soccer

Simulating a 48-team World Cup (nerd alert!)

With FIFA talking about backing away from the truly dreadful concept of three-team groups at the World Cup, I came up with a couple of alternatives — the four-team group under discussion but with a 24-team knockout round rather than 32, and a double-elimination tournament — for a Soccer America article.

The commenters don’t seem enamored of the double-elimination tournament, but that didn’t stop me from running simulations. Take a look at the Google workbook.

I did two types of brackets:

  1. A straight 48-team double-elimination bracket
  2. Double-elimination groups of 6, with the winners advancing to the quarterfinals

Then I simulated each one using different simulators:

  1. https://www.footysimulator.co.uk/ for the straight bracket
  2. A combination of Elo ratings and random numbers for the 6-team groups

If you’d like to play around with the simulations yourself, just make a copy. You could even simulate a different qualifying process — in my suggested systems, most qualifying is done in 6-team groups from which the group winners advance and are eligible for byes, the runners-up advance, and certain third-place teams advance to fill Africa’s ninth spot (based on FIFA’s new quotas) and an intercontinental playoff.

us soccer, world soccer

Want to make soccer a “top sport” in the USA, Mr. Infantino? Here’s your checklist

Let’s say this first about the White House visit by FIFA president Gianni Infantino and U.S. Soccer president Carlos Cordeiro: The “red card to the media” stunt was disgraceful. Maybe Infantino is unaware that the current occupant of the White House has incited hatred toward the media — not just the usual complaints about unfair stories but a deliberate outright undermining of the work they do, leading to death threats and quite possibly playing a role in the murder of five people at the Capital Gazette in Annapolis — but Cordeiro sure as hell knows, and he ought to be apologizing.

Now, let’s move on to the interesting stuff Infantino said. Basically, he wants the USA to contribute more money to … I mean … become a greater power in world football.

We certainly have a lot of work to do along those lines. Cordeiro needs to get busy putting out the fires in youth, pro and adult soccer (in that order, if he needs to prioritize, though delegating people to solve all three is fine). We’ll never be a top-down country like Germany, but we need to get people on the same page. For more on that, read … every other post in this blog, pretty much.

But before you leave, Mr. Infantino, may I please draw your attention to the following?

1. The 2022 World Cup is a human rights disaster. At this point, I’m frankly not sure I have the stomach to watch it.

2. The 2022 World Cup will be held when fewer Americans will be watching it. You can try to go head-to-head with college football and the NFL, but I don’t think it’s going to turn out well, particularly given No. 1 on this list.

3. FIFA still doesn’t get it when it comes to women’s soccer. Progress on some fronts, perhaps. Plenty of countries give their women’s national team no support. Some are still banning or abusing lesbians. It’s time to hold these federations accountable rather than sitting back because you need their votes.

4. Clean your own house. That means, for example, letting the people who are trying to fix FIFA’s many issues do their jobs.

We can’t hold FIFA accountable for everything — the diving epidemic is an issue for referees and leagues. But you can’t simply expect the USA to make soccer bigger here because you say so. U.S. Soccer can only do so much, even if they’re doing everything right. (Again, they’re not, and we’re aware of that and trying to change.)

Some of this falls on you and your colleagues in Zurich.

Best of luck.

good-luck.gif

 

pro soccer

No, the NASL is not going on the “international calendar” — and here’s why it’s harmful to say it is

“North American Soccer League announces move to international calendar,” says the headline on the press release on the league’s decision to make the best of its legal limbo. The NASL will start in the fall and continue through the spring.

One problem: No matter how many people retweeted and even reported this move as a switch to the “international calendar,” there’s simply no such thing.

At least not as it relates to leagues. There is a FIFA calendar that sets dates for national team play, both friendlies and qualifiers. There is not an international calendar that says a domestic league must follow the traditional academic year.

