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How to Watch the World Cup: USA vs Germany

To celebrate and prepare for the World Cup in Brazil, Dear Sports Fan is publishing a set of posts explaining elements of soccer. We hope you enjoy posts like Why do People Like Soccer? How Does the World Cup Work? Why Do Soccer Players Dive so Much? What is a Penalty Kick in Soccer? What are Red and Yellow Cards in Soccer? and Why do World Cup Soccer Players Blame the Ball? The 2014 World Cup in Brazil begins on June 12 and ends on July 13.

Jermaine Jones is and has been awesome in the World Cup

With dread. At least that’s how I’m going to watch the third and potentially final game of the World Cup for the United States team. Here’s a quick recap of the tournament so far.

The United States got a little unlucky and ended up stuck with three strong teams, Germany, Portugal, and Ghana in the so-called “Group of Death.” BAD
The United States beat Ghana 2-1 even though Ghana outplayed them. GOOD
Germany clobbered Portugal and then tied Ghana, leaving the United States with the opportunity to clinch a place in the next round of the tournament if they could beat Portugal. GOOD
The United States was clearly the better team in their game against Portugal and had a 2-1 lead after ninety four minutes of play. GOOD
There was one more minute in the game. UH OH
Portugal scored. AGHHGH!!!!
Wait, hold up, the United States still has a great chance to move on to the next round. All they need to do is win or tie their game against Germany or lose but have the Ghana vs. Portugal work out in some very reasonable ways. NOT SO BAD

So, after two weeks of exciting play in what has been by far the most entertaining World Cup in my memory, this is where we are. And… it’s just all going to go horribly wrong from here on out, I can feel it in my bones. One of the reasons I write this blog is to try to explain to non-sports-infected people what it’s like to be a fan. Sean McIndoe of Grantland did a great piece last year called “The 20 Types of Depressed Sports Fans” and I always tend to be number 9, The Pessimist:

Long before it becomes clear that the game is going south, this fan will annoy everyone by coming up with increasingly negative scenarios that he insists are about to unfold. Eventually, his lamentations become a source of constant background noise, like a dripping faucet.

I’m also a devotee of the “reverse jinx” philosophy which suggests that you can use your natural “dripping faucet lamentations” to literally affect the course of an upcoming game if you state them loudly and often before the game. Without further ado, here are my lamentations in advance of the United States game vs. Germany:

Many are suggesting that there will be some unspoken collusion between Germany and the United States to tie the game because if they tie, they are both guaranteed a spot in the next round with Germany in first place and the United States in second. This isn’t going to happen. There is a pretty big difference between first and second in the group because the second place team will probably play Belgium while the winner of the group will play Algeria, Russia, or Korea, all of which are likely to be much easier to beat than the surprisingly mighty Belgians. Germany is going to try to win.
If Germany tries to win, they are likely to win. They’re ranked second in the world by FIFA and they have played excellently so far. They’ve also had an extra day of rest compared to the United States and they didn’t just play in the rain-forest of Manaus, where the U.S. vs Portugal game was. All four teams who have played in Manaus went on to lose their next game. It’s that brutal of a place to play.
This “Manaus Effect,” said by soccerblog.dallasnews.com to be “as deadly as skinny dipping in the Amazon,” has negative consequences beyond our game with Germany. If we lose to Germany, our best bet for advancing to the next round anyway is for Portugal to beat or tie Ghana. Unfortunately, Portugal will also be suffering from having played just four days before in an 84 degree, 70 percent humidity sauna.
Now we get to the really superstitious part of this. Here are the results of the U.S. national team in World Cups since 1990 when they qualified for the first time since 1950 and when I first started following them:
- 1990 — lost all three games.
- 1994 — Lost 1-0 to Brazil in the knock-out round. Not bad.
- 1998 — lost all three games, including one 2-0 to Germany. Ouch.
- 2002 — made it all the way to the quarterfinals!!! Lost 1-0 to Germany.
- 2006 — won their first game, tied their second, (sound familiar?) lost their third game 2-1 to Ghana. Eliminated.
- 2010 — made it to the knock-out round. Eliminated by Ghana, 2-1.
You have to admit, if there’s a scenario that should make U.S. soccer fans bones’ jangle, it’s playing against Germany and facing elimination, if we lose to Germany, by a victory by Ghana.

