For population and GDP, the coefficient is .05, for experience, it is .25.
According to Russell Gerrard's database, between 1871 and 2001, India had played 244 international football matches. I will compare India with the country that has qualified the most for the World Cup, South Korea, and with Iran, who have qualified 3 times and won the Asian Cup 3 times.
India have a massive advantage in population, 1.2 goals. South Korea has .4 goal advantage in GDP and .6 in experience. India should win by .2 goals, meaning most games between the 2 should end in a draw. So we know India should draw with South Korea. Should they've qualified for the World Cup?
In the first round they lost to Lebanon 6-3 on aggregate; using the same method described earlier, India should be beating Lebanon by 14.5 goals, with a massive 13 of them coming from the superiority in population. Over 2 legs, that should be 29 goals, instead of losing by the 3 goals they did. Replacing Lebanon in Group 4, they should beat Uzbekistan at home (.67 goals for home field advantage) by 3.8 goals at home, and 2.43 goals away. Against Saudi Arabia

they should beat them at home by 2 goals, and win away by .7 goals (anything less than .5 is about a draw). Moving on to playing Singapore, which, having a small population and less experience than India, loses by 12.2 goals to India away and by 10.8 goals at home. India, having won all 6 games, have 18 points and a goal difference of 32.

They are then drawn into Group B, with South Korea, North Korea, Iran and the UAE.

We already know in a neutral venue they should beat South Korea by .2 goals. Adding home field advantage, they'll beat South Korea by .9 goals at home, but lose by .5 goals away, which is effectively a draw. Against North Korea, they should win by 3.7 goals at home and by 2.3 goals away. Against Iran they win by 1 goal at home, and draw away. Finally, against the UAE they should win by 9.8 goals at home and by 8.5 goals away. Tallying up the results, India would finish with 20 points and a goal difference of 25. If this happened, they would qualify for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

India should do better. In Why England Lose, they were one of the underachievers based on population, GDP and experience. India can create a good football team if they create a good league, which they can do for cricket, as they did for the Indian Premier League. Based on this, India should become a powerhouse team in Asia, and could possibly win the World Cup in the future.

Best League In the World Series™: Oceania

Continuing the Best League In the World™ after a long break, we are on to Oceania.
Oceania is not a very competitive country footballing wise, having sent just 4 finalists to the World Cup.
In terms of entertainment, the Solomon Islands wins the crown for Oceania; with a low standard deviation and a high number of goals, it ranked first in Oceania.
The Table is here.

England: Antoher simile for "rubbish"

England drew 0-0 with Algeria, and were desperately poor. It was a distressing result, with many expecting England to play better against Algeria, who were not very good against Slovenia.
As this graph shows, England had a lot of passes in the midfield and back, but in the final third, but also a lot down the middle. Algeria, playing a 3-4-2-1 when in possession, 5-4-1 when not, had 5 players in the center, the 3 centre backs and 2 midfielders.
One reason the middle of the park was so congested was the positioning of Steven Gerrard. Gerrard was nominally the left midfield player, cutting inside for Ashley Cole to bomb forward. However, as the graphic below shows, instead of cutting in, he occupied the same area of space as Wayne Rooney, Gareth Barry and Frank Lampard.
In previous tournaments, one of England's problems was that Gerrard and Lampard couldn't play together (Is it no coincidence that in England's best performance of the last world cup, 2-2 against Sweden, Gerrard didn't start?). Under Capello, the problem remains, though, with Barry as the holding midfielder, neither has the responsibility to defend. Neither had a good game; as with the with rest of the England team, they were desperately poor, and the incident where Lampard failed to successfully pass to Gerrard 10 yards away inside the first 20 seconds set the tone for the whole match. The match was desperately callinh out for someone who could deliver an incisve pass, yet just as in the US game, Joe Cole sat on the bench and watched Shaun Wright-Phillips and Peter Crouch come on instead of him. Joe Cole has to start against Slovenia instead of Gerrard or Lampard. Capello might not like him because he cuts inside; yet Gerrard does the same thing and passes the ball better.
Another player who should start is Michael Carrick. He might not have had a great domestic season, but he and Joe Cole are the closes players England have to good technical players, and after the performance put in tonight, technicality is needed.

Credit is due where it's deserved: Algeria defended exceptionally well and made it difficult for England to break them down. They were looking for a point, with the possibility of getting a goal on the break. As stated earlier, playing a 3-4-2-1 meant that when England came down the middle, they were well prepared to defend.

Conclusion:
England were extremely poor with the midfield too congested. They'll need to stretch play against Slovenia and include Joe Cole and Michael Carrick to provide incisive passing. Wayne Rooney will need to more of a factor, otherwise England will go home early.

Thanks to the Total Football 2010 app for the iPod touch for diagrams.

Arsenal Under 18's 5-3 Nottingham Forest Under 18's

After a week delay, I finally have an article about Arsenal's youth team triumph 5-3 over Nottingham Forest. If you have Arsenal TV Online, I recommend watching the game.

