It’s about time.

I’ve been following the World Cup pretty closely over the past month, and although I haven’t been able to watch every match, I’ve seen my fair share of games to realize that something needs to be done to improve the quality of the “world’s most beautiful sport,” especially on the a stage as big as the World Cup. In this post, I’ll go over a couple of soccer’s biggest problems and what can be done to help fix them.

• FIFA should introduce goal-line technology

One of the most common events in the game (and the subject of frequent controversy) is the infamous offsides call. An official FIFA match will feature one official referee, two assistant referees, and a fourth official (who primarily signals substitutions and time added from the midfield line). Of these officials, the two assistants (or linesmen) are in charge of sticking with the last defender on each side and making sure that the opposing forward is not past the last defender (“offsides”) when a pass is hit from the attacking player’s teammate. The problem with this system is that referees make mistakes from time to time, and these mistakes often lead to goals that should have been disallowed, or conversely, disallowing a perfectly legal goal (such as the U.S.’s goal against Algeria). With goal-line technology (which could be anything from putting a chip in the soccer ball to track its precise location to simply using video cameras to review a controversial play), referees would have a powerful tool at their disposal that would drastically reduce the rate of human error. Opponents of goal-line technology argue that using such technology would take away from the “human factor” of the game. However, in a low-scoring game such as soccer, one bad call or mistake from the referee can make a huge impact on the game. I was truly amazed that such an incident occured not once but twice during today’s quarterfinal matches between Germany and England and Argentina and Mexico. In the first game, England was down 1-2 when Frank Lampard hit a shot that bounced off the crossbar and landed a good 1.5 yards inside the box before bouncing out again (see Lampard’s Disallowed Goal). However, to the outrage of the English players and fans, the goal was not counted by the referee. While I do believe that Germany was the better team and deserved to get the win, let us put into perspective the importance of such a goal, had it been counted. The game would have been level at 2-2, and all the momentum would have shifted to England going into the second half. Psychologically and emotionally, England would have been better off. Instead, Frank Lampard and his teammates went into the half feeling somewhat deflated and never recovered with the same energy that they finished the first half with. Similarly, Carlos Tevez’s goal against Mexico (see Tevez’s Offsides Goal) was clearly offsides (a good 2 yards or so), but the referee called it good dispite heavy protests from the Mexican side. As with the England match, Tevez’s goal was extremely crucial, as it was the first of the match (statistically speaking, the first side to score in a game are heavily favored to win, and especially in the World Cup, as teams tend to focus more on defense). With that crucial (and illegal) goal, Argentina grabbed all the momentum going forward, and Mexico seemed to lose its nerve, committing several defensive blunders that led to a second goal. And although Mexico did go on to recover its spirit in the second half, the damage had been done.

It’s a shame really, that such huge mistakes were allowed to stand at a World Cup, but the two examples above also illustrate just how important it is for referees to the make the fair call in any controversial situation.  Of course, we are led to believe that in both cases, none of the officials had a very good look at the play, but with goal-line technology, the mistake could have been easily corrected in less than 30 seconds. Instead, fans around the world are led to wonder why two obvious calls that even a kid watching television could see was wrong was not recognized by the officials and FIFA at the World Cup Quarterfinals.