Because this is a massive reverse jinx powered by true sports-pessimism, I’m not going to point out how wonderful it has been to see American fans turn out with real passion in droves to support the United States team. I’m not going to point out that Nate Silver thinks the U.S. team has a 75.9% chance of advancing. I’m definitely, definitely not going to point out that if the U.S. manages to beat Germany and then beat Algeria, Russia, or South Korea, it would play the winner of France vs. Nigeria in the Quarterfinals on July 4th.

How to Watch the World Cup: USA vs Portugal

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US Fans — Some of the sixteen million people who watched the U.S. beat Ghana at the World Cup

After a thrilling victory against Ghana that was watched by over 16 million people in the United States, the US team plays their second game of the 2014 World Cup on Sunday, June 22, at 6:00 pm on ESPN against Portugal. If you were one of those 16 million people or have talked to one of them since the game, you might be interested in tuning in for this game. Here are some things to know and prepare for.

Who Are the United States Players to Watch Out For?

Last week, before the first U.S. game of the World Cup, I wrote about Michael Bradley and claimed he was the best player on the team. Well, he wasn’t against Ghana. In fact, he was kind of bad. Soccer people have been talking about this since then. How Bradley “responds” to this will be one of the big stories of the game. Natural variation in how a player plays from one game to the next is almost always turned into plot by avid sports fans. This is one of those times — either Bradley will “use the criticism as fuel and come back with a great game” or will “continue his run of bad play, prompting questions about what could be wrong with him.” On the other hand, during the past few years statistical analysis has pervaded sports media, so you may also hear the phrase “regression to the mean.” This just means that a good player is more likely to play like a good player after a bad game than he is to continue to play like a bad player.

The other player to watch out for is unknown as of yet. The best American striker (primary attacking player,) Jozy Altitore left the game against Ghana with what looked like a badly injured hamstring. No one is sure what coach Jurgen Klinsmann will do to replace him, not even the always-informed Jason La Canfora of CBS sports. La Canfora asked two former American National Team strikers what they would do and one said he would replace Altidore with Chris Wondolowski (his fans call him “Wondo”) and the other said he would replace him with an extra midfielder and ask Clint Dempsey to play as the only striker. I would rather see the U.S. continue using two strikers, no matter who the replacement is, than try that but unfortunately, I have no say in the matter! Neither do you, so we’ll just have to wait and see.

What’s the Deal with Portugal?

Portugal lost their first game to Germany 4-0. They looked terrible. They’re also going to be playing without two of their best defenders, Fabio Coentrao who is out with an injury, and Pepe who got a red card for head-butting (he didn’t get his money’s worth, it was really more like nuzzling,) a German. The best player on Portugal’s team, who is also generally considered one of the best two players in the world, is suffering from a knee injury. His name is Cristiano Ronaldo and he is really, really fun to hate. Try it tomorrow! To help you develop some healthy sports hate for him, here is a video compilation of him diving (for comparison’s sake, the other consensus best player in the world is the Argentinian Lionel Messi who inspires YouTube videos that claim he “never dives.”) What’s even more annoying to me is the pose he strikes before taking free kicks. The way he stands there, with his legs wide and his chest puffed out and his always perfectly coiffed hair… just makes me wriggle in annoyance.

What Does This Game Mean in the Standings?

As we explained at greater length in our article, How Does the World Cup Work, the initial stage of the World cup consists of eight groups of four teams each who play each other to determine which two teams move on to the next stage. The group that the U.S. team is in consists of Ghana, Portugal, and Germany, and we play them in that order. Teams get three points for a win and one point for a tie. So far, Germany has a win and a tie (four points,) the United States has a win (three points,) Ghana has a loss and a tie (one point,) and Portugal has only a loss (zero points.) After the U.S. vs Portugal game, there will only be two games left in the group stage: Germany vs. the United States and Portugal vs. Ghana. If the United States wins, they will guarantee themselves a place in the next round because only Germany could exceed six points in the remaining games. If the United States tie, they are still in quite good shape. The worst they could do in that scenario is four points, which is the most that Portugal or Ghana could end up with. Having beaten Ghana and with Portugal having lost miserably to Germany in the first game (the number of times a team gets scored on matters for tie-breaking,) the United States would be likely to make it through. Losing to Portugal is a serious problem though, because then if Portugal beats Ghana, the United States would need to beat Germany to get in — an unlikely outcome.

Was that confusing? It is a little complicated but basically the United States will definitely advance with a win, will probably advance with a tie, and really, really should try not to lose against Portugal because then they might actually have to beat the Germans on Thursday.

So, What’s Going to Happen?

