LandBeluga posted:
http://oro.open.ac.uk/9003/

Objectives
The acceptance of penalty shoot-outs in the knockout stages international football tournaments is based on the belief that they have face validity by involving a football skill, that they have a clear and quick decision criterion that settles the result shortly after the end of the game, and that they do not offer any in-built advantage to either of the competing nations. Following events in the 2006 World Cup, we decided to investigate whether there are grounds to believe that the results of penalty shoot-outs are predetermined. Specifically, we considered whether characteristics of national cultures explain the results of penalty shoot-outs and whether penalty shoot-outs offer an advantage to any nation.
Materials and Methods
We gathered data from every competitive international penalty shoot-out (n=182). We included countries who had (1) competed in at least 5 shoot-outs, (2) taken at least 20 penalties, and (3) been involved in at least 2 penalty shoot-outs in major tournaments. Win/lose data from 16 countries were analyzed using the raw national culture scores of Hofstede (1980, 2006).
Results
One of Hofstede’s four national cultural dimensions – individualism/collectivism – strongly correlated with nations’ win/loss record (r=-.600, sig= .014, N=16; see diagram). A regression analysis produced an Rsq of .395 indicating that this national cultural dimension explains almost 40% of the variance in the results of penalty shoot-outs with collectivism being favoured over individualism.
Discussion and Conclusion
These results demonstrate a strong national culture bias in favour of collectivist nations. One explanation is that players from individualist nations are more anxious and under greater stress due to the blame they will attract if they miss. Other explanations are associated with support and self-image. Some may consider that these results indicate that penalty shoot-outs are racist.

hahahhahaha

commodiusvicus posted:

tpaine posted:

LandBeluga posted:

quoting this in the spirit of reciprocity though

girdles_gone_wild posted:

that's impossible.

AmericanNazbro posted:
that's impossible.

don't kinkshame around these parts

EmanuelaOrlandi posted:
yeah its not like there could be another one off teh frame or nething... good point... wow very astute...

They might be riven with injuries, friendless with punters and without their best player for the first two matches but, according to the chair of the Royal Statistical Society's sports section, England fans should not be surprised if their team reaches the Euro 2012 semi‑finals – where they could be beaten by Germany. Again.

After running a million computer simulations of the tournament, Dr Ian McHale, a senior lecturer in statistics at Salford University, says the data suggests that England are the third best team at the championship – behind Spain and Germany – and that they will face Ireland in the quarter-finals before losing to Germany. France and Italy, meanwhile, are statistically unlikely to get out of the group stages.

For those sceptical of his findings, McHale points out that his model predicted that Spain would win the 2010 World Cup. "The maths doesn't say that England will definitely reach the semi-final," he says, "but it does suggest that supporters should not be so pessimistic about England's chances. The analysis suggest there is a 68% chance England will get out of their group and will do better than we all expect."

To make his calculations, McHale used a two-stage process – modelling the results of individual matches based on the last 11,000 international games using an "ordered probit" model that estimates the probability of the three outcomes of a match – ie win, draw or loss – before using computers to simulate a huge number of tournaments.

The result is a clinical mathematical breakdown of the chance each team has of winning Euro 2012, without whims, prejudices or sudden fancies.

"One of my students has written a programme that goes through the Fifa website and scrapes all results," explains McHale. "From this raw data I have built a model that estimates the probability of winning a match as a function of a number of variables – including the ranking difference between two teams, home advantage, the distance a team has travelled to a match, number of goals scored, the seriousness of a game, recent results, and more.

"This results in an analysis that is much more in-depth and nuanced than basing predictions on something like the Fifa rankings, which can be a little bit dodgy when predicting match results because, as my research shows, Fifa artificially rate Middle Eastern countries higher than they should do."

Then comes the second stage – simulating the matches throughout the tournament a million times. "So let's say it's England v France, and the data suggests the chances of England winning are 40%, with the draw 30% and France 30%. The simulation will generate a random number between 0 and 1. If that number is between zero and 0.4 the computer says England win the match. If it's between 0.41 and 0.70 it says the match would be a draw. And if it is between 0.71 and 1 it says France wins. The computer then plays the whole tournament like this from the first group game to the final. Then it starts another tournament. And it does it a million times."

The results are surprising. According to the bookmakers, the 3-1 favourites Spain have an implied 25% chance of winning the tournament, but McHale's data suggests it should be more like 12%. And England, who are 14-1 with the bookies, implying a 7% chance of glory at Poland-Ukraine, actually have more like a 10% chance. So is he advocating the nation rushes to place their mortgages on Roy Hodgson's side? "Well, the data doesn't account for injuries or suspensions so it is not perfect," admits McHale. "But it does suggest that, for the first time this century, England have a better chance of winning a tournament than the bookies' odds imply."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/jun/06/euro-2012-england-germany

Myfanwy posted:

I LOVE NBA BASKET AND NO OTHER PRO SPORTS EXCEPT RALLY RACING AND BOXING AND MMA

yeah, i've mostly been watching nba and mma these days. tho i try to watch tennis when djokovic is playing out of duty

elemennop posted:

Myfanwy posted:

I LOVE NBA BASKET AND NO OTHER PRO SPORTS EXCEPT RALLY RACING AND BOXING AND MMA

yeah, i've mostly been watching nba and mma these days. tho i try to watch tennis when djokovic is playing out of duty

If you get HDnet you simply must watch DREAM. If you don't, you should download it, or at the very least download the PRIDE HARDCORE KNOCKOUTS volumes 1 -3, because they're awesome. Japanese MMA is infinitely better than UFC because it's philosophically derived from kickboxing, then pankration (a sort of long lived never very popular kickboxing with submission thing and everyone always got put into ankle locks because they had to wear huge protective boots and couldn't slip out). So instead of a chainlink fence with two guys named Darren Harborgeist and Clay Ynshaw fumbling over each other for hours, you have a nice big ring with crocop knocking huge black men out with left high kicks to the orbital bone, and submissions are quick and painful in the sambo style. And you get a great mix of russian/east european/dutch/brazilian guys and then a few japanese who are good enough to mix with them. It's much more of a savage human combat spectacle. Greco roman wrestlers have just ruined the ufc.

This was a good year to get into NBA basket because there was literally a game on every single night. But it's very wearying because a professional basketball game should be a spectacle of incredibly skilled athlete giants doing incredible things, rather than a baseball style grind done by highly skilled people from the south who have 10th grade educations and power balance magnetic energy bracelets and necklaces

elemennop posted:

tbh, i like watching ground fighting and grapppling just as much or more than stand up striking. also, unfortunately, big time japanese mma is dead. especially now that dream folded just recently. also americans don't do greco-roman, they almost exclusively do folkstyle, which is most similar to freestyle of the olympic variations.

Oh god i hadn't even heard, hopefully it will come back with a new name like it did when PRIDE died and was reborn as DREAM. there's still Sengoku at least

Yeah sorry all that wrestling stuff is equally stupid to me, but I used to box so in my mind it's all cheating and totally not fair at all