Opponents of using technology in matches go on to argue that embracing such a change would lead to a complete restructuring of the game’s officiating. That is, if we were to introduce cameras and other technology to monitor the goal-line, then we would have to go all out and replace the linesmen with technology as well. However, this doesn’t have to be the case. Like I mentioned before, technology should simply be regarded as a tool at the disposal of the officials, an extra pair of eyes, if you will. Referees and linesmen should still be confident in their work, but instead of turning a blind eye on a possibly game-changing call, they should utilize technology to help them review the play and make a decision given the full facts of the situation. Lastly, opponents point out that implementing technology in games would affect the “uniformity” of soccer matches. Because it may not be feasible to implement the technology in poorer nations or youth leagues, the argument goes that the technology should be excluded in order to preserve the uniformity of FIFA’s rules. This is absolutely ridiculous. Major international sports such as tennis, hockey, and cricket have already introduced some sort of line technology into the game and it has been accepted by their governing bodies and athletes alike. However, this doesn’t mean that the same technology is used in youth or lower level play. Obviously, high school and college tennis matches still rely on the umpire to make the calls (and in many cases, players make the calls themselves). Same with hockey and cricket. FIFA should not use “uniformity” as an excuse to not introduce goal-line technology in major matches. In fact, there is no reason that technology should be uniform in the first place. You don’t use Hawk-Eye camera technology in a high school tennis match because it’s simply not worth it. You do use it on the ATP because more precise officiating is called for on the professional circuit. Similarly, shouldn’t the World Cup, the single most important tournament in all of soccer, have access to the most advanced technology available in order to assure that all calls are made fairly?

• Implement severe punishments for diving

It’s called the beautiful game, but most fans know that it’s anything but when it comes to fouls. While diving has always been an issue in soccer, with improved video technology, it has become more and more obvious to even to the most casual TV watcher. Players dive in order to try and win their team a crucial free kick, give the opposing player a yellow/red card, or simply delay the game as much as possible. These tactics have become very familiar to almost anyone who either plays or watches soccer, but simply put, such underhanded tactics take away from the spirit of the game as whole. However, because the incentives for diving are high, and since players can usually get away with it with relatively little punishment, the only way to reduce it is to enact more severe punishments. I can guarantee that if FIFA made diving an automatic yellow or red card offense, then the number of dives per game would reduce dramatically.

• Players and officials should take responsibility for their actions

If you dive as a player, you should be prepared to accept the consequences. It is not only a personal disgrace, but for all the fans around the world watching the game, it is a disgrace for your country. It baffles me that players seem to feel no shame in their actions on the pitch, when it is clear the consequences of these actions can extend far beyond themselves. Similarly, referees must show a sense of responsibility on the pitch. When was the last time you saw a referee revoke a controversial decision after he found out about his mistake. Chances are, never. While I’m positive that both referees today realized the terrible mistakes that they had made, they most likely decided to stick with their decision because they wanted to preserve their dignity. I, for one, would love to see an honest ref come out and say, “Hey, I made a bad mistake, but I’m going to correct it.” Surely, if the referee in the England game had come back onto the pitch after reviewing the replays at the half and announced that the score was now 2-2, it would have caused a huge controversy (not to mention anger from the German fans). But in retrospect, that would have been the right call, and I think that everyone would agree with it after seeing the replay with their own eyes. The ref, rather than being disgraced (and most likely now suspended from any major match in the future), would be respected for his honesty. Along that note, I think that German goalkeeper Neuer should really be ashamed of himself. Not only did he see the ball bounce in behind the line, he picked it up and continued to play on as if nothing had happened. Yeah, he got away with it all right, but Germany lost a fan in the process.

France and Italy meet again…at the airport.

Quote not by me, but it was so funny at the time that I had to share it.

well, everything!  Lot’s of stuff going on, and I’ve been too busy/lazy to update.

I got my first paycheck this Tuesday, and although I had to pay taxes (well, technically the money is witheld for now), it was still pretty exciting. It’s good to be finally making money again, since commuting and eating in the city are not cheap.  I also just witnessed one of the most exciting matches of the World Cup this year: a 2-2 tie between USA and Slovenia. Although USA were down 0-2 at the half, they came back strong and tied it up. They actually scored a third goal, but the ref overruled it, on the basis of a foul (on Bradley?). Personally I thought it was a terrible call, since it’s clear in the replay that the US players are not comitting any fouls; on the contrary, several of them are being tangled up by Slovenian defenders…if anything the call should have been the other way around. But despite the fact that many fans felt that the US were robbed of a game-winning goal, it was still a great effort by the Americans, and definitely the most exciting match I’ve seen so far. Let’s hope that the US can beat Algeria and move on to the knockout stages (assuming England doesn’t get upset by Algeria, which I’m not ruling out completely…)

Aside from the World Cup, I’ve been rewatching an old Chinese wuxia series: Return of the Condor Heroes. Though the special effects are not of the best quality, it’s still one of my favorite wuxia series (I love Jinyong’s works in general).