Two missing defenders and an injured (and annoying!) Ronaldo notwithstanding, Portugal is a much more acclaimed team than the United States, and is favored over the United States. When Germany went up 1-0 against Ghana, I was filled with an overwhelming sense of dread about our game against Portugal. The U.S. team has a habit of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and so far, everything was going right for the United States. Germany had destroyed Portugal, Portugal was not going to be playing at full strength, and the United States had (honestly) lucked into a win against Ghana. If the Germans had beaten Ghana, they might not have anything to play for in their final game against the U.S. and would be liable to rest their best players and not try too hard to beat us. Everything was going the United States’ way, so of course, I felt everything would soon go horribly wrong. Then Ghana scored two goals and looked like they might beat the Germans. This was bad for the U.S. but I couldn’t help feel good about it. For one thing, Ghana looking so good against Germany validated the United States needing some luck to beat Ghana in the first place. Mostly though, I think I just felt better (and feel better even after Germany and Ghana tied the game,) that the United States won’t be able to luck their way into advancing. The team will have to earn it, and tomorrow, oddly enough, I think they just might do it. Go, go, USA!

How to Watch the World Cup: USA vs Ghana

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The United States Men’s National soccer team plays their first game of the 2014 World Cup on Monday June 16 at 6:00 pm ET against Ghana. It will be televised live from Estadio das Dunas in Natal, Brazil on ESPN. If you are not a normal soccer junkie, this is one of the handful of games over the next four years that you might really enjoy watching. Here’s some suggestions to wring out the most enjoyment possible from it.

Know the Stakes:

This is the first game of the World Cup for the United States but the stakes are already extremely high. As we covered in our How Does the World Cup Work? post, the opening two weeks of the tournament are the group stage. This is a round-robin tournament in groups of four teams with only the top two advancing to the knockout round, a single elimination bracket of sixteen teams. The United States got very unlucky and was placed in what is widely being called the “Group of Death” because it collectively has the toughest teams. The United States will play Ghana and then Portugal and then Germany. It’s a rule of thumb that to have a chance of advancing, a team should aim for at least four points (three for a win, one for a tie, zero for a loss.) Of the three teams, Ghana is thought to be the weakest. FIFA (soccer’s unthinkably corrupt governing body) ranks Ghana 37th, Portugal 4th, and Germany 2nd. The United States is 13th. I know it’s only the first game of the tournament for the US team but if they are going to advance, they almost definitely need to win the game against Ghana.

Know the Characters:

Soccer is a beautiful game to watch but even its strongest proponents will admit that for people who are not used to watching it, it can drag at times. One approach is to appreciate soccer through the sheer sex appeal of its players. A complementary approach is to get into the plot of the game. Here are some of the characters:

Clint Dempsey

The captain of the US team, Clint Dempsey is also the heart and soul of the team. He’s a fiery dude whose brash, untraditional style has an air of the avant-garde to it if the avant-garde was as likely to punch you in the face as produce artwork. He also has an appealing Olympic-personal-interest type back-story that confirms American stereotypes about soccer so its bound to get a lot of airplay. Dempsey grew up in a trailer in Nacogdoches, Texas, playing soccer with primarily kids (and adults) of hispanic decent. He cut his teeth playing in adult offshoot of the Mexican professional league when he was a fourteen year-old. According to this great Sports Illustrated article, he would infuriate the adults with his skill and attitude and then had to handle them trying to injure him. He played at Furman University and then the New England Revolution in the US professional league, the MLS, before heading to the English Premiere league where he played for Fulham and later Tottenham. Dempsey became widely known as the best American non-goalie to ever play in the EPL before coming back to the US to play for Seattle last year. He’s 31 now which is a little past prime for a soccer player but he’s still clever and ferocious and capable of creating some magical moments for the US team.

Michael Bradley

If Dempsey is the heart and soul of the team, Michael Bradley is the engine. He plays tirelessly at the center of the field for the US team. He starts the attack by distributing the ball up the field and he’s essential to defense, pressuring the best playmaker on the other team and tackling with precision and strength. If Dempsey’s background and style confirm the stereotype of the fiery latin influence, Bradley confirms the stereotype of the overly intense passion that white America is said to approach soccer with. I can’t find the article now (please send me a link if you know it) but I recently read an article about Bradley getting into a physical fight with his father following a national team game a few years ago. Oh, and his father was the coach of the national team when it happened. That’s right, Michael’s father, Bob Bradley was the US coach from 2006 to 2011, so Michael is used to being in the spotlight. Now he’s his own man and widely thought to be the best player on the team.