That’s good, because otherwise, all of these countries would be out of compliance:

Country Population League system
China 1,388,550,000 March-November
USA 326,423,000 March-December
Indonesia 261,890,900 April-November
Brazil 208,503,000 May-December (state leagues earlier in year)
Nigeria 193,392,500 January-September
Japan 126,700,000 February-December
Philippines 105,143,000 February-December (new league)
Vietnam 93,700,000 January-November
Thailand 66,061,000 February-November
Myanmar 53,370,609 January-September
South Korea 51,446,201 March-November
Kenya 49,699,862 February-October
Sudan 40,782,742 January-November
Canada 36,982,500 March-December
Malaysia 32,359,500 February-November
Uzbekistan 32,345,000 March-November
Peru 31,488,625 Split season, playoffs in December
Venezuela 31,431,164 Split season, playoffs in December
Ghana 28,956,587 February-October
Mozambique 28,861,863 March-November
Angola 28,359,634 February-November
Madagascar 25,571,000 August-November
Chinese Taipei 23,566,853 May-November
Cameroon 23,248,044 February-October
Mali 18,542,000 February-November
Kazakhstan 18,137,300 March-November
Malawi 17,373,185 May-December
Ecuador 16,906,600 January-December
Zambia 16,405,229 April-December
Zimbabwe 14,542,235 April-November
Sweden 10,103,843 March-November
Belarus 9,495,800 April-November
Tajikistan 8,829,300 March-November
Kyrgyzstan 6,140,200 April-October
Turkmenistan 5,758,000 March-December
Singapore 5,612,300 February-November
Finland 5,509,984 April-October
Norway 5,290,288 March-November
Congo 5,260,750 January-September
Ireland 4,792,500 February-October
Georgia 3,718,200 March-November
Uruguay 3,493,205 Split season, playoffs in December
Mongolia 3,189,175 April-September
Lithuania 2,810,865 March-November
Estonia 1,352,320 March-November
Iceland 346,750 April-September

Sources: Soccerway (and occasional extra Googling) for league systems; Wikipedia for population. You’re welcome to click through every source at Wikipedia or find your own to check my work on the population.

I’ve omitted the smallest nations and those that have incomplete data (say, a 10-game season) at Soccerway. I’ve also omitted some South American countries whose Apertura and Clausura seasons may or may not hint at a fall-to-spring calendar — Colombia and Paraguay, for example, have an Apertura ending in June and a Clausura ending in December.

So that’s close to 3.5 billion people living under the tyranny of a non-“international” calendar. And that doesn’t include Russia, which has switched to a fall-to-spring calendar with the asterisk of a winter break lasting nearly three months.

Am I being pedantic here? Perhaps, but there’s a legitimate point here …

We should probably stop taking every single cue from a handful of counties in Europe.

I’m not going to veer into the identity politics of the raging “Costa Rica in Red Bull Arena” or “Jonathan Gonzalez proves USSF diversity problem” arguments. Nor would I suggest that the long-term survival of a U.S. league depends on syncing its calendar with Turkmenistan. (I could not find any evidence of an MLS player ever calling Turkmenistan home.)

But we do need to think more broadly when we think of “the rest of the world.” Scandinavia is certainly the rest of the world. So is Brazil, whose league system may have some elements worth copying.

That doesn’t mean the switch to what we could call the “Major Euro” calendar is a bad idea. We have aspirations of doing most of our outgoing transfer business with the big leagues, so if we can align our offseasons with them, that’s a positive. And ending a season in May has advantages over ending it in December — better weather, fewer football conflicts, etc. (You’re still going up against the NBA and NHL playoffs, along with the part of the baseball season before they start building for next year.)

But then let’s be honest about those reasons. Let’s not say we’re “complying with FIFA,” as some suggested on Twitter over the weekend, by having a summer offseason.

And let’s figure out what works for us rather than blindly copying league systems from countries that are smaller and meteorologically diverse.

 

 

 

soccer

Making the Club World Cup interesting

You’re not watching the Club World Cup? You’re not engrossed in every game?

No one is. And that’s a pity, because it’s a grand idea poorly executed.

Want to make it more interesting? Spread it out like the Davis Cup.

Make each game an interesting event. Africa vs. Asia. Oceania vs. North America. Have continents alternate as hosts for the early rounds. And so on until you have at least a few weeks to hype the neutral-site final.