Here’s to a wonderful weekend of exciting soccer and of course, Happy Father’s Day!

Just updated the blog going back to May 18th, and because I’m OCD about this sort of thing, I changed the timestamps so they reflect when I actually wrote the entries. Been up early because of jetlag. Will probably rest a lot this weekend, catch up on Bleach and Naruto, and hopefully get in some tennis and soccer before work starts next week.

19 =P. Last year as a teenager, haha. I’m sorry if you guys expected anything deep, that will have to wait. Right now I kind of have a headache from getting hit in the head in soccer.

So I was browsing the web about a week ago when I saw this article: Yahoo: Fourth Place Medal Article

Like many avid fans of the Olympics, the author expresses discontent at the IOC’s current system of “ranking” countries on their performance during the games. While I do not agree with the article’s proposed alternate medal system, the author does bring up a good issue that I have though about many times in the past, i.e., what is the best way to rank how countries perform during the Olympic games? While most of the world seems to go with the IOC’s standard of “gold medals first”, the U.S. media sticks stubbornly with the “overall count”. Obviously, there are flaws with both schemes, and it is the goal of this article to point out those flaws and propose a more fair ranking system for the Olympics games.

First, the flaws. One obvious problem with the IOC’s current system is that it discounts silver and bronze medals completely. Essentially, a country with 3 golds, 1 silver, and 2 bronze would be ranked higher than a country with 2 golds, 10 silvers, and 5 bronze. While this example is a bit extreme, it does effectively illustrate the problem with the IOC’s medal system. On the flip side, the U.S.’s “overall medal count” system overcompensates for this problem, because it makes gold, silver, and bronze medals all equally weighted, which is equally absurd. How can one country with 1 gold, 1 silver, and 10 bronze be ranked higher than another country with 8 golds and 1 silver? Clearly, the answer lies in coming up with some sort of weight adjusted scheme for accounting for medals, which is what the author of “Fourth Place Medal” proposes in the above article. The article uses a 25-10-5 point scheme for gold, silver, and bronze medals respectively, as well as a “marquee system” for giving more points to “high profile events”? While the point system is certainly a step in the right direction, giving more point for certain events just seems like a pathetic attempt to justify the U.S.’s overall victory at Vancouver. As one reader aptly pointed out, if you take away the doubling of points for the marquee events, Canada would still be on top.

However, I would argue that Fourth Place Medal does not go nearly far enough with its weighted ranking system. After all, there are at least two additional factors (population and income) that have a significant impact on a country’s performance during the Olympics. Kaufman’s article (http://blogs.worldbank.org/governance/who-won-the-beijing-olympic-medal-race), which is based on the 2008 Olympic Games, does a good job of accounting for these factors. In his scheme, gold, silver, and bronze are on a 3-2-1 weighted scale, and medals are weighted per capita (based on population). This system makes more sense, as it mitigates the ranking bias towards larger countries. Indeed, countries with bigger populations (by sheer probability) will have a bigger pool of gifted athletes, thus allowing them to send a stronger delegation to the Olympics. However, I was surprised at how easily Kaufman dismissed the use of GDP in his ranking scheme. His reasoning is as follows:

“Even economists will criticize me; some may say that instead of the per capita measure I should be calculating medal ranks relative to the country’s GDP, so to try and get an ‘efficiency’ ranking of sorts.  But this does not make sense, because of governance: it would be easy for Zimbabwe and North Korea to be ranked at the top of the medal totem pole (per unit of GDP), simply by misgoverning the country to such an extent that they run it to the ground.  Then the denominator (GDP) in the calculation virtually disappears, propelling them to the top of such ill-advised relative medal count ranking…”

