Comments on FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right: For the Soccer Fans Among You

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2010-03-02T15:24:13.927-05:00

I'm impressed by this system, and think the method...

2009-11-27T12:41:12.329-05:00

I'm impressed by this system, and think the methodology is very sensible. One refinement I'd suggest (without taking the time to do any real analysis) would be to weight changes in management, so that games played under an old manager have an 'offseason'-style penalty and are worth less than those under a new. For example, I expect Maradona's successor in Argentina to give the team a quick bump. It could well be that empirical data suggests this isn't meaningful, though.

Nate Just by way of I told you so, Russia just bi...

2009-11-18T20:02:38.397-05:00

Nate

Just by way of I told you so, Russia just bit the dust.

If the US gets any kind of decent first round group they could make round of 16, even *gasp* quarters.

I cant see this beating the other computers. I am ...

2009-11-18T17:51:58.415-05:00

I cant see this beating the other computers. I am a fan of the German aggregated world ranking list. Every computer but Fifa has Italy behind England.That covers the known bias against England for not being in euro 2008 and Italy clutching in 2006. With this, you have the same end and virtually the same ending to the first round as you would with either the oddschecker or that aggregate. you should add your work to those of others by deleting the fifa from the german aggregate and add your own!I first thought it was a strategic vision job where you take the oddschecker, delete one of their picks to add the usa(no suprise there)then delete their last 2 and then make sure the others you add arent on the aggregated list, to claim originality. Other computers had Uruguay at number nine so you picked at 8!

the German computer aggregate beat the odds in 2008
1 they got the final result at the outset and the odds were on germany(no bracket knowledge).
2 not knowing Austria was home had them on the third place team as the underdog in the Austria pool.
3 they didnt switch to Portugal over Germany in the later round.
4 they didnt pick Turkey as well for their only loss.
There will be as little in it this time. I like the idea that computers were performing better than even before espn wasted a lot of money keeping idiots like me curious.
Disclosure is that i live across the river from NY 23. I was the only canadian who cared. we all were bombarded with Dede, Bill and Doug ads for a month and i am still detoxing.Congrats for hedging in the result prediction. Paul Keating sayed that politics is like a pond. The dems were the water in NY 23. The water marker is above the line.Dems have to dump in huge rocks. The first rock was the special election itself. Second, Dede quits and goes to Bill. You cant poll accurately when a rock has just been thrown.
Afghanistan (rock) I didnt hear adressed.Our boys go to NY 23 to get trained.Check the correlation between the casualties and popularity for this war. Those countries who can accuse America of shirking in afghanistan are Canada, Britain and Holland who have lost people at percapita rates far above the Americans. Noone supports it!

Sorry, Nate, the club play form carryover assumpti...

2009-11-18T17:27:06.816-05:00

Sorry, Nate, the club play form carryover assumption doesn't hold *unless* the national team features a lot of club teammates (this would favor Spain -- Xavi and Iniesta in midfield). If Samuel Eto scores a goal for Inter, it's because somebody at Inter is there to provide service. Not necessarily true for Cameroon (though I'm sure they have good midfielders too). Messi's struggles for Argentina clearly demonstrate my point. Germany provides a contrary example of several players who underperform for club but overperform for country. Having said this, I don't mean to vilify your effort in putting together another rating system. Let's see how it all pans out in the WC.

Nate, Great work, but why is it so hard to find t...

2009-11-17T21:55:40.559-05:00

Nate,

Great work, but why is it so hard to find the SPI when I go onto ESPN Soccernet. I have to google it to get there but can't find it on the actual site. Any way for ESPN to remedy this, or am I just missing it on the Soccernet page?

Is there any point in pointing out perceived weird...

2009-11-17T18:36:37.152-05:00

Is there any point in pointing out perceived weirdness in the system? If it is, then I'd like to blow the whistle on the following Competitiveness Coefficient:

Qualifying -- European Championship 0.47

This makes no sense to me. Every single national team in Europe take these games seriously - I can't imagine why anyone would turn up to the Euro qualifying games with anything less than the best squad you can piece together. All national leagues are suspended on match days (and for a few days before).

I can't really see why the European Championship itself would be less competitive than the World Cup (really, the EC is a BIG even here), but I CERTAINLY cannot see why the qualifying games would be only slightly more than half as competitive as World Cup qualifiers and Confederations Cup games (which nobody here really cares about).

thrilled to see you sinking your teeth into footba...

2009-11-16T13:18:03.582-05:00

thrilled to see you sinking your teeth into football a little bit.

while it's absolutely true that there is a lot more art and many, many immeasurables at play in football (vs a sport like baseball), that also means it's prime territory for new applications of numerical analysis. more power to you, Nate.