Jurgen Klinsmann

When Bob Bradley was fired in 2011, the United States soccer leaders turned to Jurgen Klinsmann to take over. Klinsmann is a former star of the German National team. He was a great goal scorer who helped lead the Germans to a World Cup victory in 1990. He later coached the German team in the 2006 World Cup and was criticized during the lead-up to the tournament because he “commuted to Germany from the United States.” That’s right, the German born Klinsmann has lived in California for years and loves it there. Klinsmann is known for his offensive soccer tactics and he’s clearly not worried about coming off as offensive in other ways too. He made news in the months preceding this World Cup by leaving Landon Donovan, the last team captain and the most well known American player of the last decade, off the team and by blithely telling the media that the United States “cannot win this World Cup because we are not at that level yet.”

Landon Donovan

That’s right, the player who Klinsmann left chose not to bring to Brazil is there anyway, at least his presence will be. Donovan, who is still playing in the MLS, was quickly snapped up by ESPN as a World Cup analyst. If the United States team does well, the story will be Klinsmann’s brilliant choice to move on from Donovan. If the team doesn’t do well, Donovan will be even more front and center because the story will certainly be about how his absence hurt the team.

The Weather

I’ll let my Dad’s favorite media organization, The Weather Channel, handle this one:

Torrential rains have plagued the site of the opener, Natal—a coastal city of nearly 1 million people in northeastern Brazil—for three days, inundating streets, blocking off roads and triggering a landslide that destroyed at least two homes and forced the evacuations of at least 50 others.

The rain is expected to continue through the game on Monday.

The Game

Okay, after all that, there’s a game to watch. Find yourself a good bar and some Soccer fans to cheer with. If you want to pick up more information about “How to Watch the World Cup Like a True Soccer Nerd” then this wonderful Grantland article is for you. Enjoy!

Why do World Cup Soccer Players Blame the Ball?

To celebrate and prepare for the World Cup in Brazil, Dear Sports Fan is publishing a set of posts explaining elements of soccer. We hope you enjoy posts like Why do People Like Soccer? How Does the World Cup Work? Why Do Soccer Players Dive so Much? What is a Penalty Kick in Soccer? and What are Red and Yellow Cards in Soccer? The 2014 World Cup in Brazil begins on June 12 and ends on July 13. Today we have the special treat of a guest post about World Cup soccer balls by an early adopter of Dear Sports Fan, Al Murray. Enjoy!

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Adidas Footballs — Each one of these balls was inevitably complained about during its World Cup. What will the complaint be this time in Brazil?

International football players, like most any athlete, praise their own skill when things go right and blame the tools when they go wrong. The last few World Cups have continued this tradition with the introduction of some high-tech balls. Each demonstrated the Law of Unintended Consequences in their own unique way.

In 2006, it was that the Teimgeist, German for “Team Spirit”, ball had too much lift and soared over the goal. It was designed to be smooth to reduce drag, but that meant the ball didn’t react well to the wind and it lifted more than anyone wanted. Interestingly it didn’t curve especially well, but its low drag kept it in the realm of higher velocity for long portions of its flight.

In 2010, it was that the Jo’bulanmi, “To Celebrate” in isiZulu, ball “knuckled” at normal kicking speeds thus making goal tending more difficult. It was designed with special panels to induce better roundness and reduce the sailing of the 2006 ball. While it curved fairly well at both high and lower kicking speeds, the seams caught the air at 45-60 MPH (normal free kick speeds) and caused it to not spin but rather “knuckle” at high speeds. For reference, a traditional soccer ball knuckles at~30 MPH, much slower than anyone kicks.

NASA used the 2010 World Cup as a opportunity to engage students in aerodynamics and posted several studies on soccer balls in flight including a nifty simulator: https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/airplane/soccer.html

And for you more mathematically inclined: https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/airplane/flteqs.html

There is a really good explanation, with minimal math, at http://www.soccerballworld.com/Physics.htm#world-11-6-8-3

Basically it boils down to this:

When you kick a ball, it is given velocity and spin.
At a given spin rate, low velocities/high drag result in high curve rates while high velocities/low drag result in longer flight.
At a given velocity, higher spin rates impart more curving.
A good kicker will use both velocity and spin to control the ball.

How a kick works:

A kick is taken with initial high spin and a velocity (speed & direction) of 45-60, in some cases >70 mph.
With high velocity the airflow is turbulent, the velocity effect is stronger than the spin, and the ball has low drag and flies high.
Eventually the velocity drops, as drag effects increase, the air flow becomes more laminar and the spin induces a Magnum force which causes the ball to curve in the direction of the spin usually as it reaches and then comes down from the apex of flight.
As the ball’s velocity decrease, assuming the rotation speed stays the same, the ball curves more confounding goal keepers (and the occasional outfielder) the world over.

