Dos a cero o Cinco a cero?

So just some quick musings here so I can get everything on paper prior to the match, in order to maintain what little credibility I have (which is 0, I believe...).

First off, I did just iterate the "Power Rankings" for the Hex I've got. Here's how the table looks.

Team	Rank	Rating
Costa Rica	1	409,091
USA	2	409,091
Honduras	3	346,154
Mexico	4	346,154
Panama	5	204,545
Jamaica	6	183,673

Interestingly, you'll note Costa Rica and the US are tied, while Mexico and Honduras are tied. At this point I don't think there's much question that the US and Costa Rica should hit the auto-qualify spots, the only question may be in what order do they do it.

The bigger race, of course, will be Honduras and Mexico. I think Mexico has the harder schedule, playing teams #1 and #2 away. Sooooo, if we wanted to make predictions, I'd go out and say that Costa Rica, the US, and Honduras auto-advance and Mexico wins up in the #4 spot playing (and probably beating) New Zealand.

The bigger pill, of course, is the falling of Mexico. Now, is a weak Mexico good for CONCACAF? Objectively, I'd argue no, we want a Federation full of strong teams and with 4 slots to potentially fill, I think Mexico has a much better chance of beating New Zealand than either Panamda or Jamaica. But as a USMNT? Let Mexico crash and burn. That's what a rivarly is.

He's a chart illustrating performance over the last 7 matches. Actually goes back a little further than that, including qualifying in past rounds and Gold Cup performances. Basically, this is rankings over the last 9 "ranking periods", covering a total of 13 games played.

 

 

And now the fun stuff. Tonight I think I want to see the US play tight, compact, and defensive. We don't need a win here, and with injuries and suspensions I don't want to see us playing risky. We'll be in our own house and should be able to dictate the game somewhat. Mexico is the one who needs to come in and get a result. I'm always weary of teams who recently fire their coaches, as they seem to have a great first "prove yourself" match afterwards (see Columbus v Houston for a great recent example).

 

Mexico is a dangerous team and their lack of results I think has been more teams coming and taking a cuatious approach at Azteca rather then actual poor performance. The US was hammered while away in Mexico and, honestly, a bit lucky to escape with a point. Turn that draw into a Mexico win and I bet the Hex looks a whole lot different today. 10 games isn't a lot.

 

So, yes, I'm advocating we get back to "Bruce-ball" or "Bradley-ba;;", stay tight and compact in the middle, keep numbers behind the ball, and pick moments for a fast counter against a Mexico team that's really going to need to come in and play open. Heat could be a factor as well. A second half couner running at tired Mexican legs could well be the winner.

 

My prediction?

 

A gritty 1-1 draw, which will almost be enough to get the US auto-in.

 

Isntant-Classico? I doubt it. But these games are always fun.



Captains of the Sky

Man I'm excited for this weekend. Last round and still a lot at stake for a lot of teams, plus evening MLS action? PREPARE YOURSELF FOR SIEGE, LIVER!

Ah hem. At any rate, I once again took a chance to update the Euro rankings. Granted, it's a short tournament, so maybe things should swing more, but the formula I've come up with essentially tracks momentum gradually, which I feel is as important as game to game results. So despite some teams booking a ticket to the next round and some teams booking tickets home, there weren't any crazy swings this week. Russia is still top dog with Spain and Germany close behind, and, a big surprise to me, at least, the French sitting in 4th. Ukraine probably got dealt the biggest blow. Anything but advancing would be horrific for them, in my opinion. And while I'd be surprised if Poland holds on and advances, their showing against Russia was a good one, and they may just have enough to get into the knockouts, where anything can happen.

Actually, now that we're on the topic, the Dutch showing has been the worst performance so far. And I'd like to point out that my formula had sort of predicted that since the pre-Euro rankings. Math wins again!

Here's the table.

Team	Ranking	Change	Rating
Russia	1	NC	2.00
Spain	2	+1	2.67
Germany	3	+1	4.33
France	4	+3	6.00
Ukraine	5	-3	6.33
Portugal	6	+2	7.67
Denmark	7	-2	8.00
Sweden	8	-3	9.00
Italy	9	NC	9.33
England	9	+2	9.33
Croatia	11	-1	9.67
Czech Republic	11	NC	9.67
Greece	13	NC	12.33
Poland	14	+2	12.67
Ireland	15	-1	13.33
Netherlands	16	-1	13.67

Does this mean we can make some predictions? Yes. Yes it does.

The Czech Republic over Poland in a close game, ending Poland's (and my own) hope's for European glory.
Russia over Greece(should be another LeBron style slam dunk)
Portugal over the Netherlands (I'm really excited for Ronaldo vs Robben)
Germany over Denmark (sorry Puma)
Spain over Croatia (is Torres back!?!)
Italy over Ireland (will Balotelli show up? I think some day he's just going to play a game while wearing sunglasses, because fuck you, that's why)
Ukraine over England (again, probably an unpopular pick against an English team with nothing to lose and gaining Rooney)
France over Sweeden (nothing witty to add)

And, finally, props to the Ireland traveling fans. Man I would have loved to have been in the stadium for this.