As far as the rankings go: it's tough to swallow the "so you're saying _____ would beat _____ (on a neutral ground)" test for quite a few of these, but i'm happy to give it the benefit of the doubt for a while and see what happens. i'm sure it will only get more and more accurate after comparing with actual results for an extended period of time.

Hmpf, I'm tempted to quibble with many of the indi...

2009-11-14T22:14:05.576-05:00

Hmpf, I'm tempted to quibble with many of the individual weighings and other decisions you made in the ranking, which leave teams from the western hemisphere so overrated. But I don't want to express those quibbles here.

What I would really love is for ESPN to include visitor-adjustable sliders that will recalculate the ranking based on different weighings. Basically, for the six most significant "gut" decisions you made, I'd like to be able to set different parameters in case I would make those decisions differently. Please bug ESPN to add this feature, reminding them that people will spend endless hours on their website if they expose the internals of the rankings, especially as WC2010 nears.

Nate, This is amazing. Thanks so much for your gr...

2009-11-14T07:18:01.699-05:00

Nate,

This is amazing. Thanks so much for your great work. Now can you go one step further and show us the formula for predicting future results? :)

I watched almost all of Copa America 2007 and ther...

2009-11-14T06:57:01.065-05:00

I watched almost all of Copa America 2007 and there is no way that that tournament should be weighted .25 compared to 1.00 for the European Championship. Brazil and Argentina had about 2 dozen players from your top 4 leagues between them and all the other teams were playing to win. Only the US brought a B-side because US Soccer is run by greedy candy asses who want to beat Canada and collect gate receipts in the Gold Cup.

I also think you have may be covering too long of a time frame with old performances. It might be better to allow for the performances of a nation across other age brackets (U-20, U-17) in a shorter time frame than to go back 8 years to look at old New Zealand scores.

And how do you explain England being so highly ranked and Emile Heskey not being able to get a match for his club? Feed that into your computer and watch it smoke.

But it's all good stuff! Best of luck with the new venture.

> Anyway, I wonder what the > chances are of the M...

2009-11-14T03:16:47.648-05:00

> Anyway, I wonder what the
> chances are of the MLS becoming
> a major football league in
> coming decades to rival Europe's
> big four.

It seems the chances are surprisingly remote right now at least... True, MLS enjoys decent fan support and is currently expanding into soccer hotbeds such as Seattle. But apart from David Beckham, the league seems unwilling to spend serious money on top players. As a result, most of the top Americans are playing overseas. I can understand why somebody like Tim Howard would prefer Everton or AC Milan to the MLS but most of the U.S. exiles go to small semi pro teams in Scandinavia, Holland or the lower divisions of England, Germany and France. That's bad for "Major League" Soccer, I think ... MLS should at least try to compete with the top leagues of Mexico, Argentina and Brazil which should not prove too difficult. This would mean keeping virtually all U.S. and Canadian internationals in North America as well as having each team sign four experienced foreigners a la Ljungberg/Angel/Blanco. Maybe increased cooperation (e.g. player loans) with top European and Mexican clubs would be the answer?

MARCU$

And then here I find out you're actually a big soc...

2009-11-13T11:18:32.299-05:00

And then here I find out you're actually a big soccer follower, and are now devoting your passions to it in a completely obsessive way.

I don't know if Nate's a big soccer fan. He's a big baseball fan - that's how he first got known for his statistical predicting prowess.

You're not the only one to be surprised that Nate's a sports guy, though. I remember he was on Keith Olbermann last year during the election (I don't watch him, saw it on Youtube), and mentioned the Phillies, who had just won the World Series, three or four times in the space of five minutes. Olbermann, clearly taken aback, ends the interview with something like, "Nate Silver... he's apparently into baseball..."

(Which says something about Keith Olbermann's background research as much as it does about Nate... but that's not the point. :P)

This is a really interesting project, and I'll be ...

2009-11-13T09:14:10.248-05:00

This is a really interesting project, and I'll be intrigued to see the rankings in action as time goes on.

But here's the really weird thing (possibly boring personal story ahead): A couple of weeks ago I was driving home from work and caught you (Nate) on Hugh Hewitt's radio show (yeah, I know; don't ask; though he obviously was a respectful fan of yours).

I was en route home to settle into a lazy night at the TV for a few hours of soccer watching, including talk shows and other stuff that feed my obsession. And I remember getting into an extensive, disconcerting mental conversation with myself in the car: Hmm, you know, I'll bet this Nate Silver guy doesn't waste away his hours caring about stuff like this. Succesful people advance in life precisely because they DON'T spend lots of their time with stuff like sports. Maybe I need to rethink my life priorities.

It one of those (discomfiting) revelatory-life-moment sorts of moments, which is why it still stands out.

And then here I find out you're actually a big soccer follower, and are now devoting your passions to it in a completely obsessive way.

So yeah -- a really weird turn of events, and oddly reassuring for me on some basic existential level. So, thanks very much, haha...