A Good free kicker can shoot the ball outside the defender wall and have it bend back on the goal, sometimes as much as 3 meters! You can see this in long fly balls in baseball and in both free and corner kicks in soccer. Brazilian left fullback and part-time wizard, Roberto Carlos, demonstrates in this video: http://youtu.be/3ECoR__tJNQ?t=1m20s

For 2014, the ball will be the Brazoca, “Brazilian or The Brazilian Way of Life” in Portuguese. I understand they’ve redesigned the ball, getting rid of the flat panels, adding dimples for reduced drag like a golf ball and faster travel with “propeller” patches to add more spin and greater curve at lower speeds. Will this mean more curves? More diving action? More Lift? Or perhaps, given the Law of Unintended Consequences, something completely different?

Guest Author – Al Murray

What are Red and Yellow Cards in Soccer?

Dear Sports Fan,

What are red and yellow cards in soccer? How do they work?

Thanks,
Paul

Donovan Yellow — Soccer players, like Landon Donovan here, often react with disbelief when given a card.

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Dear Paul,

Cards are soccer’s answer to fouling out in basketball. They are representative of a two stage process that allows a referee to punish misbehaving players with one of the most punitive measures in sports. If a player receives one red card or two yellow cards within the same game, that player is thrown out of the game (“sent off the pitch” or just “sent off” in soccer terms) and his team must play the remainder of the game with one fewer player than they started with. This can mean that a team plays 10 on 11 for 30, 60, or 75 minutes. That’s a long time to play down a man and soccer is already the sport that allows for the fewest substitutions (only two) during a game. It can make for some very tired players.

In World Cup competition, the penalties for receiving cards have implications beyond the game a player receives them in. Any ejection from a game due to a red card or two yellows carries with it an automatic one game suspension that must be served the next time the team plays. Suspensions based on red cards can be lengthened by soccer’s governing body, FIFA. Two yellow cards in different games can also result in a one game suspension if they come between the first game of the tournament and the quarterfinal game. After that, the yellow card counts reset so that any player “carrying” a single yellow card from earlier in the tournament doesn’t have to worry about picking up another in the semifinals and thereby missing the final match. The fact that red and yellow cards carry such enormous penalties probably accentuates soccer’s already dive-happy culture by rewarding players who can trick a referee into giving their opponent a card.

There aren’t really specific fouls that necessitate a red or yellow card, it is up to the referee’s discretion, but there are two key themes which the website football-bible.com does a nice job explaining: violence and “unfairly denying an obvious goal-scoring opportunity.” Violence can come in a few different forms. A player could get a card for being a little too violent intentionally or unintentionally within the course of play, like tripping a player from behind or sliding into an opponent with the studs on his boot facing dangerously up. Likewise, a player could be given a card for being violent in a non-soccer kind of way. Perhaps the most infamous example of this is Zinedine Zidane head-butting an Italian player in the 2006 World Cup Finals. As for “unfairly” denying the opponent an “obvious goal-scoring opportunity,” this could come in the form of tripping a player when he has a clear path to the goal or reaching out and deflecting the ball with your hand as it’s flying towards the goal.

Soccer is not the only sport that uses penalty cards. Wikipedia has a fascinating entry that lists a bunch of sports from volleyball to field hockey to race walking to rugby that uses yellow and red cards as markers of penalties. It also describes the use of other penalty cards like the green card (a lesser warning than a yellow card,) the blue and white cards used in bandy to denote a five or ten minute penalty (editors note: what the hell is bandy,) and the black card used in fencing and badminton for only the worst infringements that require immediate expulsion from play.

In moments of idle reflection, I like to imagine red and yellow cards worming their way out of sports and into everyday life. I dream of being able to halt a disruptive colleague in a meeting by holding up a yellow card. I think it would be great to be able to red card someone who merges badly and have him or her sent off the highway. If you could, how would you use penalty cards in real life?

I hope this has shed some light on the subject of red and yellow cards in soccer for you. Thanks for reading,
Ezra Fischer

What is a Penalty Kick in Soccer?

baggio kick — The weight of a country’s hopes weighs down penalty kick takers in the World Cup.

Soccer is often called the beautiful game because it consists of almost constant fluid motion by twenty two players; because of the way players seem to dance over the ball to fake each other out; because of the way the ball dips and swerves when shot with power. So why is it that so much of the scoring involved in the game happens when one player starts from a stand-still right in front of the goalie and takes an unobstructed shot?

