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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."
This piece reminds me of the software that the music industry invented, or possibly it was clear channel here in the usa that would listen to new songs and be able to pick out 'hits'. I agree that software in the world cup *might* help strategy, But I think many times it becomes a crutch that makes people lazy.
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I am amazed to see Australia playing this well. The previous Australia i saw was eliminated by Uruguay 4 years ago. This year they got even, and eliminated them.
They came from behind in their first game, and played "mano a mano" against Brasil today, and i would say they even played better. They had bad luck with the score.
I think they will win their next game against croacia and go to the next round.
So maybe this software is actually helping them
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Since Australia lost 0-2 to Brazil, it would appear technology isn't much of an advantage against those who really know the game. In /. terms, I'm reminded of how an IDE and high-level programming languages won't make you a coder.
Meanwhile, we who live in the real world can see a country that's an underdog of the football world trying a new idea to help tip the balance back their way a bit.
Stay in your little fantasy world isolated from reality and keep believing you are superior to everyone else.
"Anything tastes good if you deep fry it."
What a shame, the socceroos played better football but lost anyway...
Funny, this article was posted after the game was over, 2-0 for Brazil. So there's the result of your "test".
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Well unless it's a game with no rules then passion doesn't factor into a result does it.... and anyway ... If you think about it - the socceroos had far more reason to be passionate than brazil who's there much more frequently. Passion's what you use on your woman not a game afaics. Anyone passionate about their sport is a nut.
... AFAICS the rest of the world copies AUstralian sporting innovation. Look at the groundbreaking technology we use for example in the pool. Is there a good reason why this sort of thing can't work in other sports? No. Go an investigate Australian sporting technology before you mindlessly show your own isolation and detachment from the real world by claiming things you know nothing about!
... and in case you don't know ... being the underdog is a great Australian tradition.
Tradition is just doing the same old thing over and over isn't it?
Anyway
Oh
So we'll let the rest of the world keep following their traditions and old tactics and we'll come back again next time. (do you really think other countries aren't going to act on the technology?).
The fundamental flaw with "intelligent" software like this is the fact that it only has a chance of working if no one else uses it. The instant a second team starts exploiting this it will throw off everything, as those teams will be playing in a way contradictory to their usual tactics, and thus all the statistics and probability it outputs are meaningless.
By the way, FIFA rankings are absolute nonsense.
4 8,All-Feb-2006,00.html)
You are correct... How can we believe the USA soccer is ranked #6, ahead of Germany, Spain (as of the date of this post, from http://www.fifa.com/en/mens/statistics/index/0,25
Rankings are not a good index at all. Australia just lost it.
Haven't you realised that you call the game soccer because you suck at it? Really, nobody else in the world plays american football. For better, you call it "football" despite you almost don't kick the ball. I would call the game "American Rugby" instead of football, but you believe you are the belly-button of the earth, where everybody looks at. Keep your imperial system, your boring sports (specially baseball). Meanwhile the entire world is watching a beatiful game. Cheers from Argentina.
I have pictures o' your momma and sista naked
So they are using software to search for patterns
big deal i think that the biggest strenght of that team lies in
the enormous barrel of talent and experience that their coach, the dutch Guus hiddinck has(NL)
He's the one that made Korea win against my all-time favorite Italia in the previous worldcup
He also coached a lot of big teams: Barcelona, Real madrid,
anyway it's nice to see them using software but don't ever think
that's the main reason they are performing so well for a relative rookie team
Anyway that's just my opinion as a belgian footballfan
Not so. This software, and many more like it used by professional sports teams around the worls -- particularly in the US NFL football clubs -- analyzes patterns in video footage. It calculates STATISTICS based on how often certain formations are used, what attacks, defenses are constructed, and analyzes weakneses based on previous performances. It is not a real-time process. Even if it was a real-time process, it only allows you to see what the current pattern is -- it's up to the coach to decide how to exploit it.
Think of it more as an analysis program that looks at past events. There is no guarantee such events will transpire the same in the future.
If you are familiar with baseball they have used a similar analysis system on pitchers (and batters now) for YEARS. Just counting pitches, what's been thrown and where you can get a VERY good idea of what a particular pitcher will throw at any time based on previous patterns. It works VERY well, and EVERYBODY uses it. The trick is to not operate in predicatable patterns -- a trick that can be very difficult for highly trained athletes with well formed muscle memory to achieve.
Australia's loss to Brasil today proves nothing. Only the coach and players (of the Aussie team) may realize the full effectiveness of the information. Seems to me they did OK (although a loss is a loss).
Thankfully there's still a sporting tournament which can't be bought by money/technology (see: Olympics, NFL, MLB etc).