However, the question is why would any country misgovern itself in such a way that would decrease its GDP? Simply to get bragging rights at the Olympics Games? I think not. Rather, I think the majority of the nations in the world try and govern themselves in a manner that will increase the total well-being of the nation as a whole. And while it is debatable the the extent to which GDP and well-being correlate with each other, GDP and GDP per capita figures are nonetheless used all the time to measure a country’s prosperity. Indeed, if we take GDP to be a reflection of a country’s wealth/resources, than “richer” countries will have an advantage when it comes to training and developing athletes for international competition.

Now that we have established that population, GDP, and a weighted system for medals are all needed in our ranking scheme, the question is how much of an impact should each of these factors play in determining the final breakdown. First, there is a question of how the medals themselves should be weighted. The most popular schemes are 5-3-1 and 3-2-1. Both systems, in my opinion, overvalues the silver medal. If you ask any athlete whether they would rather have 2 silvers or 1 gold, I think the majority of them would want the gold. In fact, the gap in value between gold and silver is probably much higher than the gap between silver and bronze. To keep things simple, we’ll use a 5-2-1 scheme. Notice that it’s essentially the same is Fourth Place Medal’s 25-10-5 system. We see that the gap between the top three, Canada, U.S., and Germany, shrinks considerably. After taking into account population, we get Norway as the runaway winner. Canada is now 5th, the U.S. 20th, and China, hampered by its enormous population, now dead last despite winning 33 weighted medals. Doing the same procedure for GDP, we see that Norway once again tops the list,with Belarus a surprise second. Nor so surprisingly, China, the U.S., Japan, and Great Britain are all at the bottom of the list.

Putting it all together: The logical next step would be to combine these two schemes and use GDP per capita. The result is…surprise! China is on top, and by a large margin. Why? Because in this case, China’s huge population actually helps it. Because it’s population is so big, China’s GDP per capita is small, despite the fact that it boasts the third largest economy in the world. Furthermore, the top 5 countries ranked on this scheme are ranked 26, 21, 15, 5, and 20th in the the per capita rankings and 22, 18, 13, 12, and 23rd on the GDP rankings, hardly what we want. Norway, which we expect to be the outright winner, is in 10th place. So where did we go wrong? We want our final ranking to be a function of both population (p) and GDP (g). If we express this in mathematical terms, we can write R = F(p,g). However, if we use the GDP per capital scheme, then we are saying that R = F(g/p). We instead want the two input factors to be independent of each other. So the best way to incorporate this into our final ranking system is to have our function be a weighted average of the GDP and per capita ranking schemes, which is what I ended up doing. In doing so, I also took weighted medal rankings for both GDP and population. That way, the different between certain rankings is more evident. For example, in the per capital ranking, instead of having Norway being 1 and China 26, China has a weighted ranking of 564. That is to say, China’s population is 564 times that of Norway.

Finally, we need to decide whether GDP or population is more of a factor in determining Olympic medals. In the spreadsheet, I have the default set to 50-50%, but you can change the values to whatever you want and see what interesting results appear. You can also mess around with medals count to see how many medals a country would need to win so that they could achieve a certain rank in the new system.

Things to note: A the 50-50 level, the system seems to favor small countries more, with the exception of Canada. The list is almost identical to that of the per capita ranking.

*The top ten is filled with countries whose climates tend to be more accommodating of winter sports. This brings us to an important point. Nations such as Norway and Switzerland experience tons of annual snowfall while China may not get much at all. While climate/weather may not be a factor for certain sports such as curling or ice skating (since they take place in indoor facilities), it makes a huge difference for sports such as cross country skiing and luge. The question is how you factor this into the final ranking. Theoretically, one could make an index based on the number of inches of snowfall a country gets on average every year, or the number of days of “winter” a country experience, but such data is extremely difficult to collect accurately.