A penalty kick is an unobstructed shot on goal taken 12 yards from the center of the goal with only the goalie present to stop the shooter. It is awarded to the attacking team when they are fouled within the big rectangular area called the penalty box or the 18-yard box. Penalty kicks are often decisive moments in a soccer game because soccer is such a low scoring game and penalty kicks so frequently result in goals. In the World Cup, penalty kick competitions called shoot-outs are used to determine the winner of a game in the knock-out round if it is tied after two fifteen minute over-time periods. In a shoot-out the two teams alternate taking penalty kicks until one team has scored more than the other. It begins with a best-out-of-five-rounds competition and then if both teams have scored the same number after five penalty kicks each, it moves to a best-out-of-one-round format which continues only as long as both teams make or both teams miss their penalty kick.

One of the great things about the World Cup is that each national team has its own distinct personality and that personality reflects the nation it represents. This holds true with how they fare taking penalty kicks and in shoot-outs. Among the traditionally strongest teams, there are some that excel at penalty kicks and some whose fans dread them because their team almost always flubs them. For example, Brazil and Argentina have won 66% of shootouts and Germany 60%. Those three teams have won 10 of the 19 World Cups ever. Then there’s a group in the middle that are neither good nor bad at shootouts: Italy, France, and Spain are all around 50%. Finally there are the two traditional powers notorious for their poor showing in shootouts: England and The Netherlands are a combined 2-12 in shootouts all-time.

As you might expect for something that is so important to so many people, there’s been a fair amount of research on what makes a good penalty kick and what makes a good penalty kick taker. Scienceofsocceronline.com tells us that penalty kicks are successful 85% of the time and that the most successful strategy for goalies is not to dive to one side of the net or the other on a hunch but to stay in the middle of the net. Too bad that this is the least common strategy for goalies… maybe because if it doesn’t work, you look like the idiot who “didn’t even try” to stop the penalty kick. The Telegraph has a great interactive graphic that lets you choose where to place the kick and shows you the success rates of each part of the goal. The New York Times ran an article before the 2010 World Cup which argued that success and failure in penalty kicks was mostly about psychology and confidence. They noted that the success of a penalty kick declines in each round of a shootout from “86.6 percent for the first shooter, 81.7 for the second, 79.3 for the third and so on.” More dramatic was their finding that “Kick takers in a shootout score at a rate of 92 percent when the score is tied and a goal ensures their side an immediate win. But when they need to score to tie the shootout, with a miss meaning defeat, the success rate drops to 60 percent.” One of their most interesting findings was about what a player who scores early on in the shoot-out can do to help his teammates:

One of Jordet’s conclusions deals not with the run-up to a kick, but what occurs afterward. A player who celebrates demonstratively after scoring, he said, increases the chance that his teammates will score later in the shootout and also increases the likelihood that the opposing player who shoots immediately after him will miss.

“I make this point every time I work with a team,” said Jordet, who was an adviser to the Dutch national team from 2005 to 2008. “Some players score and look like they’re at a funeral because they’re still nervous.”

So there you have it — it pays to celebrate, even in soccer!

Soccer traditionalists hate the shoot-out because it decides important games with something that really isn’t soccer. When tournaments were less focused on television and a game ended in a tie, the two teams would go home, rest for a couple days, and then come back and play another game to see if a victor could be determined. This just isn’t practical anymore. Viewers want to see a winner and the schedule must be kept to for an international audience of billions. The shoot-out has become an integral part of World Cups and even though I am a grouchy old traditionalist who roots for games to be decided in regulation time or in over-time, even I have to admit that shoot-outs are nerve-jangling, edge-of-your-seat, exciting television.

How Does the World Cup Work?

Dear Sports Fan,

The soccer World Cup is coming up soon in Brazil. I know it’s a big deal for sports fans — how does the World Cup work?

Thanks,
Bobby

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Dear Bobby,

The World Cup is the world’s biggest soccer tournament between National teams representing their countries. It is, like you said, a big deal. Almost a billion people worldwide watched the final match of the tournament in 2010. Like the Olympics, the World Cup only happens once every four years. The World Cup is separated into three phases, each of which has its own setup: qualification, the group stage, and the knockout stage. We’ll walk you through how each phase works.

