Mes: enero 2022

On Sunday (November 14, 2010) I visited two of my favorite temples in Chennai – The Satyanarayana Temple and the Chennai branch of Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams, both located at T.Nagar, Chennai’s marketing hub.

The Satyanarayana Temple is one of its kind in Chennai. The presiding deity is Lord Satyanarayana. The other deities are Lord Hanuman, Lord Venkateswara, Lord Narasimha (The Lion God), Goddess Mahalakshmi (Goddess of Wealth), Lord Hayagriva (the God of Learning), Andal (The devotee who later merged with the God), Lord Rama with his family and Sudarshana. I visited this temple after almost 6 months to thank him for blessing me with a child (my girl).

I then visited the Chennai Branch of Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD) and sought the blessings of the Lord Balaji, with his consort (Goddess Padmavathi). I suppose it was God’s calling and I decided to make a visit to Tirupati (the richest Hindu temple) the next day (November 15, 2010).

The day started with a rude wake up at 4.00 AM as I had to reach the boarding point at 5.00 PM. I bathed, refreshed and reached my boarding point at T.Nagar in 15, a record of sorts as you travel faster by foot in the area (which is incidentally the heart of Chennai’s marketing activity). Normally you travel this area by foot in 30 minutes and by vehicle in an hour (four times that time during peak festive season).

For the uninitiated, Chennai is located in the southern most state of Tamil Nadu, while Tirupati is located in the state of Andhra Pradesh.

I boarded the Tempo Traveller along with 11 others (excluding driver). One set of 6 passengers, comprising two families (husband, wife and son) were from the Indian state of Rajasthan who have come on a tour down south India and the second family of 5 members were from Chennai, who were going on a family function. One of their relatives’ child hair was being offered, as it is their family deity.

I was seated next to the driver. The previous day (Sunday night) I had watched EPL and went to bed at 00.30 hours happy to see our main rivals Chelsea trailing 0-2 at home to Sunderland (I support Manchester United in the EPL, Barcelona at La Liga and Brazil in the international level). I, therefore, had plans to catch up with my lost sleep.

Right from the moment I boarded the bus and the journey started, I daresay sleep was the last thing on the moment. It was drizzling a bit. But the thing that shook me up was the way the vehicle was being driven.

I remembered the Priest and driver joke, where the driver goes to Heaven and the Priest is stranded in Hell. I certainly support the Driver for his claim to Heaven, after seeing my driver. He struck the fear of God and I chanted all the prayers that came to my mind.

There are a few common factors in the culturally diverse country of India – passion for cricket, craze for film and sports personalities, rash driving, lack of cleanliness and orderliness.

The vehicle was being driven across the National Highways NH 205 (which connects Chennai in Tamil Nadu with Anantapur in Andhra Pradesh). The speed limit shown was 40 kms. When I saw the speedometer (as I was sitting opposite the driver), it showed a mere 90 kms. It was not that our driver was rash, others were driving faster almost 100 kms on either side of the road.

There were a couple of sad things that I saw during the course of my journey – one a dog having been hit by a speeding vehicle and bled to death, its orphan puppy running aimlessly across the road. In another incident I saw a pup crushed, only body remains and its sibling sitting next to it.

In several areas across the 152 kms stretch, only one big vehicle and a two vehicle could pass. But all the vehicles were jostling and claiming I am right by honking and riding fast. In almost 3 places, my blood froze and heart skipped a beat. The driver on either side were rushing as if to hit and run or straight forward collision, was the option.

There are a few things I prefer during my road-rail travel – the greenery and the beautifully lined trees, the opportunity to interact with fellow passengers and learn about them and good sleep.

Sleep was deprived in the first half of the journey. However, when I turned back, I saw fellow passengers dozing off peacefully, unaware of the risk of the drive. How I envied them! I enjoyed the greenery and saw countryside life at its most beautiful and colourful.

After almost 3 hours of drive, we reached Tirupati (the lower part) where we had our breakfast. After the breakfast our guide joined us for the journey and I was given a break from directly witnessing the perils of driving. I moved the last seat on the vehicle.