At the end of the day, the lesson is that no matter how complicated you make a model, it can never be perfect, and while the ranking system that I derived today is an improvement over most, it still doesn’t take into account a lot of necessary factors. Still, weather factor excluded, I’m willing to call Norway the official winner of these 2010 Vancouver Games.

FOR THE FULL SPREADSHEET CLICK HERE: 2010 Olympics Medal Analysis (click save link as…)

Ah, so it’s been a stressful week, with two midterms, one test, and various club activities. I’m also really sore from working out on Thursday and playing tennis for two hours yesterday. Even though it was the fourth time I was playing tennis, I feel that I’m improving pretty quickly. My swings feel better, and I’m hitting the ball more consistently. I’ve also been able to return some harder shots that I normally wouldn’t have gotten just a couple of weeks ago.

I guess the school postings are actually doing me some good, since I’m now forced to blog daily, which was what I aimed for at the beginning anyway:

Hmm…not too much happening. I finally got into Physics Lab, so I’m up to 5.5 courses again, but the lab only meets once a week for 2 hours, so it’s not too bad. Anyway, this will make future semesters a little easier, so I’m not complaining. I went to the Ballroom Dancing free lesson today, but it wasn’t as exciting as I thought it would be. Our instructor was going too fast, and many first-time students couldn’t keep up. I guess for now, my focus is to really get into tennis. I’ve invested in a nice Babolat AeroPro Drive Cortex, with XCel Power 17 strings. I know they say that the racket doesn’t make the player, but I figure that if I have a good racket, I’ll be able to develop my form better. Plus, it’ll force me to play more, because otherwise I would feel like I wasted a lot of money, haha.

Excerpt from Writing Seminar daily blog:

I usually don’t blog about the same subject two times in a row, but in this case I can’t help it: Federer lost. Unbelievable. Another five-set heartbreaker, this time to the up and coming Del Potro, whom Federer had actually beaten in five sets during this year’s French Open (karma?). I guess I’m most disappointed with this loss not because it puts an end to Federer’s streak at the U.S. Open, but because I felt that Federer didn’t play his best. In fact, he looked pretty lackluster the entire match, and his first serve percentage was under 50%–yikes. He also missed quite a lot of break points down the stretch, but Del Potro also deserves credit for playing a phenomenal match, especially that incredible forehand that Federer had no answer for. One thing I found interesting was the number of contentious calls during the match. Ever since the introduction of the “official review” (Hawk-Eye) system in tennis, where players can challenge a close call by the linesmen and the shot is reviewed using computers and image analysis, the game has not been quite the same. A lot of pros on tour complain about it, Federer being one of them. I felt that one of the turning points in the match was late in the second set, when DP hit a shot down the line that was initially called out. However, DP challenged the call, and the computers showed it barely, barely nicking the line. (Another question: how fine is too fine? Is it practical to review down to the ten-thousandth second during Phelp’s epic win over Cavic during the 2008 Olympics, or would it have sufficed to give both swimmers the gold? Remember, ties do happen in swimming, albeit rarely.) In this case. Federer couldn’t seem to get over the call, and consequently seemed distracted for the rest of the match, which he lost in a tiebreaker. While I welcome the use of technology in sports (more accurate timing in track, swimming, etc.), I also believe that it can sometimes hinder game play. This is especially true in tennis, where momentum can mean everything. The bottom line is that linesmen make mistakes all the time that aren’t noticed or challenged. Because players are only given a set number of challenges, players only invoke this right during the most critical moments in a match, oftentimes shifting the momentum of play entirely. While the official review system does ensure that the “right” decision is ultimately made, it seems to cause a lot of unnecessary animosity among both players and officials. Furthermore, players often abuse the system by purposely taking a long time to challenge the call in an effort to delay the match or disrupt their opponent’s momentum (of which Del Potro and Federer are guilty). In the end, we have to remember that officiating in sports is never perfect. Either review every contentious call or let the players play.