(Which will probably be South America vs. Europe. Or a really interesting underdog story.)

This year’s tournament could’ve been:

September

  • TP Mazembe vs. Guangzhou Evergrande
  • Club America vs. Auckland City

Late October

  • River Plate vs. Mazembe-Guangzhou winner
  • Barcelona vs. America-Auckland winner

This weekend: Final.

The early games will at least be big events for the teams that are hosting. Global interest will pick up a bit with the big guns entering.

Alternate idea: Hold the Club World Cup in odd-numbered years in the summers, when we don’t have the “other” men’s World Cup, the Euros or Copa America.

soccer

Thursday FIFA media frenzy roundup

Here’s what everyone’s saying now that we’ve had more than 24 hours to digest the news of a whole bunch of FIFA bigwigs being indicted:

Who’s who, and who’s facing what charge: Good breakdown here from The Washington Post.

The 2010 World Cup: Did South Africa literally out-bribe Morocco? The Telegraph picks up that part of the indictment:

It also said that the former Fifa vice-president Warner was offered $1 million (£652,000) by South Africa’s rival bidder Morocco but that Blazer learnt from his colleague that “high-ranking officials of Fifa, the South African government, and the South African bid committee, were prepared to arrange for the government of South Africa to pay $10 million to ‘support the African diaspora’ ”.

Vindication in Brazil: A lot of critics are happy, says USA TODAY correspondent Taylor Barnes.

The 2022 World Cup: Did the Qatar decision shock the USA into action? (One of several pieces in today’s Washington Post.)

The 2018 World Cup: Also from the Post — Russia mad.

2018 AND 2022: The bid process for those World Cups is the focus of Switzerland’s investigation:

In the Swiss criminal proceedings, opened by the OAG on 10 March 2015, it is suspected that irregularities occurred in the allocation of the FIFA World Cups of 2018 and 2022. … Subsequently to today’s seizure of files, the OAG and the Swiss Federal Criminal Police will be questioning 10 persons who took part in voting on the allocation of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups as members of the Executive Committee in 2010. These persons should be questioned as persons providing information.

For reasons of criminal procedure (principle of proportionality), the procedure coordinated with the requested acts of the U.S. authorities was designed in such a way as to allow the procurement of any criminally relevant data in an effective manner, and to avoid any possible collusion. These measures were carried out simultaneously as a large number of persons involved in allocating the World Cups were currently in Zurich. These legal actions concern two criminal procedures conducted separately by the OAG and the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York. The Swiss and US law enforcement authorities are not conducting any joint investigations, but are coordinating their respective criminal proceedings.

Blame the game: FIFA’s one-country, one-vote structure — along with the GOAL and FAP system of spreading the wealth — is ripe for corruption, says a FiveThirtyEight analysis.

USA! USA! Slate’s Stefan Fatsis sees a confident nation flexing its muscles to clean up the sport.

Jack Warner, always defiant: I’ll paraphrase – “My lawyers advised me not to say anything, but you have to be naive to think it’s a coincidence that they did this before the FIFA election.” (Maybe they made the arrests now because they had everyone in one place?)

Chuck Blazer and the Warner sons, reluctant whistleblowers? The Guardian paints a picture of absurdity: “Loretta Lynch spent years on the case, in which prosecutors turned to tactics used to fight organised crime – and a scooter chase paved the way.”

Though unconfirmed by prosecutors this week, the Daily News report suggests Blazer even agreed to secretly record future meetings with Fifa officials, allegedly carrying a recording device hidden in a keyring to London’s May Fair hotel during the 2012 Olympic Games.

But Blazer was not the only big fish to succumb to threats from prosecutors. The two adult children of Jack Warner, a former Fifa regional president and Trinidad and Tobago politician charged under this week’s indictment, were caught in equally colourful circumstances.

The prisoners’ dilemma: Michael McCann breaks down the defendants’ legal options, including rolling on the others.

The sponsorship bomb: Visa sounds like a company that has had enough. The BBC includes more sponsor concerns in its roundup.

Is Nike involved? Still hard to say whether the company will face any problems down the road. The indictment lets us connect a few dots but doesn’t spell anything out.