The second half of the onward journey was spent interacting with fellow passengers from Chennai and enjoying the natural scenery, which was breathtaking. Tirupati, is located on the Seven Hills and the climate was wonderful for a drive – cool, drizzling a bit. The mist surrounding the hills only enhanced the natural beauty. The second part of 25 kms passed through deep curves, blind turns and hairpin bends. But from the way the vehicle was jerking I fathomed that the driver was riding at double the prescribed speed limit.

Once we reached Tirupati, we waited for the South Indian family to complete tonsuring the head of the child of their relative. This hour’s delay set our program back by 3-4 hours. We entered into the cage, where we waited our turn to book the ticket and have the Seegra Darshan. The queue started moving slowly. Our cage of almost 200 was easily the most unruly. The cages of pilgrims on either side were quite orderly and well behaved. We were given free food inside the cage which helped as we had our dinner only at 7.30 PM. The funny thing was while we in the Rs.300 ticket waited for 4 hours and the Rs.50 ticket pilgrims waited for 6-7 hours, the devotees who paid nothing waited only for an hour.

We had a darshan of Lord Balaji by 4.30 PM for a span of 10 seconds. I certainly considered myself lucky to be in the presence of the Lord for the normal duration is 2-3 seconds. As it was raining steadily, we awaited our turn to collect our sample of the world famous Tirupati Laddoos. We then returned to our bus and started on our return journey.

We reached the lower Tirupati by 8.00 PM, had our dinner and went to Tiruchanur to seek the blessings of Goddess Padmavathi, the consort of Lord Balaji. The darshan here was faster and better, finished in almost a jiffy (5-10 minutes).

We started back to Chennai, which was mostly passed off peacefully and I reached home by 00.30 hours the next day (November 16, 2010).

On reaching home, I was informed that the new job which was pending was through and I was expected to join in a day or two.

I have known my friends and relatives, who planned meticulously for months together but still could not make the trip to Tirupati, unless the Lord himself desires. I agree with this view point. My desire and plan was put into action and I was able to seek the blessings of the Divine Lord in a matter of 1-2 days. Recently one of my friends who had completed his interview successfully was waiting for joining the new job. After his trip to Tirupati, things moved at a feverish pace and he joined as soon as he returned.

«Man proposes, God disposes». This is true of all religions. God is the Supreme Power and however, much science and technology advances, we cannot match his power and will. We cannot stop death, can postpone it for sometime only.

I kept the title of this article on two counts: One, because of the way the vehicle was driven on all sides, I spent more time thinking about God and seeking his pardon and blessings. Two, the darshan itself was wonderful and well wait the pain and trouble.

http://www.tirumala.org provides you all the information about Tirupati.

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In a gathering of football enthusiast, discussing and debating over football issues; some relevant and some others irrelevant. A few about individual players and others about teams with great exploits, teams that have defiled all odds to achieve extra ordinary success, the debate got hotter, and the tempo was raised, then propped up this topic; «Who is the best striker in Europe»?

Silence there was, each sinking into himself. It was a topic that made me ponder, but there is another side to this controversy; what really makes a striker? What are the qualities of a striker? How do we distinguish strikers from strikers?

Pondering over the interesting topic, ideas sprung up; views of mine came alive. The fundamental question as stated above needed urgent answers to put the debate to rest. First, who is a striker? A striker is a front man in team football, whom the whole team look up to produce goals, that will bring victory, he’s that man who bangs the net with goals

Let’s review what really makes a striker?

Some of the qualities, which I can deduce of a competent striker, are: height, speed, skills, strength, wits, calculation and the ability to tear apart opposing defenses single-handedly and most important of all, good finishing.

The rave making strikers in Europe presently, do possess some, if not all, of the above-mentioned qualities of a striker. Possessing of all the above-mentioned qualities makes a striker formidable. The greatest strikers in the footballing history possess all the qualities; the likes of Delima Ronaldo, The great Pele, Roberto Baggio, Romario, etc. which made them famous and deadly during their peak years, in the days of old.

Wayne Rooney, Didier Drogba, Fernando Torres, Lionel Messi, Samuel Eto’o, Cristiano Ronaldo, Diego Milito, Gonzalo Higuain, and the likes, are all proven goal scorers, who will bury any chance they get and will punish any defensive line up.

