Australia's Technological World Cup Advantage

hotsauce writes "The BBC has a piece about how Australia is using software to gain an advantage in the World Cup. The Socceroos are running software that looks for patterns in attacks of the opposing team. It also shows the effectiveness of different response strategies by recording where attacks fail when countered. This is the first time Australia has reached the World Cup in 30 years, but a real test of the technology will come today when Australia must take on five-time and current world champions Brasil. The Socceroos talk about specific strategies for that game, also."

Comments

Technology didn't do it today...

[WinEveryGame]

Well technology didn't quite cut it for the Australians today. Brazil took the game 2-0.

On the other hand, the Socceroos played very well. They had at least two open goal chances. It came down to old-fashioned skills. Australians were excellent in creating chances, but just couldn't finish off. Brazilians had two great goals in the second half. But their super-star Ronaldo put out another so-so performance. According to one commentator:

"Ronaldo's performance was better than against Croatia - but not by much. He played the pass for Adriano to score but cuts a dejected figure as he trudges off to consoling pats from the dug-out."

Technology is of course changing the games, but probably online games more than soccer!

Re:Technology didn't do it today...

[octopus72]

Socceroos are having another crucial match on on Thursday (and I hope that my team, Croatia, will win).

Beauty of this game is that a slight change of strategy can completely obsolete this kind fo preparation. Besides, all coaches and team experts watch videos and can very reliably identify weak (and strong) spots of a team without any technological help.

Re:Technology didn't do it today...

[Lisandro]

Oh, come on. Did you see the same match i did? In the first half, the australian defense worked perfectly and drowned the brazilian attacks. Drowned them. On the second half, after the first goal they had to go for the game, which opened a lot of spaces... which Brazil still didn't knew how to exploit. We're still waiting for the Brazil that's supposed to get to the finals in their sleep; despite getting two wins, i'm pretty sure their matches so far have people in their country a bit worried, to say the least. They could run into serious problems if they face a team with a bit more experience.

    Anyway, Australia did fine - and deserved a bit more than finishing two goals down. The first half atleast was very well thought from the tactical point of view, and if this software helped them achieve this, well, it worked just peachy.

    As for Australia, i agree - it boiled down to individual performances (and physical strength; the speed diference between both teams was staggering). But don't count them off already; they're still second place in the group and have a solid chance of getting into the next round. I've seen a lot of Australian matches (WC classification mainly), and i liked what i saw. A team that plays like a team, always in order, which only lacks a bit on the goal definition. Besides, Aussies are just cool :)

Did well in the first half

[Gibsnag]

The Aussies seemed to do quite well in the first half... They were certainly stopping Brazil do many of their normal technical flourishes. Whenever one of them got the ball they would be jumped by at least two Aussies.

Re:Australia is playing very good

[arivanov]

They are pathological about it. Worse than the East Germans of old.

They are the only non-communist country to have a state subsidized Institute of sport which has no other goal but to "make our guys win". And they are doing a bloody good job at it across the board.

They make winning a matter of science in all sports. They run full hydrodynamic analysis on their swimmer performance using an approach not dissimilar to the one used to analyse results from a wind tunnel. They use thermal imaging, P-NMR on muscles during load to optimise pre-even training, etc. They have something like 200+ PhDs a year in sports related biochemistry, medicine, physiology and a few other related fields all working in that sports institute (sorry forgot the name).

Taken along with their other efforts software for pattern analysis on a football field does not strike me as odd. In fact, it would have been surprising if they did not do it.

Re:Australia is playing very good

[Mr_Tone]

Oddly enough, it's called the Australian Institute of Sport.

Picking nits.

[Eevee]

First off, the Aussies aren't ranked 88th, they're 42nd. Quite a bit of difference between the two.

Secondly, there aren't any wooden spoons here. (That would be American Samoa at 205th.) Every team in the World Cup is good, or else they wouldn't be here. Yes, there not all at the level of Brazil, but every team here can play.

[My prediction: Argentina.]

We might not have won the world cup game...

[sineltor]

...but Australia (newcastle university) just beat Australia (university of new south wales) in the finals of the 4-legged league of the robotic world cup for the first ever all-australian final match.

I don't know how many different countries competed [ http://www.tzi.de/4legged/bin/view/Website/Teams20 06 ] but its a lot.

The challenge is to program sony AIBO dogs. Every year the finalists' code is publically released so the bar rises every year. (since everyone can use the winners' ideas in their own submissions).

Re:Technology DID do it today...

[Galvatron]

The problems with the rankings are fairly well understood, and FIFA has already said that they will introduce a new ranking system after the World Cup ends. Basically, FIFA awards most points based on performance in recognized international and regional tournaments. Sounds logical, however North America plays its regional tournament every other year, whereas most regions play only every 4th year. Moreover, North America is essentially dominated by the US and Mexico, as most of the remaining nations are too small, too poor, or both, to draft decent teams. So, the US and Mexico rack up points like crazy, by beating teams like Costa Rica over and over again. Meanwhile, strong teams in South America and Europe get pushed down in the rankings because they have to face powerhouses like Brazil or the Czechs in their regional tournaments.

Anyway, all of this is a digression, but the point is that this is a known problem with the current rankings, and one which is expected to be fixed shortly.

Re:Money talks

[Eccles]

World cup players are bought and sold around the world

No they aren't. Good players are bought and sold around the world, yes, but for club teams. The top teams in the Champions League this past season were as good as some of the best national teams, as Chelsea, Man U, Arsenal, Barcelona etc. all have starting lineups comprised almost exclusively of players that play for their respective national teams. But that doesn't change the country they play for.

An individual player can choose the country they play for based on fairly tenuous family connections (many of the German team players, for example, were born in Poland), and thus a particularly good player may choose to play for a national team more likely to win the World Cup. But this requires something like a grandparent to have been born in that country (I'm not sure of the exact rules.)