I have no problem with the top 2. England is ranke...

2009-11-13T01:08:49.672-05:00

I have no problem with the top 2. England is ranked to high, and so are Portugal, the United States, Chile, Uruguay, Ivory Coast and especially France. Italy should be in the top 5.

Soccer is not baseball, statistics mean very little.

In sum, all efforts to capture soccer rankings, which are largely based on intangibles, are entirely futile.

I still have to digest you methodology, but a ques...

2009-11-12T19:57:12.894-05:00

I still have to digest you methodology, but a question remains. It seems in reading, that a strong team in a weak confederation is somewhat disadvantaged as opposed to a weak team in a strong confederation.
In addition, a general rule of soccer thinking is that home field advantages are larger in weak confederations than strong confederations. Or are these assumptions not correct?
I do not think the Confederations Cup deserves the coefficient rating given, two of the eight slots are non-competitive selection (providing you believe that winning a World Cup in the previous year is not the same as winning a tournament) meaning that some team selections may not embrace a level of importance that a WC qualifier would have. In addition it means that two confederations would have an extra team; Europe,: Italy and Spain and Africa: Egypt and South Africa.Whuich means that these confeserations would score additional points, thus elevating thier confederation higher?

Just a thought!

Good Work

I think that the performance of the players should...

2009-11-12T18:41:10.888-05:00

I think that the performance of the players should be taken into account- and that exactly is the problem.
Especially the "team sport" assumption is unfortunately completely wrong.
Let's say that most English teams have quite mediocre English players, but very good and expensive foreign players. England is the strongest league of the world, but not even the English would claim that from this follows, that England has the best players.
Now, everyone of them gets a good grade according to your player-based rating, just for their teams.
This explains for example, why England is rated so high in your list.
The result of this is that the national teams with a lot of mediocre players, especially if they play in the top league teams, will be rated very high.
Thus, there is a lot of room for improvement in your list...

Mule Rider said... 10 states in financial hot wate...

2009-11-12T18:19:01.918-05:00

Mule Rider said...
10 states in financial hot water

1. California - BLUE
2. Arizona - RED
3. Rhode Island - BLUE
4. Michigan - BLUE
5. Oregon - BLUE
6. Nevada - LEANING BLUE
7. Florida - PURPLE
8. New Jersey - BLUE
9. Illinois - BLUE
10. Wisconsin - BLUE

Presidential politics =/= state politics. half of those states have republican governors.

Let the record show this thread has turned to coll...

2009-11-12T18:08:14.471-05:00

Let the record show this thread has turned to college football!

Shocking! :)

carry on

@MR Just yankin' your chain. I'm a big SEC guy an...

2009-11-12T17:45:43.999-05:00

@MR

Just yankin' your chain. I'm a big SEC guy and I like what UA is doing. Mallette has a gun and you guys should definitely improve next year. And for us, it's gonna be really strange not having Timmy terrific. But hey, we got 2 nat champs in 3 years and gunnin' for another, so it's great to be a Gator, today!

@ Mule Rider... woulda', shoulda', coulda'... but...

2009-11-12T17:29:57.263-05:00

@ Mule Rider...

woulda', shoulda', coulda'...
but didn't. so we're 9-0 and Arkansas is what 5-4, 6-3? oh well it really doesn't matter. the record, much like the Razorbacks, inconsequential. maybe next year.

anyway, aren't you SAU, not a hog?

sigh And once again it's a battle among the sou...

2009-11-12T17:27:03.028-05:00

*sigh*

And once again it's a battle among the southern teams with no chance for the Golden Gophers.

Still, someone's gotta say Go Big Ten!

@MU 'Mr. Universe said... ROLL TIDE!!!!! Sorry G...

2009-11-12T17:11:22.157-05:00

@MU
'Mr. Universe said...
ROLL TIDE!!!!!

Sorry Gatordad. We're comin' for you guys.'

Bring it Mr. U. We're the Mighty Gators. Somebody is ALWAYS coming for us.

@Dwight
'It was noteworthy enough for you to notice because you saw it right before you fell for that Trap? :)'

I somehow managed to escape. The girlfriend wasn't so lucky. I was, but that's another story for another thread! LMAO!

Gatordad said... @ Statler N Waldorf I think the...

2009-11-12T17:02:05.217-05:00

Gatordad said...
@ Statler N Waldorf

I think they have that contest at Fantasy Fest. I seem to remember something of the sort. But I was pretty drunk, so it could have just been the opening notes of 'Vogue' on a dance floor in a club.

It was noteworthy enough for you to notice because you saw it right before you fell for that Trap? :)

ROLL TIDE!!!!! Sorry Gatordad. We're comin' for y...

2009-11-12T16:51:51.387-05:00

ROLL TIDE!!!!!

Sorry Gatordad. We're comin' for you guys.