Football: Kane is coming home

[Darryk]

Two world cup finals for Messi, CR7 couldn't even reach one. Not fit to lace Messi's boots.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

One more match. Bring this home!!!

[Corvinus85]

Maybe France will be the first team to win back-to-back since Brazil in 1962. I think I would like that story more than Argentina winning.

[Consigliere]

Glad that Argentina won. Only one side showed up to actually play football. The other side were just a bunch of cloggers hoping to clog their way to penalties.

Hopefully France can get the job done against Morocco. We might then get a good game of football in the final. Otherwise we will have one side parking the bus hoping to get a jammy goal or clogging their way to a penalty shootout.

[polishgenius]

3 minutes ago, Consigliere said:

Otherwise we will have one side parking the bus hoping to get a jammy goal or clogging their way to a penalty shootout.

 

Nah, I don't think Argentina would do that.

[BigFatCoward]

1 hour ago, Darryk said:

Two world cup finals for Messi, CR7 couldn't even reach one. Not fit to lace Messi's boots.

CR7 fans 'but nations league'. 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

21 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

CR7 fans 'but the Euros. 

FTFY.

[Lord of Oop North]

1 hour ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

FTFY.

As a Portuguese-Canadian, what I can say is that the only football thing better than the Euro Win was Ronaldo's tears after the Morocco defeat.

[ants]

23 hours ago, Lord of Oop North said:

First of all, let me just say that I simply do not believe in luck.

  

13 hours ago, Spockydog said:

There is no such thing as luck.

I've got to say I find this idea perplexing/baffling. The idea that there isn't luck is just so obviously incorrect, it's like not believing in gravity. 

Believing luck played no part in a particular game, fine. Believing luck doesn't exist???

9 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

Luck is a word used by people who cannot grasp the enormous complexity of the universe around them. 

Well sure. But unless you understand that universe so well that when a friend is tossing a six sided die you can confidently predict when he's juggling it in their hand the exact outcome every single time, then you also don't understand the complexity of the universe with sufficient detail to remove luck. Luck is simply the term used to encapsulate the result of an outcome that we don't have sufficient information to predict exactly. 

A good example is professional poker. The best players can work around poor hands, and the top players all know the probabilities. But that doesn't mean that sometimes a river card with a very low likelihood scuppers you. The probability of getting that card can be specifically estimated, but luck is the word we use to define you getting a long-shot on a key hand. 

Now, someone might argue that a professional poker player will have played so many hands that they've had both the good and bad long-shots and the standard odds came true hands. But that ignores that not all of those hands will be weighted the same. If a player hits or misses a long-shot at the final table, they may never play enough final table games in similar positions to allow for the full distribution of probabilities. In which case, given they'll have a smaller sample, luck is what determines how good or bad the cards lie for them. 

[Padraig]

4 hours ago, Consigliere said:

Glad that Argentina won. Only one side showed up to actually play football. The other side were just a bunch of cloggers hoping to clog their way to penalties.

That's a bit harsh on Croatia.  I thought they did reasonably well, without creating anything (but then neither did Argentina) until Argentina scored.  And once Argentina scored a second, I think they realised it was one cliff too many for them.  They've had a hard tournament.  People can feel disgruntled that they relied on penalties to get them so far but playing all those extra minutes is draining and it does normally catch up on you.  Especially if you are trying to play catch up again.

I like that Messi realised that a 2-0 goal wasn't enough with this team, so he orchestrated a third.  That was a terrific goal, against a defender that had a very strong tournament until then.

I expected Croatia to win also but I did realise their lack of cutting edge was a major flaw..  I am delighted for Messi that he has made the final.  I still am not convinced by his team, especially in defence.  But we'll see.  They certainly want it, while a team like France will never be so obvious.

[Lord of Oop North]

1 minute ago, ants said:

  

I've got to say I find this idea perplexing/baffling. The idea that there isn't luck is just so obviously incorrect, it's like not believing in gravity. 

Well, gravity is a scientific phenomenon and luck is a supernatural one. They are not equal in any way.

As I said, Luck implies some sort of cosmic force that is creating good or bad events for us in our lives. There are entire mythologies built around this - with Gods, lucky numbers, symbols, and all kinds of other nonsense. I don't believe in that, as that is obviously bullshit. When people speak of "luck", they are almost always speaking of it with some sort of superstitious baggage attached.