Arsenal Under 18's captured the Premier Academy League title on Monday (Silverware!) after a 5-3 victory over Nottingham Forests' Under 18's. The played like an Arsenal team, attacking well, and defending poorly.

They lined up in a 4-3-3, but as the graphic shows, with Ozyakup drifting in, it was more like a 4-1-2-1-2. Freeman played on the left, but drifted in in the second half, and got more involved.
Arsenal pressed up high on the pitch, and started to dominate after going behind. Nottingham Forest had trouble getting out of their own half, and Arsenal were on the brink. They did, when a long pass from Henderson played in Afobe, and he scored after a rebound and pass from Freeman. Chucks Aneke, who reminded me of Abou Diaby and had an imperious game, played in Afobe for the second.
Ozyakup had a very good game, and it was his pass that led to the penalty won by Afobe. Freeman put away a second penalty and after Forest made it 4-3, Freeman ended the game with his second after a cross from Henderson.
Aneke, Afobe Ozyakup, Frimpong, Freeman and Miquel were all impressive, and I'm looking forward to seeing them in the Carling Cup.
For more on the youth team, check out younggunsblog.co.uk

Arsenal 4-0 Fulham

Arsenal concluded the 2009-10 season with a 4-0 victory over a disinterested Fulham, securing 3rd place and an automatic spot for next year's Champions League.

It was a good performance from Arsenal, as they dominated possession, and made 589 passes. Better finishing from Walcott and Van Persie and they would've had 6, and it was a good response to successive defeats.

Arsenal lined up in a 4-3-3, with Samir Nasri deeper than Abou Diaby and Emmanuel Eboue, who was the most advanced midfielder. Fulham lined up in a 4-4-2, with Stefano Okaka playing higher up than Nevland, while the 2 wide midfielders, Demspey and Riise, were forced to play deeper as Arshavin and Walcott saw a lot of the ball early, and were threats. The first goal had a bit of luck about it, but the second and third goals came after great team play.

Carlos Vela and Henri Lansbury made impressive cameo's: Vela scored with an esquisite chip
after brilliant play from Lansbury, Eboue and Nasri, while Lansbury, making his senior Arsenal debut after a spell at Watford, was impressive in the centre of the midfield, only making 2 errant passes.

by Guardian Chalkboards
He played a key role in Vela's goal, and it will be interesting to see how he fits in next year.

This game had some similarites to the 4-0 victory at home v Wigan earlier this year; 4-0 victories, and also the same kind of incising passing into the box that Arsenal didn't have when they missed Robin Van Persie.

by Guardian Chalkboards
Out of all the players Arsenal missed this season, it was Van Persie who was missed the most; not only did he have 8 goals when he went down, but he also was linking up extremely well with Fabregas, Arshavin and the right sided midfielder, and it is possible that with him fit, Arsenal would've won the league, and scored 100 goals, like Chelsea did.

Also, congratulations to the Under 18's for their Title winning 5-3 victory against Nottingham Forest, and we'll have a report on that game.

Best League In the World Series™: South America

This is the first installment of a 6 part series, talking about the most competitive league. You can find the intro here, and here's how I'll be calculating it:

To find the most competitive league, I'm going to use Standard Deviation, a statistical measure of spread. It finds the spread from the mean; the lower the Standard Deviation, the more competitive league. I'll then rank each league in Standard Deviation and goals/game, add the ranks together, and divide by 2. For example, a league that ranks 15th in competitiveness, and 10th in goals/game will have a rank of 12.5 (15+10=25/2=12.5).

First up is South America, with 10 leagues.
The Data is here, but I'll put it below.

Country SD Rank Goal/game Rank Total Rank Note Bolivia 7.5 1 3.1 1 1 Chile 9.2 2 2.9 2 2 Brazil 9.6 4 2.9 2 3 Colombia 10.5 5 2.6 5 5 Argentina 10.7 6 2.5 6 6 Ecuador 9.2 2 2.3 10 6 Peru 12.2 7 2.5 6 6.5 Uruguay 14.5 9 2.8 4 6.5 excludes 1 team Venezuela 10.8 8 2.5 6 7 Paraguay 15.4 10 2.4 9 9.5

sheet 2=database

The best league in South America, in terms of excitement is Boliva; first in competitiveness, first in goals/game, it's the most exciting, though maybe not the best quality. The worst league, in terms of excitement, is the Paraguayan league, which has the second least goals, and lowest competitive ranking.

Next up: Oceania

Best League In the World Series™

When watching the Barclays Premier League, you are often told "It's the Best League in the World™". But is that really the case? Well to figure out what the best league in the world, or least the most exciting is, I'm going to find out tw0 things: One, which league is the most competitive, and Two, which has the most goals per game (because goals are entertaining, even if rubbish). To find the most competitive league, I'm going to use Standard Deviation, a statistical measure of spread. It finds the spread from the mean; the lower the Standard Deviation, the more competitive league. I'll then rank each league in Standard Deviation and goals/game, add the ranks together, and divide by 2. For example, a league that ranks 15th in competitiveness, and 10th in goals/game will have a rank of 12.5 (15+10=25/2=12.5).

I'll be doing installments by continent, and the first up will be South America.