Soccer is Weird

Jun 18, 2012 12:48

There's a Euro Cup group finals today, and it's got a great chance for some weirdness due to scoring and advancement in the tournament. For those not in the know, a quick summary ( Read more... )

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dlgood June 19 2012, 17:49:28 UTC
My inner stat nerd cringes at the small sample size of a four-team round robin...

If you had smaller numbers of larger groups, the fuller round-robin would produce fewer confusing outcomes. I realize the small pools probably exist because it would be difficult to schedule a longer prelim round-robin, though.

While teams shouldn't have the incentive to tank (tanking to spoil a third party is a little different) it does take an interesting mix of skill to be capable of successfully protecting both goals simultaneously whilst not being superior enough to simply outscore a foe by a significant margin. They almost deserve to win for that.

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