Shopping for prime real estate? Take a look at the properties facing forfeiture, including the Versailles of Loganville.

And from The Onion: FIFA Frantically Announces 2015 Summer World Cup In United States

At press time, the U.S. national team was leading defending champions Germany in the World Cup’s opening match after being awarded 12 penalties in the game’s first three minutes.

So something good will come out of all this …

The Guardian continues to live-blog events as they happen.

soccer

Highlights of the FIFA indictment

In case you don’t have time to read all 1xx pages of the indictment against various FIFA-ish people, here are a few items of note:

(All of the following are alleged in the indictment. All defendants are innocent until proven guilty.)

– Former CONMEBOL president Eugenio Figueredo obtained U.S. citizenship in 2006. He claimed he was exempt from the English language and civics exams because of a mental disability, specifically severe dementia. Seven years later, he was CONMEBOL president and a member of FIFA’s executive committee.

– CONCACAF president Jeffrey Webb owns a residence in Loganville, Ga., along with other property in Stone Mountain and Conyers. Unless you really want to own property in Clint Mathis’ hometown, I have no idea what would possess someone from Cayman Islands to do that.

– Allegations against Jack Warner: He “established and controlled numerous bank accounts and corporate activities in which he mingled his personal assets and those of CONCACAF, CFU and (Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation).” Then “(a)mong other things, Warner began to solicit and accept bribes in connection with his official duties, including selection of the host nation for the World Cups held in 1998 and 2010.” Then there’s the condo in Miami, bought “with money drawn from an account held in the name of a soccer facility that was ostensibly affiliated with CONCACAF.”

– CONMEBOL’s Nicolas Leoz “began soliciting bribe payments” for Copa America and other things. “Co-Conspirator #2” (identified not by name but as the “founder and owner of the Traffic Group,” which would be Jose Hawilla unless someone is dramatically misidentified) then agreed to pay tens of millions in “Copa America contracts, media and marketing rights to other South American soccer tournaments, and sponsorship rights acquired by United States sportwear companies.”

– “Co-Conspirator #2” relocated to the USA and negotiated with Jack Warner to get marketing rights to the Gold Cup. Traffic got the rights to the Gold Cups from 1996 to 2003. “In connection with the acquisition and renewal of those rights, Co-Conspirator #2 and Co-Conspirator #3 together caused bribe payments to be made to Warner and Co-Conspirator #1.” (Co-Conspirator #1 is identified as the general secretary of CONCACAF from 1990 to 2011, which would be Chuck Blazer. Co-Conspirator #3 is “a high-ranking executive of Traffic USA.”)

– More Traffic bribe allegations.

– And other sports marketing groups joined the fray, including Sports Marketing Company A, a New Jersey-based company owned and operated by Co-Conspirator #5. This company got the marketing rights to the Copa Libertadores.

– When Warner and Leoz departed CONCACAF and CONMEBOL, “(t)he change in administration at CONCACAF and CONMEBOL did not usher in an era of reform at those organizations. Instead, the new leadership continued to engage in criminal schemes in violation of their fiduciary duties.”

– The Webb allegations hinge on the way Traffic got the rights to Gold Cups and CONCACAF Champions Leagues since he took office.

– Here’s a big one: “In connection with the acquisition of the media rights to the Copa América and Centenario tournaments from CONMEBOL and CONCACAF, Datisa agreed to pay $110 million in bribes to the defendants JEFFREY WEBB, EUGENIO FIGUEREDO, RAFAEL ESQUIVEL, JOSÉ MARIA MARIN, and NICOLÁS LEOZ, and several other soccer officials. Datisa agreed to make these payments at various times over the life of the contracts. At least $40 million has been paid to date.” (Datisa, we learn much later, was created in 2013, with Traffic, Torneos and Full Play each holding a one-third interest.)

– Many other tournaments’ marketing rights follow in the next several pages. The paper trail on World Cup qualifiers is interesting.

– When does this leave the realm of the Americas and into broader FIFA stuff? That would be page 80, where you won’t be surprised by what you read about Warner but perhaps a little disappointed in South Africa.