Everything else you describe is probability, not luck.

[Lord of Oop North]

7 minutes ago, Padraig said:

I like that Messi realised that a 2-0 goal wasn't enough with this team, so he orchestrated a third.  That was a terrific goal, against a defender that had a very strong tournament until then.

This goal was great. Messi is having a terrific World Cup, and it feels like he is just willing them to this Final.

[Poobah]

6 minutes ago, Lord of Oop North said:

As I said, Luck implies some sort of cosmic force that is creating good or bad events for us in our lives.

Even as a purely rational person surely you're willing to accept the concept of there being things that happen which are not under your direct control or that you cannot predict? The universe is infinitely complex and there are innumerable things going on every day some of which are beneficial and some of which are detrimental to your personal goals/happiness/success - you can say that that isn't luck but that's just arguing semantics, to me it's plain what people mean when they say luck. Also, personally, a universe that could be modelled to the point of removing "luck" would be a deterministic hellscape so I consider myself lucky we have quantum mechanics throwing a wrench in the works

[Lord of Oop North]

3 minutes ago, Poobah said:

Even as a purely rational person surely you're willing to accept the concept of there being things that happen which are not under your direct control or that you cannot predict? 

Of course, perhaps it is semantics. In my mind it is an important distinction though, perhaps because I grew up around many people to whom Luck was very real.

Once you start to talk about a whole universe of situations, it gets very complex. But when we talk about simpler situations, such as a game of football, then it gets easier doesn't it? It is a controlled situation where the vast majority of actions within the game are under the direct control of those involved.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

27 minutes ago, Lord of Oop North said:

As I said, Luck implies some sort of cosmic force that is creating good or bad events for us in our lives.

It really doesn't. What you're describing in this sense is if someone is or isn't blessed by some supernatural force. Luck can be simply chance, if you're looking for another way to describe it. Like I said before and was mentioned again, luck of the cards. You can know the probabilities and play them correctly and if you're very good at it over time you'll win more than you lose, but you still need that lucky last card several times to be excellent.

[Lord of Oop North]

1 minute ago, Tywin et al. said:

It really doesn't. What you're describing in this sense is if someone is or isn't blessed by some supernatural force. Luck can be simply be chance, if you're looking for another way to describe it. Like I said before and was mentioned again, luck of the cards. You can know the probabilities and play them correctly and if you're very good at it over time you'll win more than you lose, but you still need that lucky last card several times over the course to be excellent.

But this isn't a game of chance, is it? We don't need to hope for a last card. This is a sport, your success is determined by your skills being greater than that of your opponent. If you are able to beat them, that isn't luck at all. That is because you, and your team, were better at that moment. 

If you take a shot - and it hits a post, or is blocked by a defender, or curls just wrong - that isn't unlucky. That is you fucking up.

People might say Morocco was lucky - they were dominated on the stats line. But they won, didn't they? On those days, they were not lucky, they were better than both Spain and Portugal. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

20 minutes ago, Lord of Oop North said:

If you take a shot - and it hits a post, or is blocked by a defender, or curls just wrong - that isn't unlucky. That is you fucking up.

You can hit a damn near perfect shot that doesn't result in a goal and you can also completely fuck up and still create a play that results in one. It's really no different than losing a hand starting with pocket aces or winning one with junk.

Quote

This is a sport, your success is determined by your skills being greater than that of your opponent. 

Bad teams beat good teams all the time. That's why it's called a puncher's chance. 

ETA: Or to put it a different way, if Morocco pulls off the upset tomorrow, many will rightly believe they were lucky to play France when they were really injured. The Toronto Raptors won an NBA title because yes, they got lucky that the best and third best player from the far superior team both suffered catastrophic injuries in the series. I don't think many people would have given them a chance if the Warriors were at full strength. 

[ants]

1 hour ago, Lord of Oop North said:

Well, gravity is a scientific phenomenon and luck is a supernatural one. They are not equal in any way.

As I said, Luck implies some sort of cosmic force that is creating good or bad events for us in our lives. There are entire mythologies built around this - with Gods, lucky numbers, symbols, and all kinds of other nonsense. I don't believe in that, as that is obviously bullshit. When people speak of "luck", they are almost always speaking of it with some sort of superstitious baggage attached.

