Another Bear said:

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Any comments on Team Russia? They've scored a crazy amount of goals, got a super easy group (easiest in history) beat two weak teams and advanced in the easy/weak side of the round of 16 devoid of any WC blueblood and/or champions.

Can we believe what we see at Putin's World Cup?

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Their group wasn't "super easy", or "easiest in history", that's just a take based on bad politics. Uruguay qualified second in the CONMEBOL, with a solid D and a strikeforce duo of Suarez and Cavani, as good a forward duo as there is in this tournament. Egypt won 3 of the last 7 CANs, and a finalist in the last one, came into the WC with the best African forward. The Saudis stunk it up but they've qualified ahead of Australia and just one point behind Japan in the AFC-B.

The main reason their group was a little easier than the others is because they being a European team heading the group got no second European team, but they did get a strong SA team.

Mark Ziegler should stick to covering Aztec hoops, shoddy piece of sports journalism there, right out of the Bob Costas olympic coverage school.

538: Russia's Group Is The Easiest In Modern World Cup History

FiveThirtyEight's SPI power rankings average for each group:

A: 65.9
B: 78.2
C: 74.0
D: 76.2
E: 77.3
F: 75.1
G: 71.3
H: 72.8

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2018-world-cup-predictions/?addata=espn:frontpage

Russia's group was super easy because as host team they got a spot as one of the top seeded teams, and then they got lucky in the draw of the other teams from other pots. This has been very well discussed in numerous places. Nothing fishy about it - advantage of host and luck of the remaining draw.

I hate Uruguay because Luis Suarez is a cheater, but that was an AMAZING goal by he an Carvani!

Suarez fakes a head injury. Can't stand that guy. Really hope he is eliminated.

concordtom said:

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Russia's group was super easy because as host team they got a spot as one of the top seeded teams, and then they got lucky in the draw of the other teams from other pots. This has been very well discussed in numerous places. Nothing fishy about it - advantage of host and luck of the remaining draw.

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Putin seems so lucky a lot of the time, you'd think he was Irish. (Vladdy O'Putin?)

oskirules said:

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Ronaldo GOAT. Scored again, Portugal 1 Morocco 0.

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The annoying Messi-Ronaldo sideshow is over, they both got thoroughly outclassed today by Mbappe and Cavani.

concordtom said:

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Russia's group was super easy because as host team they got a spot as one of the top seeded teams, and then they got lucky in the draw of the other teams from other pots. This has been very well discussed in numerous places. Nothing fishy about it - advantage of host and luck of the remaining draw.

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No, really, Putin "hacked" the World Cup...

Uruguay is the most dangerous non-European team left in the competition, the people who write for 538 are clueless, they probably couldn't name a single defender from Uruguay. France would have thrashed Brazil, we always do, but Uruguay is a tougher nut to crack, they play with better organization, and have better finishers right now, they've handled the current Euro champs with relative ease today. Brazil has no one up front besides Neymar. It used to be their substitute strikers could start for most nations' teams, not the case lately.

concordtom said:

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Russia's group was super easy because as host team they got a spot as one of the top seeded teams, and then they got lucky in the draw of the other teams from other pots. This has been very well discussed in numerous places. Nothing fishy about it - advantage of host and luck of the remaining draw.

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I have followed World Cups since 1970 and don't remember a group as eay as this year's Group A.

Compare this year!s Group A (the easiest group based on the FIFA rankings at the start of the tournament) to this year's Group B (the toughest group based on the FIFA rankings at the start of tiurnament).

Group A's highest ranked team was Uruguay ranked something like 14 in the FIFA world rankings with all other three teams (Egypt, Russia and Saudi Arabia) ranked around 60 or 70. The total numerical FIFA ranking of four teams in Group A was almost 200*.

Group B had the FIFA #3 or 4 ranked Portugal (defending Euro Champs with Ronaldo), #10 or 11 ranked Spain (2010 World Cup Champs with a ton of stars), around #37 ranked Iran (top qualifying team in Asia) and around #40 ranked Morocco (one of the top two or three teams in Africa). The total numerical FIFA ranking of the four teams in Group B was around 95*.

Group B was clearly and unfairly more difficult than Group A (or any of the other groups in this year's tournament).

Luck of draw, maybe.