World Cup Qualification

The month-long tournament which, this year, starts on June 12 and ends on July 13, is actually the culmination of an international competition which may have started up to three years before. This preliminary competition is called World Cup Qualification and determines (with one exception) which teams get to play in the World Cup Finals. The qualification format is bewilderingly complicated and involves both “continental zones,” a “hexagonal round,” and finally “intercontinental playoffs.” It’s honestly not worth getting too deep into it but the principles are fairly simple — it attempts to take the 200+ countries who are hoping to be one of the 32 teams to play in Brazil and select the best teams while also finding a geographic balance so representatives from all around the globe can compete. All the complicated mumbo-jumbo of qualification is an attempt to meet this internally conflicting end. Some regions (Europe and South America) are much stronger than other regions (Asia, Africa, Oceania, and the complicatedly named North and Central America and the Caribbean) so there are more qualifying spots for the stronger regions. This year Europe and South America combined have 19 of 32 teams, or more than half. Every other region is represented by teams, except for Oceania which lost out on its one spot when New Zealand lost in a playoff to Mexico. Even though the two best teams in Europe that didn’t qualify — Sweden and the Ukraine — could almost certainly beat any of the qualifying teams from Asia and most of the North American or African teams, it’s a more exciting world celebration the way it is and it does more to foster soccer as a global sport. Oh, yes, and the one exception to all this? The host country automatically qualifies.

The Group Stage

The World Cup finals begin as a round-robin tournament in eight groups of four teams each. In a round robin tournament, each team within a group plays all of the other teams, and the team or teams with the best results in those games advance to the next round. In the World Cup, that means each team plays three games in the group stage against the other three teams in their group. The way the results are tabulated, a win is worth three points, a loss, zero, and a tie is worth one point. As you can probably imagine, with only three games, there are frequently teams with the same number of points after the group games have been played. To break ties, since only the top two teams in each group move on to the next stage, the World Cup has a series of factors which they use:

Goal difference in all group matches
Greater number of goals scored in all group matches
Greatest number of points in matches between tied teams
Goal difference in matches between tied teams
Greatest number of goals scored in matches between tied teams
Drawing of lots by the FIFA Organizing Committee

I know, I know, that seems really complicated. It is. Sometimes I think that people who love sports mostly just love technicality. In any event, all these tie-breakers basically favor teams that play in a more risky style. Try to score goals, the rules say, even if that means you give up more goals, because that makes for more entertaining soccer, and when in doubt, we’d rather advance teams that are more entertaining to watch.

The Knockout Stage

The top two teams from each of the eight groups enter the Knockout Stage. This stage is similar to March Madness or Wimbledon in that it is single elimination. The first place team from each group plays the second place team from another group. Win, and you move on to the quarter-finals (eight teams left.) Win again, and you’re in the semi-finals (four teams left.) Win once more and you’ve made it to the World Cup Finals (two teams left) — have fun playing soccer while a billion people watch! The one wrinkle with the World Cup is that the two losing teams from the semi-finals play each other in a game to determine third place.

Over the next month, we’ll be publishing more to help prepare you for the World Cup. Tune back in!

Thanks for the question,
Ezra

Reflections on a Visit to Barcelona FC's Camp Nou

Hi Everyone,

I’m on my last of three nights in Barcelona. Last night, coincidentally the biggest and best known of Barcelona’s major soccer teams, Barcelona FC, hosted a game against Real Sociedad. I figure that was too good to pass up, so I grabbed a ticket and went to the game.

Barcelona’s stadium, Camp Nou is big. I mean, you might think your local stadium is big, but that’s just peanuts to Camp Nou. Camp Nou holds over 110,000 people when it’s filled to capacity. Which it wasn’t last night. Not even close. It might have been about 1/3 full, which is still pretty good for a soccer game on a Wednesday night that starts at 10 pm. But the problem with enormous stadiums is that if they’re not full, it’s easy to feel isolated. Of course, since I barely speak any Spanish and am traveling alone, it’s easy for me to feel isolated anyhow.

Here are some things I noticed about the experience and the game.

There was one section of fans down at the bottom who were having a ton of fun. They spent the whole time jumping up and down, waving banners, and leading songs and chants that the rest of the stadium picked up. They must have been a supporters club or something. Many of their cheers sounded familiar. I took notes and positively or partially identified a bunch: Yellow Submarine, Stars and Stripes Forever, theme from Carmen or Marriage of Figaro or something which I should probably know, something that sounded vaguely Southern or old-timey which might have been Camptown Races and which I recorded as “Bah bah bu bah bu bah bu bah ba da da du da da dah da dah,” and finally Yankee Doodle.