You can have all the computers and scientists in the world working out strategies etc, but in this game it can all be destroyed by a single moment of genius from someone who grew up in a shanty town without ever seeing a computer.
THE versificator, a machine described in George Orwell's novel "1984", automatically generated music for the hapless masses.
We have the same thing today. It is called a "Britney Spears".
a number of hit songs by U2 have a close kinship to some of Beethoven' s compositions. If a song written today has parameters similar to those of a number of past hits, it could well be a hit too.
Beethoven barely scraped by in his day. Many consider his music too far ahead of its time to be appreciated in its time, which is part of its genieus. His music was the Apple Newton of its day.
Table-ized A.I.
"rival explanation" doesn't mean anyone's wrong.
It does however mean your paternalizing aproach now makes you lok like an idiot.
A fellow happens to be sitting next to a priest at a boxing match. Before the first bell, he notices one of the boxers crossing himself. So he asks the priest, "Will that help him win the fight?" The priest says, "Not if he can't box."
So, yeah, computer analysis has been around for ages in many sports. Take the mega-infield shift teams put on for Big Papi, for example. Still doesn't help if the team doesn't have sufficient skill to use the information.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
Well, based on that one match as that's what we're using, the US should be ranked around 12th if they were so evenly matched against Italy...
It's official. Most of you are morons.
A goal in soccer is much harder to obtain than a touchdown in American football. A 2-0 game is more like a 35-14 game in American football. Also in the NFL the 32 teams are pretty close in talent level, this is because of the salary cap. A 32nd ranked team can always beat the 1st ranked team. It just doesn't happen very often.
Now in World Cup soccer/football the talent level is very uneven. In reality out of the 32 teams in the World Cup only maybe 6 are serious contenders. Of course in the NFL only 12 of the 32 make the playoffs. Yet all 12 have a serious chance of winning, the Steelers who won Super Bowl XL, were ranked 6th out of 6 in the AFL playoffs.
I understand that the World Cup is on a national talent level and that perhaps makes it an uneven field of play. Yet it has to be said that only a very few teams have a chance of winning in the World Cup. And the chance of a lower tier team winning the World Cup is almost impossible. Out of 17 World Cup championships only 7 teams have won with 5 of those teams having won twice or more.
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
You cannot juge a team by having seen only one match or even only one tournament. Ukraine lost 0:4 to Spain but they are surely not that bad. Denmark won European Championship in the 90s though they stepped into the tournament only because Yugoslavia wasn't allowed to play in the competition. And now you won't Danish national team in Germany. There are numerous exemples like that and I think that only a series of competitions can show whether a team really deserves to be in the TOP10.
Since I'm from Europe, I don't see often USA in the pitch but I've noticed however that they are constantly getting much better.
And here's a good and funny introduction to the world of football. Enjoy!
Maybe we just like instant gratification, for good or bad. If you want to grow it, then make it more appealing.
It's hard to imagine a sport with wider appeal already.
I'm not American, and i like football(soccer), but i have to disagree with you here. If "soccer" was as ingrained in the American psyche as it is in most other countries, the rest of the world would really be in trouble. There are a lot of phenomenal athletes in America, and even more importantly, a *lot* of money that goes into them. Americans aren't somehow inferior athletes, and if from the time he could walk, every boy over there learned to kick the ball, i really do think they would dominate the sport.
:)
Look at the olympics, the americans dominate them almost every time. Imagine if some larger percentage of those athletes played soccer instead?
Lucky for us, that's not the case, and we get to enjoy the world cup without having to be annoyed at the americans dominating yet another precious thing in the world
FIFA rankings only make sense every 4 years, as the world cup lays everyting out clearly. For the next four years it's all pseudo-maths as the each nations play their continental championship, and then their regional qualifiers for the World Cup. For example, Brazil (#1) only ever have a chance to play competitively against the Czech Republic (#2) every four years at best.
The rest of the world (FIFA especially) spend a lot of time wondering about why the USA doesn't really get into 'soccer', and the theory is put forward that it's because you are not interested in sports you're not going to win. This is misleading, however, as the US can field some excellent teams. An increasing number of American players work in the high-pressure leagues of Europe, and they have clearly learned a great deal.
The USA were damn good at the last world cup, no reason for them not to be this time. As long as the bloody English don't win it.. (disclaimer: I am Scottish)
The software only accounted for their offense, not their defense.:).
That said, I think that in their first bout with Japan, they really stank. Japan was actually a better team, imho, too bad they ran out of steam at the very end.
The Brazilian's dominance of football is not genetic nor unearned. It's created through a culture of football. As soon as they can walk, they are playing the game, kicking balls made of cloth on street corners and dirt fields.