Work is a terrible way to make a living.

Gah! I meant to update this at the beginning of the week and got totally sidetracked with actual work. Leaving my laptop in the the lab like a chump. Annoying. Now I can't pretend like my whole "system" is actually working. Oh well.

Yes, I took the Round 1 data and plugged it into the same spradsheet I use to calculate power rankings for MLS teams. Yes, I feel like it's shaking out a little better now that a first set of games has happened. Yes, this will be the last sentence that begins with the word "yes". Let's just get to the numbers.

Team	Ranking	Change	Rating
Russia	1	+1	1.5
Ukraine	2	+2	3.5
Spain	2	-1	3.5
Germany	4	+3	4.5
Denmark	5	+5	7
Sweden	5	-2	7
France	7	+1	7.5
Portugal	8	-3	9
Italy	9	+2	9.5
Croatia	10	+6	10.5
England	11	+3	11
Czech Republic	11	-5	11
Greece	13	NC	11.5
Ireland	14	-5	12
Netherlands	15	-2	13
Poland	16	-1	13.5

I will say the rating this week is different than the rating last week because I generally just like to use average weekly rank as the "rating", but since before the first match there was only 1 point it didn't make sense. The rating would have just been equal to the rank. So I posted the numeric value that determines the rating. This round's "rating" is actually average position for the last two points (hence the multiple .5's).

Croatia is the big mover hopping up siz places. Denmark's big upset also bumps them up five places, while, shockingly, Netherlands drops all the way down to 15. Then again, if I posted this on time, Portugal's win over them would have made it seem likeI know what I'm talking about.

Ireland's poor showing hurt them the most, dropping 5 places. And, unfortunatly for me, the Pole's fall to last, though they're still far from out of it.

Here's a Euro logo, just because.

Now, let's "simulate" the results so I can feel better about myself. Maybe with the rest of the games this week I'll get lucky and call one right.

Assuming the higher ranked teams wins, it would look like this.

Czech Republic beats Greece (correct!)
Russia beats Poland (tie, push mash, should have been a blowout... yay Poland!)
Portugal beats Denmark (correct!)
Germany beats Netherlands (correct!)
Italy beats Croatia (should be close... tie?)
Spain beats Ireland (seems like a no brainer)
Ukraine beats France
Sweden beats England (people won't like that one...)

All I'm gonna say at this point is man I can't wait for the weekend.

This is an abomination

Well, I'd apologise for not updating this more often since it's been an excellent week of soccer, but I'm stuck off in New Jersey doing some work and have been putting in extra long days, and I'm not sure there's any one out there to apologize to anyway.

I've been able to catch most of the Euro matches though, and the US qualifier match, and I've gotta say this is my favorite month of soccer outside of the World Cup. Top it all off with going to another away match (I'll be in Philly for the Union-SKC game) and it's gonna be a great great month.

Given all that, I thought I'd try something new. Since I've got a spreadsheet formula mocked up to rate MLS teams over the season, I thought I'd try to apply the same formula to the UEFA teams. Now there's one major flaw in using this system, and that is that in the most recent competetive matchces for these teams they played in different groups against opponents of very different ability, and that often the friendly matches are used for tweaks and trials and not results, so I'm not going to say I feel these ratings and rankings are fair and representative. I will be interested to see how they evolve over the course of the tournement, though.

I've looked at the last 10 matche for each side, most recent five friendly and most recent five competetive (except for Ukraine and Poland) and come up with a rating and ranking in the same way I do for MLS sides. It actually seems like it sort of worked out not terribly, but I'll let you be the judge of that.

I'm going to try to update the results after the end of each set of matches and we'll see how it plays out. Ranking a knock out tournement is probably a silly thing to do anyway, but now that it's the weekend and I'm away from family and friends I've got some time to kill.

Team	Rank	Rating
Spain	1	4.975
Russia	2	4.875
Sweden	3	3.825
Ukraine	4	3.75
Portugal	5	3.65
Czech Republic	6	3.45
Germany	7	3.2
France	8	2.7
Ireland	9	2.65
Denmark	10	2.575
Italy	11	2.425
Netherlands	12	2.2
Greece	13	2.175
England	14	1.875
Poland	15	1.55
Croatia	16	1

The big surprise of course is how far down the Netherlands are, but then again they just lost to the Danes, so maybe if I had posted this early I would have been seen as prophetic?

Obviously this isn't intended to be used for predictions or anything, but, if we just go ahead and guess that the higher ranked team will will, it gets Russia over Czech Republic right, Poland and Greece drew, though they're very close in ratings, Denmark over Netherlands got picked correct, and Germany over Portugal was incorrect, though they're also very close in ratings. Today's picks would be Spain over Italy (seems reasonable but we're tied in the 15th minute as of my typing this) and then Ireland over Croatia.

Only time will tell...

Oh, and go Poland!