The stadium was more clearly designed to prevent riots than any I’ve been to in the States. Each section had a specific entrance at the bottom of the stadium and once you entered, you climbed all the way up in your own staircase. No mingling with people from other sections and no overwhelming numbers if you needed to get out in a hurry. Once above, there was a little more leeway in moving from section to section, but more than four or five sections down there were medal gates closing off that area from the next. The concessions were also (although maybe not for riot control reasons) pretty rudimentary. They sold hot dogs, sausages, beer, soda, and potato chips. No more, no less.

The game itself was not much to write home about (although that won’t stop me, will it?) Barcelona was clearly superior and from the first few minutes the game took on an air of tragic inevitability that I only really enjoy when I’m rooting for the underdog. After about four chances that should have resulted in goals, Barcelona put one through. Following the goal, one of Real Sociedad’s players must have said something bad to the ref and was sent off with either a second yellow or a red card. Down a man and already outclassed, the game was pretty much over. Barcelona seemed content to win on their superior talent and didn’t seem like they were trying all that hard.

That’s it for now, perhaps more later,
Ezra

Playing Well vs. Playing Good

One difference I’ve noticed between European sports fans and American ones is that European fans are more interested in whether their team plays well than American fans. I won’t say that they are more interested in their team playing well than their team winning but it sometimes seems like it. This is a difference that I’ve read about before, mostly about soccer fans, but I experienced it myself today.

I was buying a sandwich at a small shop right outside Park Guell, a really cool monument park designed by Antoni Gaudi, and I started talking to the guy helping me about the local Barcelona soccer team. He said he hoped that the team played well against Real Sociedad tonight; that it was a chance to recover from a loss this past weekend. He hadn’t liked the way they looked during that loss. He went on to explain that the game tonight is the first leg off a two game semifinal in the Spanish championships, Copa del Rey. I probed a little to see if he thought a victory was likely and he would only say that he’d like the team to play better soccer together.

This is so different from most American fans. A conversation with an American fan would focus first and foremost on winning and losing. The loss last weekend hurt because it dropped the team in the standings. The game tonight would be a “must win” or something like that. Rarely would style or playing the right way pop up in conversation.

I can’t say exactly why this is. There are some elements of soccer that seem to at least augment the European way of thinking. Soccer is so low scoring that a single lucky bounce or missed tackle can make a more dominant team lose a game. Perhaps this understanding that wins and losses are sometimes luck leads fans to judge their teams on style and emotion — things that should be able to be consistent from game to game. Maybe too, the two leg (two games, one at each team’s stadium) tournament round makes it so that (at least in the first game) signs of life are more important than the result.

I’m not sure but I bought a ticket and I’m going to the game so I will report back tomorrow!!

Sports is for Lovers

I know, I know, Virginia is for lovers is the line, but three articles popped out at me recently that made me think that really Sports is for lovers too! One is the story behind sports blog Deadspin’s “Favorite Sports Photo of 2013.” The other one, found by another sports blog, The Big Lead, is an obscure scientific study investigating the legend (or reality) of a baby boom in Barcelona exactly nine months after a dramatic soccer victory. The last is a bonus collection of great hockey hugs!

San Fran Kissing — This photo by Deanne Fitzmaurice went viral.

The legend of baby booms nine months after events is common story. The study made reference to the 1965 blackout in New York but I can remember other stories following events like the olympics, big blizzards, and even the election of Barack Obama (although that one, at least, seems to not have been true.) The event these scientists studied was the goal Andres Iniesta scored in dramatic fashion to send Barcelona to the Champions League final. The Champions League is a tournament where the best teams from each of the national leagues in Europe play each other for continental bragging rights. Their conclusion?

We may infer that—at least among the target population—the heightened euphoria following a victory can cultivate hedonic sensations that result in intimate celebrations, of which unplanned births may be a consequence.

That’s some great writing, guys! I love scientific studies of lay subjects!

Might lay also have been the operational word in the story behind the wonderful story of two San Francisco 49ers fans kissing to celebrate their team’s victory in last year’s NFL playoff semifinals? A gentleman never tells — and in this case, both of the people captured in the photo were gentlemen! Photographer Deanne Fitzmaurice writes that the wonderful response the photo received in the days after she took it, “made [her] realize we have gained some ground in terms of acceptance and broader thinking.”

When was the last time you were so happy?

To put the cherry on top of our sports-love-fest, enjoy Yahoo’s hockey blog, Puck Daddy’s “Top 10 Hockey Hugs of 2013.” It’s just great! My favorite is this one between Hurricanes Jeff Skinner and Jay Harrison but there are nine more good ones to check out. Enjoy!