They don't have the American/Australian soulless attitude that sport is about mechanically working out in the gym, or following strict, dull instructions from the coach. In Brazil, sport is about expression, about creativity, about style and panache.
That is something that the dominant Olympic countries will never understand. No matter how much money they throw at it, no matter how many 'Institutes of Sport' they make, no matter how much they can 'bench', no matter how fast then can run a 40, they will never have the passion, the creativity, the joy for the game necessary to win the World Cup.
And thank fuck for that.
,br. Actually I would suspect that its the opposite. Because of the start-stop nature, American Football has *ALWAYS* been more strategic, knowing the opponent is going to run vs short pass vs long pass on the next down is an obvious advantage, and so the opposition takes pains to avoid patterns. In soccer/football, the player is the one making the strategic decisions, constantly while under immediate pressure; my guess is he makes those decisions instictively. Instictive decision mean patterns, even if they aren't immediately obvious. This is what computers do, they data mine looking for patterns. This isn't "Player A passes right 75% of the time", this is "Player A, in a 1 on 1 situation with no other players in a 20 foot radius will attempt fake X when approached from the left front 80% of the time". Or maybe which side is the goalie strongest at defending? These are people who are making a living and dedicating their lives to this game, 80 hours a week minimum would not be unusual. The only thing that would be more difficult would be analyizing the data, and not being a soccer fan I'm not even sure about that.
You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.
You were right in the first paragraph (using slightly misleading terms), and went wrong then after. The Brazilian's dominance of soccer is not genetic nor unearned. It's created through a culture of soccer. All three nations you mentioned of course have a strong culture of football, it's just that in Brazil, the major code is soccer; in America, it's gridiron, in Australia, it's split between Aussie rules and rugby based on region. Drive through the backstreets of Melbourne or down to the local parks and you'll see dozens of children playing football. Football obsession is not limited to Brazil and not limited to soccer.
Not surprisingly, the very best Aussie rules footballers come from Australia, and the very best gridiron footballers come from America.
Probably you're right that Australia and America will never win the World Cup. But that's because our very best athletes are playing the codes that they want to play, because of the culture they have behind them.
Look out!
No, that's tactical; trying to come up with the next play to defeat the defence,
or guess which play that the offence will play next. The coach makes those
decisions.
In soccer, players are making the tactical decisions. Coaches make strategic
decisions.
The reason you say "NFL has always been more strategic (/tactical/whatever)" is
because you can see it happening, and the set play, start stop nature means that
you can enjoy being an armchair coach -- oh, and yes it probably would be more
apt to computer simulation.
Soccer is no less strategic or tactical, it's just that there are different people
that make the decisions, and unless you really know the game and the players and
coaches, you can't really understand what is going on.
I find it astounding that you can watch todays game (assuming you have) and come away with that opinion (though I'm also unclear on what you mean by "more traditional methods", I think knowing your opponent is a fairly traditional approach to most competition).
Tactically Australia were supreme today, Brazil's game was shut out almost entirely which is exactly what you'd expect if this software (combined with an excellent coach) was doing it's job. Brazil were permitted very few real opportunities to do what they wanted. Unfortunately for Australia they made good on them.
Australia lost because their final touch was marginally off and that is something that is very difficult to coach for and improve, when it comes down to it strikers either have the touch when needed or not.
Of course ability, flair and other "human" factors will always be an important factor. But if you are tactically unprepared then it is hardly worth turning up and you won't get away with it unless you have a massive skill superiority.
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Exactly. The most effective way to beat the huge amount of programming, data entry and analysis of computers is to simply change behviour. Socceroos did well to keep up with the Brazilians, but Too-Fat Ronaldo was more assistance to them. When Brazil finally bench The Fat One and start Robinho in his place, it's all smooth sailing.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Don't give up on statistics yet. I have to agree, however, with a large part of what you're saying. All this statisitc mongering is really no better (or different) than sports betting in any casino taken to the nth degree. The cold hard fact is that most of the time -- they WILL be right, but good gamblers know that anything can happen -- it's much more than just the odds.
Outliers are in every sport (even US football with instant replay - ugh!)-- that's what makes them sport! Statistics can be used in various degrees of effectiveness, but it's more in the intelligence of how the information is used. I honestly don't think it's a matter of the type of statistics -- they all can be effective or equally useless.
The Las Vegas guys (and Monte Carlo and everywhere else) get it right an amazing percentage of the time based on statistics -- it doesn't matter if it's soccer or table tennis. Makes you wonder who they get their numbers from.
aaaaaaaaaaannnnnnd since they are idol singers, you already have planned obsolescence built in!! :D
:P
It's like perpetual motion only real