Host team advantage, maybe.

Corrupt Saudi Crown Prince (other team in Group A) bribes: possible.

Putin's magic, very possible.

Go Bears!

* As a part of prepration for going to Russia for the World Cup, I calculated these numbers precisely. Now, I am too lazy (tired and jet-lagged) to do it again specially since only two of these teams (only one in seven hours) are still in it.

Cal88 said:

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The annoying Messi-Ronaldo sideshow is over, they both got thoroughly outclassed today by Mbappe and Cavani.

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Cavani had a career day for sure!
Mbappe held his debut on the world stage!

In general, it's a young man's game. Ronaldo was already in decline with club this year. Goal score rate down.

ColoradoBear said:

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We've seen an amazing number of eye popping hairdos in soccer.
This was by far the worst!

Well, it doesn't really matter to me. One time we got a terrible draw in a tournament. It was obvious to me that the tournament director in pleasant hill wanted to pair my girls team with the other top team from Davis so that one of us would wipe the other out. It worked, we won, and then beat their two PH entries in the semis and finals.

At this point, Russia needs to do it on the field.
Unless they are going to be jacked up on drugs with no tests, and the refs are all paid off.
But with VAR, harder to get away with that and maintain integrity.

TheSouseFamily said:

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FiveThirtyEight's SPI power rankings average for each group:

A: 65.9
B: 78.2
C: 74.0
D: 76.2
E: 77.3
F: 75.1
G: 71.3
H: 72.8

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2018-world-cup-predictions/?addata=espn:frontpage

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538 doesn't know much about scoccer.

Still, it rates Group A as by far the easiset group and Group B as the most difficult group by slight margin.

FIFA World Rankings is by far a better way to meaure the strength of the teams (although, on any given day,... as demonstrated by South Kirea beating Germany).

Go Bears!

538 is a computer poll based on algorithms, not something done by a bunch of writers or "experts". And it's proven thus far to be much more accurate in the World Cup than the FIFA rankings. 538 has 8 of its 11 highest rated teams still playing whereas the FIFA rankings only have 5. 538 rated Poland and Peru far lower than FIFA and it was exactly right about that.

concordtom said:

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In general, it's a young man's game. Ronaldo was already in decline with club this year. Goal score rate down.

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What?!!! Ronaldo was already in decline this year??!!!!!

Have you seen Ronaldo play this year?

Did you see that Ronaldo score three goals for Portugal against an excellent Spain team (with two of the best defenders in the world, Sergio Ranis and Pique)?

Did you see Ronaldo score Portugal's only goal against a pretty good Morocco game?

Did you you see his spectacular bicycle kick goal for Real Madrid in the Euro Club Championship Semi-Finals?

Did you see him lead Real Madrid to Euro Club Championship?

Did you see him win his fourth (or was it fifth or sixth) World Player of the Year again this year?

And, all of these were in the last month or two!

Every player in the world dreams of being "in decline" like this.

P.S. if you are referring to Ronaldo's average perfirmance with no goals against Iran and getting his penalty kick blocked by the Iranian Goalie, there is an explanation for that. Iran's coach is the former head coach of Portugal National team abd Real Madrid and the former coach of Manchester United. As such, he knows Ronaldo's tendencies as well as anyone in the world. Plus, he is a great defensive strategist who built his entire game plan for Iran against Portugal based on neturalizing Rinaldo. I was there at the game on Monday night (six days ago) sitting 20- 30 meters from the left wing position Ronaldo often drifted to. The strategy worked to perfection as Ronaldo looked like just an ordinary good player. If I could explain how, I wouldn't be posting here.

calbear80 said:

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concordtom said:

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In general, it's a young man's game. Ronaldo was already in decline with club this year. Goal score rate down.

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What?!!! Ronaldo was already in decline this year??!!!!!

Have you seen Ronaldo play this year?

Did you see that Ronaldo score three goals for Portugal against an excellent Spain team (with two of the best defenders in the world, Sergio Ranis and Pique)?

Did you see Ronaldo score Portugal's only goal against a pretty good Morocco game?

Did you you see his spectacular bicycle kick goal for Real Madrid in the Euro Club Championship Semi-Finals?

Did you see him lead Real Madrid to Euro Club Championship?