Analyzing each of the a fore-mentioned players, will bring to the fore the fact that all these are formidable strikers, who score on a regular basis. England has always being blessed with intelligent and proven strikers at different points in time. There was a time it was Andy Cole, one of the best players that ever wore the red and white England jersey, the first player in the history of Premier League to net five goals in a single match, amazing isn’t it? Well his time is past now, but really he mesmerized fans of the then EPL with his exceptional skills and goal scoring prowess.

There was Alan shearer, what do I have to say about this exceptionally good striker? He equaled Andy Cole’s record of five goals in a single match; he scored goals from different angles of the pitch, from different match situations: set pieces, counter-attack, open play and from even unlikely and remote angle of the pitch, as a result of his forceful style of play, some section s of the fans were not friendly with him, same made him one of the most-feared during his time in the Premier League. Although he has not been successful as a manager, failing to save Newcastle UTD from the relegation troubles, which caused its fall.

The English Footballing world woke to the 2009/2010 season to experience something different, an experience of goal banging, an all-round action experience; The Wayne Rooney Experience. Wayne Rooney as a player has grown to be very matured and confident. Watching the Rooney of five seasons ago in comparison to this season’s, one would clearly notice the improvement in his style of play, his conduct on the pitch, team coordinating brilliance and the likes. All these improvements in Wayne Rooney have made him to be a very formidable and fearful striker in the world football. One of the talents which Rooney possess that endeared him to me and the football fans in general, is his ability to terrorize opposing defenses single-handedly with sheer brilliance. Rooney has scored 38 goals so far this season, and most of them have through his individual brilliance, although with the help of team mates, who have mastered his play in recent games.

Team work is another of his talent which he puts on display in each match, he with his powerful and brilliant, has been able to foster unity in the team in terms of field play, he distributes accurate passes, he doesn’t hold on to the ball meaninglessly, positions himself in the best possible position to be spotted for pass release which on a good day results to goal.

Away from England, and unto the European scene, there is this player, who some have wrongly compared to a great football legend, the player who single-handedly destroy opposing teams, not only with his goals, but also with his passes, dribbles, speed, strength and all the rest.

The player, who is the current World Player of the Year, the most dangerous player on the planet presently; Lionel Messi! Some regard him as the «merciless», some others say he’s the greatest player to walk the earth surface, but I strongly disagree to this notion. You run out of adjectives trying to describe him, no doubt he’s a good player, proven goal-scorer, intelligent destroyer of opposing teams and worst of all he causes night mare to defenders, especially in the Spanish La Liga and also the Champions League, the two competitions which he plays his best football.

The «merciless» truly shows no mercy to teams and players that stands on his way to victory. He has scored 40 goals this season; his finishing and goal build-up play clearly spells out his superiority in Europe. He is being criticized for not excelling in big games with high expectation from him; he silenced his critics against Arsenal, after his well taken four goals to send Arsenal crashing out of Europe’s elite club competition.

Resting the debate, I’ll say strikers should be rated with different stats, the inability of a striker to score plenty goals does not mean he’s not a good striker. Fernando Torres is a brilliant striker, but he has not been able to score lots of goals doesn’t mean he’s not a complete striker. A complete striker is one who scores goals, has the ability to turn the game around with individual skill, spaces himself in the right positions to be given the ball and buries it at the back of the net. A striker is a playmaker.

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For the best part of the last decade, two names have dominated world football (soccer) more than any others; Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi. These great rivals have broken countless football records, scored insane number of goals and pushed each other all the way to greatness despite the fact that they are two very different football players, playing two very different styles in two very different roles for two different clubs. The only thing that really connects the two is the ocean of ability that separates them from the rest of the players in the world. There can be no question as to whether the duo belongs in the pantheon of football all-time greats anymore. Although any effort to determine the greatest footballer of all time is subject to generational bias, it should be noted that Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are not individually or collectively the greatest football player[s] of all time due to the following reasons;