– Page 89: “In or about March 2011, Co-Conspirator #7 declared himself to be a candidate in the FIFA presidential election.” That would be a high-ranking official in FIFA and AFC. In May, that candidate was denied a visa to go into the USA, so he wound up in Trinidad and Tobago, where Warner advised Caribbean officials they could pick up a “gift.”

– Money went toward Jeffrey Webb’s pool at his house in Loganville? That’s page 98.

– For recent Gold Cup and CONCACAF Champions League rights: “Thereafter, the defendant JEFFREY WEBB and Co-Conspirator #4 discussed the best way to effectuate the bribe payment in a manner that would conceal its nature. Ultimately, WEBB decided to use an overseas company that manufactured soccer uniforms and soccer balls (“Soccer Uniform Company A”), the identity of which is known to the Grand Jury. Co-Conspirator #23, like the defendant COSTAS TAKKAS a close associate of WEBB, had a connection to Soccer Uniform Company A. WEBB eventually instructed Co-Conspirator #4 to submit a false invoice to Traffic USA for $1.1 million to be paid to Soccer Uniform Company A, which Co-Conspirator #4 did.”  (A little while later, we learn of a wire transfer to a Soccer Uniform Company A account in Panama.)

So now I’m wondering who gets the marketing rights to all these upcoming tournaments.

And what happens to this house in Loganville.

Finally, one word that appears absolutely nowhere in the 164-page document: “Blatter.”

 

soccer

Solo’s Seattle socks and shorts

Started with a tweet yesterday:

And a follow-up:

Here’s what FIFA rules say: “Each goalkeeper must wear colours that distinguish him from the other players, the referee and the assistant referees.”

That seems to allow some wiggle room — if you’re wearing black socks along with your teammates, are you really not distinguished from other players? If the ref is wearing red socks, do you have to change to blue?

Typically, goalkeepers these days wear some insane green or yellow shorts and socks that no one else would wear. But I did find at least one instance of a keeper wearing similar shorts to those of his teammates in the Bundesliga and another from the Premier League.

But let’s get back to the NWSL. What do the rules really say?

10.2.3 GOALKEEPER UNIFORM AND EQUIPMENT The goalkeeper’s uniform should feature different colors than her teammates, opponents and the Game Officials’ uniforms. The Goalkeeper uniform and equipment will conform to FIFA. The goalkeeper’s dominant jersey color(s) will be completely different than her Team’s jersey color(s) and that of the opponents Team. While the goalkeeper’s shorts and socks may be the same as the rest of her Team, the League Office strongly encourages the Goalkeeper to wear an entire outfit that completely contrasts that of her Team’s. Each Team should carry an extra, unnumbered Goalkeeper jersey for a Player not normally a goalkeeper who is substituted at goalkeeper for whatever reason.

MLS has the same rules.

So … someone was telling Hope Solo the wrong rules?

Huddersfield Town GK jersey from 20 years ago, courtesy oldfootballshirts.com
Huddersfield Town GK jersey from 20 years ago, courtesy oldfootballshirts.com

One note: Colors are all determined well in advance of each match, and the referee is supposed to enforce them. Another possibility: The same ref who failed to look at the assistant refs frantically signaling an obvious offside call or hand out cards for blatant infractions (Veronica Perez’s judo throw, Solo’s repeated refusal to put the ball back in play while the ref waved his hand) made another procedural mistake.

In any case, lines were crossed somewhere along the way.

Personally, I just miss the days of garish Campos-style goalkeeping jerseys. I still have one.

Update: OK, we can’t blame the ref. Or NWSL rulemakers. Or WPS, retroactively.

I can just bring these to the Soccerplex, you know.
I can just bring these to the Soccerplex, you know.

Seattle and Washington currently have only two colors of goalkeeping socks — black and white. That left only three colors — red, black and white — to be worn among Seattle’s field players, Seattle’s goalkeepers, Washington’s field players and Washington’s goalkeepers. Someone had to match socks. So the league consulted with PRO, which oversees officials, and they determined that if someone had to match, it should be Seattle’s goalkeepers and field players.