Everything else you describe is probability, not luck.

No it isn't. That's just your view. When I play poker with my buddies and we're hoping for good cards we don't think its some supernatural force driving it. We think its chance. Which is the dictionary definition:

Luck: success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions

Nothing about supernatural there. 

The simple reality is that when you have an uncertain event to occur (and to be clear by uncertain I mean where you don't have enough information to create a model and parametise it to be certain of what will occur) then there needs to be a word to encompass whether things will turn out as you prefer or against your preferences. That word is luck. 

52 minutes ago, Lord of Oop North said:

But this isn't a game of chance, is it? We don't need to hope for a last card. This is a sport, your success is determined by your skills being greater than that of your opponent. If you are able to beat them, that isn't luck at all. That is because you, and your team, were better at that moment. 

If you take a shot - and it hits a post, or is blocked by a defender, or curls just wrong - that isn't unlucky. That is you fucking up.

People might say Morocco was lucky - they were dominated on the stats line. But they won, didn't they? On those days, they were not lucky, they were better than both Spain and Portugal. 

Effectively I think we're both agreeing that it isn't luck if you remove the uncertainty. So here is the question, can the players exactly replicate what they did on the field over and over again? And the answer to that is clearly "no". The vast bulk of players when given a target a balls width wide and reasonable distance, can't hit that target perfectly flush 10 out of 10 times. A more skilled player will have a higher hit rate. 

So if they can't replicate it exactly, then there are uncertainties they cannot control for. Some element of randomness. Whether that is termed as "luck" versus some other term is really not here or there.

Given that the ball does bounce unexpectedly, that the referees use judgement which varies (or can be blind sided) and that plenty of players do have an element of randomness with what they're doing (which varies with the complexity required and the penalty for a miss), the idea luck plays no part seems ... weird. 

Whether it was the deciding factor in a particular game is an entirely different discussion. 

 

[Altherion]

1 hour ago, Padraig said:

That's a bit harsh on Croatia.

I think it was a fair statement. Croatia plays in a very specific style which allows them to sometimes defeat much stronger teams (almost always on penalties), but is not very fun to watch. Here are the match reports for their knockout games against Japan, Brazil and Argentina. Note that in 120 minutes (plus stoppage time), they had a grand total of 4 shots on target against Japan and exactly one (!) against Brazil. The Brazilians screwed up and that one shot went in, but it's pretty clear that Croatia is set up to play for penalties: they defend well and usually limit their attacking to shots from afar (hence the small number of shots on target).

[baxus]

12 hours ago, Darryk said:

Two world cup finals for Messi, CR7 couldn't even reach one. Not fit to lace Messi's boots.

Recently Messi played 1000th match in his professional career and there was a stat comparison between him and Cristiano after 1000 matches. Messi has some 150 assists more than Cristiano but that was to be expected. What surprised me was that Messi has some 50-60 goals more, with Cristiano being advertised as best scorer ever and all that. Also, Messi has 10 trophies more or something like that.

Don't get me wrong, Cristiano's numbers are insane, it's just that Messi's are even better.

10 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

FTFY.

Don't forget that Messi won Copa America last year, so that equals Cristiano's Euros.

6 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

You can hit a damn near perfect shot that doesn't result in a goal and you can also completely fuck up and still create a play that results in one. It's really no different than losing a hand starting with pocket aces or winning one with junk.

A damn near perfect shot that doesn't result in a goal is almost certainly because keeper made a save or a defender cleared it off the line or something like that, which is a result of a clearly intentional action from an opponent. That's not luck.

"Completely fucking up" and still creating a play that results in a goal is down to opponents messing up and you or your teammate making the most of the situation. Still, not luck.

I'm guessing you are talking about poker there, and winning in poker (and card games in general) is definitely not down to luck but to calculating probabilities, keeping track of your opponents actions and behaviour etc.

6 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Bad teams beat good teams all the time.

This is the age old question - is a team that's attacking the whole game and can't score really better than the team that defends the whole game, succeeds at it and scores on a counter? I don't think they are.

It doesn't matter that they'd probably win the game against the same opponent next time or next 10 times. On the night when it mattered, they weren't better.