Cristiano is not the best ‘Ronaldo’ to play the game: Despite his unparalleled achievement in and off the field of play, Cristiano Ronaldo is still not considered the best Ronaldo to have played the game. Ronaldo de Assisi (also known as Ronaldinho) and Ronaldo de Lima (the phenomenon) are the other ‘Ronaldos’ whose legendary attacking prowess is often compared to Cristiano Ronaldo’s. Ronaldo de Lima was a more explosive and complete striker who would have probably been the ‘World’s Best Striker Ever’ if he had stayed injury-free in his footballing career, while Ronaldinho was the entertainer who, at his peak, constantly wowed the footballing world. Cristiano Ronaldo is better than other ‘Ronaldos’ in terms of constituency over the years, phenomenal goal-scoring rates, overall fitness and prolonged career (due to low rate of injuries) but for sheer skill, explosiveness, superior technical ability, and the ‘wow’ factor, the two ‘Ronaldos’ are better than Cristiano Ronaldo.

Lionel Messi is not the best ever Argentine player: It is a well-known fact that for a footballer to be the best ever in the world, he has to be the best ever footballer in his country and sadly, Lionel Messi isn’t both. Lionel Messi is not the best football player Argentina has produced. That honor goes to Diego Armando Maradona. Maradona (widely regarded as one of the best football players ever) is a footballing legend that inspired Argentina to a world cup victory and S.S.C. Napoli (in the Italian Football League) to its first and second League title [Scudetti] in its history. He is the scorer of the world’s most dubious goal (the ‘Hand of God’ goal) and the FIFA Goal of the Century. There is virtually a cult around the player in Argentina. Diego Maradona (and Pele) is the benchmark for the illustrious South American nation when a new star comes on to the block. So, while Messi has dazzled on the European stage, passing milestone after milestone and picking up loads of awards, his countrymen regard him as the country’s second best football player ever.

Both players have never won the World Cup: Although the latter rounds of the modern-day UEFA Champions League would rival the FIFA World Cup in terms of quality, with talents from around the globe increasingly concentrated in the hands of an elite few, the World Cup still retains substantial symbolic value as a quadrennial competition which pit the best of one nation against the best of another. It is no secret Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo have never won (or inspired their respective countries to win) the FIFA World Cup. Cristiano Ronaldo has won an European Cup (The Euros) with his home country, Portugal but has never been to the semi-finals or the finals of the World Cup while Lionel Messi was underwhelming in the 2014 world cup semi-final and final with his home country Argentina eventually losing to Germany. The World (and Messi) was shocked when he was named the best player and awarded the Golden Ball of the tournament. Lionel Messi is also a three-time runner-up in the Copa America competition with Argentina. Most football players such as Zinedine Zidane, Pele, Diego Maradonna, Ronaldinho, Ronaldo de Lima etc. often touted as the world’s best ever football player all played dominant roles in the World Cup tournament they eventually won. The same cannot be said presently of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.

They are not Football’s best Goal-scorers ever: Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are efficient, effective and phenomenal goal scorers boasting amazing goal per match ratio but they aren’t among the five best goal scorers in football history. Neither of them have scored up more than 700 goals in their respective careers so they cannot be in the company of great players such as Pele, Romario, Josef Bican, Ferenc Puskas (he has a FIFA goal-scoring award named after him), Gerd Muller. The rate of scoring of these legendary players is more impressive than that of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo given they ended their footballing careers with goal tallies well into the 800s. So if scoring goals are what makes footballers great, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, having better players boasting better goal tallies ahead of them, cannot be the greatest footballers of all time.

Both players have been accused of being criminals: They both have tax payment issues with the Spanish authorities (the country they reside and play in) and so have been accused of being criminals. After a lengthy trial that attracted so much publicity due to his status as a supremely gifted sportsman, Lionel Messi (and his father) was found guilty of not paying his taxes to the Spanish government, fined heavily and sentenced to two years in prison (he has since agreed to pay an increased fine rather than have a 21-month suspended prison sentence). His trial, guilty verdict, fine and (suspended) sentence damaged his credibility as a morally upright athlete who could do no wrong and that of his football club (FC Barcelona). Cristiano Ronaldo is also being investigated for tax evasion by the Spanish authorities, might be tried (or not), heavily fined and get a suspended prison sentence.