As far as I can tell, this action violates neither the letter nor the … um, spirit … of either the FIFA Laws of the Game or the NWSL rule book. And fortunately, no one attempted a jiu-jitsu leglock during the course of the game. (Veronica Perez completed a throw that was closer to judo, not jiu-jitsu.)

Seattle’s “berry” goalkeeping socks have not yet arrived.

The next time an NWSL keeper is in Washington and needs socks, please let me know. A few of my socks are pictured here — solid green, red-and-black stripes. I also have a few pairs of solid black and could possibly dig up some blinding yellow.

soccer

FIFA boldly … asks for clarification on Nigeria’s lesbian ban

The Nigerian women’s soccer team went into the 2011 World Cup with the momentum of having ousted lesbians from the team.

The FIFA response at the time: “Huh? What? Oh. OK, we’ll talk to the coach.”

Now, with reports that Nigeria has banned lesbians from all levels of football, FIFA … wants clarification.

The issue has deep roots in Africa, where legal bans remain and men still use “corrective rape” to try to convince lesbians to change.

So, once FIFA gets its “clarification,” the question will be whether FIFA wants to make a statement — one that may force some attitudes to change.

soccer

Best reads on FIFA/CONCACAF crisis

Yes, I feel rather frustrated that we in the U.S. media just don’t seem to have the time or resources to do this story justice. A lot of questions are just begging to be answered, and a lot of powerful people need to be asked to tell the truth.

But we have a few good works to share, starting with NYT columnist George Vecsey’s perfect metaphor:

Watching the charges of deals and payoffs, Americans can feel like the naïve young cyclist in the classic movie Breaking Away who wants to participate in the world sport, only to have a more seasoned Italian cyclist stick a pump in his spokes.

Also at the NYT, Jere Longman rounds up pertinent comments from Offside: Soccer and American Exceptionalism author Andrei Markovits and others.

At Yahoo, Martin Rogers highlights today’s blockbuster from Germany, whose federation president is demanding an investigation of Qatar’s winning World Cup bid.

Soccer America finds the latest from interim CONCACAF president Lisle Austin, who keeps insisting that he has fired general secretary Chuck Blazer. (Article 28c of the CONCACAF statutes would beg to differ.)

At a lower level in the FIFA/CONCACAF org chart but with an interesting story to tell, it’s Puerto Rican federation president Eric Labrador, explaining what led him to turn in evidence. That’s from Puerto Rico’s Primera Hora, which graciously allowed IMSoccer to run an English translation. As a follow-up, IMSoccer spoke with the journalist following the story.

The most comprehensive and timely roundups have come from BigSoccer’s Bill Archer.

And from beyond these shores, we have live blogging from The Guardian, which has taken great amusement in being branded as a lying loser by people who just happened to find their way to the microphone at today’s FIFA shindig.

I’ll be at the Women’s World Cup game between Germany and Canada in Berlin. That’s not the first game of the competition — Nigeria and France open the Cup a couple of hours earlier in Sinsheim. But I hope Sepp Blatter is in attendance at Germany-Canada. Can’t wait to see what kind of reception he gets.

soccer

Explaining the World Cup vote using ‘NewsRadio’

Having failed in my effort to explain the World Cup vote using When Harry Met Sally, I’ll now explain it using a scene from NewsRadio in which Dave (Dave Foley) is England, the USA and Australia, while Bill (Phil Hartman) is every FIFA voter who claimed to be voting for said countries.

In this episode, all employees secretly told Dave they were voting for him as news director. The results: Lisa (Maura Tierney) won a unanimous vote.

Bill: Lisa and you were both strong candidates. There was really no way to choose between you two.
Dave: Then why did every single person vote against me?
Bill: Joe voted using a random number generator. Beth voted against you because Lisa gets fewer phone calls and doesn’t like coffee. Matthew is a lifelong Republican, so he had no choice.
Dave: And why didn’t you vote for me?
Bill: I still think I did. I guess this is one of those things we’ll never know the full truth.

You can also watch the non-embeddable video or get the Season 4 DVD, which is probably the best of the show’s excellent run.