Did you see him win his fourth (or was it fifth or sixth) World Player of the Year again this year?

And, all of these were in the last month or two!

Every player in the world dreams of being "in decline" like this.

P.S. if you are referring to Ronaldo's average perfirmance with no goals against Iran and getting his penalty kick blocked by the Iranian Goalie, there is an explanation for that. Iran's coach is the former head coach of Portugal National team abd Real Madrid and the former coach of Manchester United. As such, he knows Ronaldo's tendencies as well as anyone in the world. Plus, he is a great defensive strategist who built his entire game plan for Iran against Portugal based on neturalizing Rinaldo. I was there at the game on Monday night (six days ago) sitting 20- 30 meters from the left wing position Ronaldo often drifted to. The strategy worked to perfection as Ronaldo looked like just an ordinary good player. If I could explain how, I wiuldn!t be posting here.

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I agree Calbear. I would not mind to be at the declined level of Ronaldo. All the guy does is score and win a lot of games for club and country. He is the best in the world.

It is clear that both Argentina and Portugal did not have enough difference makers on the field and therefore lost.

concordtom said:

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Suarez fakes a head injury. Can't stand that guy. Really hope he is eliminated.

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Agreed ConcordTom. What is he thinking? He is so talented, he does not need to act that way. He is a disgrace to soccer and his family. What is he going to tell his kids about his actions? It is a joke.

Spain out. Wow. Looked very impotent but should have found a way. Two subs missing pk's. Wow.

Goobear said:

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Spain out. Wow. Looked very impotent but should have found a way. Two subs missing pk's. Wow.

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Same Spain that flamed out early in the Euros in 2016 and the WC in 2014. They crushed it in qualifying but have looked limp in all the big tournaments the last several years.

Well the group play was great. Today's two games were dull. Two undeserving teams advanced unless you like that kind of soccer. I guess Hope Solo better keep her mouth shut though. Spain and Denmark played beautifully on the field but not enough to win. No finish. And yes, I do understand soccer strategies but Russia was horribly boring except to its disciples.

Russia parked the proverbial bus. The Spanish were very lackadaisical, maintaining possession but lacking offensive resolve, even in the late stages of regular time and ET, their lack of aggressiveness up front was very perplexing. They didn't deserve to go through. Once we got into OT, you knew that the underdog was going to have the edge in PK shootouts, especially given how shaky De Gea has looked earlier in the tournament. And their manager took out their most clinical cold blooded finisher, Diego Costa, 10 min before the end of regulation, replacing him with Aspas, who choked away his PK.

calbear80 said:

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concordtom said:

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Russia's group was super easy because as host team they got a spot as one of the top seeded teams, and then they got lucky in the draw of the other teams from other pots. This has been very well discussed in numerous places. Nothing fishy about it - advantage of host and luck of the remaining draw.

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I have followed World Cups since 1970 and don't remember a group as eay as this year's Group A.

Compare this year!s Group A (the easiest group based on the FIFA rankings at the start of the tournament) to this year's Group B (the toughest group based on the FIFA rankings at the start of tiurnament).

Group A's highest ranked team was Uruguay ranked something like 14 in the FIFA world rankings with all other three teams (Egypt, Russia and Saudi Arabia) ranked around 60 or 70. The total numerical FIFA ranking of four teams in Group A was almost 200*.

Group B had the FIFA #3 or 4 ranked Portugal (defending Euro Champs with Ronaldo), #10 or 11 ranked Spain (2010 World Cup Champs with a ton of stars), around #37 ranked Iran (top qualifying team in Asia) and around #40 ranked Morocco (one of the top two or three teams in Africa). The total numerical FIFA ranking of the four teams in Group B was around 95*.

Group B was clearly and unfairly more difficult than Group A (or any of the other groups in this year's tournament).

Luck of draw, maybe.

Host team advantage, maybe.

Corrupt Saudi Crown Prince (other team in Group A) bribes: possible.

Putin's magic, very possible.

Go Bears!

* As a part of prepration for going to Russia for the World Cup, I calculated these numbers precisely. Now, I am too lazy (tired and jet-lagged) to do it again specially since only two of these teams (only one in seven hours) are still in it.

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Short answer CB80: FIFA rankings aren't much to write home about, not the best basis for a thorough or conclusive analytical approach. Unlike in the big 3 US sports, international soccer doesn't have enough matchups to establish clear metrics, competitions only take place every other year and friendlies aren't all that reliable an index. One exception is the CONMEBOL, where the round robin WC quals give you a good picture of where teams stand, with the small caveat ot the high-altitude teams like Bolivia or Ecuador havinng an unfair home advantage.

In any case, you have Group A 2nd place Russia ousting group B winner Spain, and Group A winner Uruguay handling Group B runner-up Portugal, which kind of dispels the notion that "Group B was clearly and unfairly more difficult than Group A", I think it puts that whole polemic to rest.

Cal88., your point about international soccer not offering enough data points for decent analytical projection or ranking is well taken.

That said, I don't think Russia and Uruguay advancing dispels much of anything. Sports always has a range of potential outcomes and one result never proves much of anything, just as UMBC beating Virginia in the NCAA tournament or Loyola-Chicago getting to the Final 4 doesn't demonstrate a result that you'd see very often if you re-ran the tournament a million times.

It's even more the case with soccer where arbitrariness or luck is far more prevalent than in football, basketball, baseball or really any other sport. The book about soccer, "The Numbers Game" goes into this and suggests, based on quantitative analysis, that soccer results are approximately 50% skill and 50% luck. That's why the favorite in soccer only wins half the time versus 2/3 of the time in sports like basketball and football where the higher volume of scoring reduces the level of arbitrariness. I don't recall if it was that book or another one, but I've heard it suggested that if you doubled or tripled the size of the goal, it would have the effect of benefiting the higher rated powerhouses at the expense of underdogs since it reduces the impact of luck and arbitrary results.

Still, none of that takes away from the acccomlishments of both Uruguay and Russia but their presence in the final 8 reflects the inherent arbitrary nature of soccer as much as it reflects their skill.

What a day at the World Cup....Brazil finally became Brazil and played a wonderful game...Felt badly for Mexico, but they ran into a buzz saw.

Then Japan outplays Belgium for 69 minutes and legitimately leads 2-0, but the favorites come back to score 3 in the final 20+ minutes...Crushing for Japan which had to think it had the game at the 70th minute.

After yesterday's slow down to survive games this was good soccer.

OdontoBear66 said:

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Brazil finally became Brazil and played a wonderful game.

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I certainly could have done without Neymar writhing on the ground for several minutes in faked agony, making a mockery of himself, Brazil and the entire sport. But yeah, good games and the Belgium/Japan game was incredible. What a punch in the stones for Japan. Belgium/Brazil should be an epic match-up.

TheSouseFamily said:

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Cal88., your point about international soccer not offering enough data points for decent analytical projection or ranking is well taken.

That said, I don't think Russia and Uruguay advancing dispels much of anything.

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Also, let's all note the bad logic of saying that FIFA rankings are meaningless because you can't get a large enough sample of games and then extrapolating the absolute quality of Russia/Uruguay vs. Spain/Portugal based on a sample of two games. Talk about a small sample!

Not to mention that Russia's win was entirely on penalty kicks -- a little bit flukey. Uruguay was thought to be a quality team, so their win over Portugal was not shocking (538 had them about evenly matched).

TheSouseFamily said:

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538 is a computer poll based on algorithms, not something done by a bunch of writers or "experts". And it's proven thus far to be much more accurate in the World Cup than the FIFA rankings. 538 has 8 of its 11 highest rated teams still playing whereas the FIFA rankings only have 5. 538 rated Poland and Peru far lower than FIFA and it was exactly right about that.

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I continue to find it irritating when people say "538 doesn't know anything about X." They're trying to create computer models to calculate probabilities for certain events (elections, sports, etc.). There's no way they can ever be 100% accurate, because weird things will always happen.

But the fair way to criticize them wouldn't be to pick out the times when they were wrong, it would be to compare their record to other people and/or organizations that attempt to make predictions. They also tend to be pretty open about their process, so again, if you have a problem with that process then point out where it could be better.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-our-2018-world-cup-predictions-work/

So far 538's record hasn't been too bad with this tournament. They also haven't been too bad with elections (yes, even in 2016 -- they predicted Clinton would win the most votes and she did, but they also predicted it would be close and that could give Trump a shot at winning the Electoral College).

TheSouseFamily said:

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It's even more the case with soccer where arbitrariness or luck is far more prevalent than in football, basketball, baseball or really any other sport. The book about soccer, "The Numbers Game" goes into this and suggests, based on quantitative analysis, that soccer results are approximately 50% skill and 50% luck. That's why the favorite in soccer only wins half the time versus 2/3 of the time in sports like basketball and football where the higher volume of scoring reduces the level of arbitrariness. I don't recall if it was that book or another one, but I've heard it suggested that if you doubled or tripled the size of the goal, it would have the effect of benefiting the higher rated powerhouses at the expense of underdogs since it reduces the impact of luck and arbitrary results.

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Thanks TheSouseFamily for sharing this. I admit I'm not much of a soccer fan, and this how I have always seen it. It even nails my solution of a somewhat larger goal. I know at the WC level you go for the corners, but still I'm surprised at the number of shots (each way) off of the posts.

Japan were up 2-0 late in the second half and lost to Belgium 3-2. What a terrible loss, I didn't see the game but they must have parked the bus terribly if that was their strategy after the big lead.

Belgium had been playing fairly well but not with a lot of urgency to my eyes. Then Japan scored and then scored again! That woke up the Belgian side and they pretty much controlled the last 20+ minutes though Japan still got some decent chances. Best match of the World Cup so far. Brazil was just better than Mexico IMO.

NVGolfingBear said:

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Belgium had been playing fairly well but not with a lot of urgency to my eyes. Then Japan scored and then scored again! That woke up the Belgian side and they pretty much controlled the last 20+ minutes though Japan still got some decent chances. Best match of the World Cup so far. Brazil was just better than Mexico IMO.

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Very good summary. I expected the Brazil Mexico match to be better, but Brazil was firing on all pistons today.

NVGolfingBear said:

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Belgium had been playing fairly well but not with a lot of urgency to my eyes. Then Japan scored and then scored again! That woke up the Belgian side and they pretty much controlled the last 20+ minutes though

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Agree. Japan were holding on for dear life at the end of that game, just waiting to be broken.

Though not great for Belgium allowing themselves to get down by 2. They were clearly better but weren't playing like it.

TheSouseFamily said:

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Cal88., your point about international soccer not offering enough data points for decent analytical projection or ranking is well taken.

That said, I don't think Russia and Uruguay advancing dispels much of anything. Sports always has a range of potential outcomes and one result never proves much of anything, just as UMBC beating Virginia in the NCAA tournament or Loyola-Chicago getting to the Final 4 doesn't demonstrate a result that you'd see very often if you re-ran the tournament a million times.

It's even more the case with soccer where arbitrariness or luck is far more prevalent than in football, basketball, baseball or really any other sport. The book about soccer, "The Numbers Game" goes into this and suggests, based on quantitative analysis, that soccer results are approximately 50% skill and 50% luck. That's why the favorite in soccer only wins half the time versus 2/3 of the time in sports like basketball and football where the higher volume of scoring reduces the level of arbitrariness. I don't recall if it was that book or another one, but I've heard it suggested that if you doubled or tripled the size of the goal, it would have the effect of benefiting the higher rated powerhouses at the expense of underdogs since it reduces the impact of luck and arbitrary results.

Still, none of that takes away from the acccomlishments of both Uruguay and Russia but their presence in the final 8 reflects the inherent arbitrary nature of soccer as much as it reflects their skill.

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It's more something like 50% skill, 40% organization, tactics and smarts, and 10% luck. The luck factor is higher in the knockout format, but doesn't loom too large in the group format. The teams that win are usually those with the best combination of talent and organization.

Russia advanced because they used the right tactical approach to the game which maximized their chance of getting through, they would have had far less chance of advancing playing an open game. Not only did they "park the bus", but they also didn't press much beyond their back third, which allowed them to conserve their energy. The Spanish/Barcelona game of possession usually results in the opponent tiring out after having to chase the ball and trying to press, a bit like how in football teams will run the ball in order to tire the defense. They put Spain to the test, and Spain failed miserably.

As well, them winning on penalties is not a fluke, at that stage all of the pressure was on the heavy favorite, this is something that is well understood. In fact the home crowd reacted at the end of regulation as if they had won.