Their overall goal tallies are padded with too many penalties: Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are the greatest goal scorers of their generation. They score obscene number of goals in a football season but almost half of the total goals scored both players have come from the penalty spot. In football, penalties are the easiest way to score because it involves only the designated penalty-taker and a goal keeper to beat. Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, being the designated penalty-takers of their respective club sides, always take every penalty kick awarded them or their teammates thereby increasing their goal tallies. In 2013/2014 Football season in England, Luis Suarez of Liverpool FC (before he moved to FC Barcelona to become a teammate of Lionel Messi) won the highest goal scorer award in the English Premier League and shared the European Golden Shoe award with Cristiano Ronaldo by scoring 32 goals in 33 games in open play without taking a single penalty. That is a record Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo do not yet hold.

They play for football’s most valuable clubs: Messi and Ronaldo play for super-clubs in Spain where the top sides score goals by the hatful. The second millennium’s new financial order unfortunately gave birth to the modern super team essentially creating a certain form of predictability in both domestic and continental leagues. Lionel Messi plays for FC Barcelona in Spain while Ronaldo plays for Real Madrid CF also in Spain. FC Barcelona and Real Madrid CF are extremely rich and dominant football clubs that can afford to buy and stockpile the best and most expensive football talent anywhere in the world and so Messi and Ronaldo are always surrounded and assisted by world-class players to aid in dominating continental club football thus raising their international profiles. Both clubs always have a slew of world-class players at their disposal which leads to utter domination in domestic (Spanish La Liga) and continental (UEFA Champions League) football competitions.

The benefit of playing in the Modern Era: It is almost impossible to compare players of different era in a game that has changed so much over the years. Great footballers like Ferenc Puskas, Alfredo di Stefano played in an era when the game was played at a tempo unrecognizably slower than in the modern era. That does not make them less great than Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. The game played presently has changed because of changes in rules governing the game and the quality of footballs produced and used. Players in the modern era are also fitter, faster, and stronger than they have ever been, but players (especially defenders) are technically weaker than they have ever been. The Champions League’s expansions of the nineties is also an advantage to the modern player: having a group stage allows a margin of error that simply did not exist in the knock out style pre-1995 tournament. It has never been easier for attackers – Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo probably would never score 40-60 goals a season in the 1980s when the rules governing the game and footballs used didn’t benefits attackers (strikers), and defenders/defenses were littered with world-class talents.

They are a part of football’s rich history: We view the history of the game through our own national experiences, or at least we did until the modern era, where we can watch the Spanish league, Messi and Ronaldo every weekend. It is worth remembering that in the 1970s and even into the 1980s, most of Europe just watched the European Cup and UEFA Cup games of their own national teams. So, here is a little suggestion; the next time Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo score a breath-taking goal and someone on Twitter suggests the debate (on the greatest football player) is over, head to YouTube and spend ten minutes watching goals from Diego Maradona, Johan Cruyff, Pele, Ferenc Puskas, Roberto Baggio, Eusebio, Alfredo di Stefano and so on. There have been plenty of geniuses in the game, and Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are part of that rich football history.

Generational and positional bias in football: The hunt for the greatest football player in history is like that of the Holy Grail. All footballers (sportsmen) are products of their time. Due to football’s developmental stagnation relative to other sport and because there are so many different positions, and so many roles within those positions, it is hard to have a worthwhile conversation about who the best football player of all time is. Since the main objective of the game is to score a goal, the best goal scorers such as Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo will always be near the top of any list about the game’s best players.

Conclusion; Don’t kid yourself that there won’t be another player like Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo, no-one thought they would see another player like Diego Maradona.

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There are many popular games where people participate. Most of them are team games. However, if you take a look at the participation in Athletics, you will find a few and most of them are individual events. Yet, the amount of training and preparation that goes into it is commendable. How many people are completely aware of the events that are a part of Athletics? Most people are aware of only some of the national and international series.

Events in Athletics

The International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) has the following events listed in Athletics.

• Track Events

1. Competitive Running: This includes:

i. [Distance] Short distances referred to as the Sprints.

ii. [Distance] Middle distances

iii. [Distance] Long distances

iv. Distances in Hurdling events: This includes running with hurdles on the track.
One has to clear the hurdles successfully and reach the finish line to make it.

v. Steeplechase – Similar to the Hurdling events, except that the track here would contain hurdles as well as water jumps.

vi. [Team event] Relay – Middle Distance: Here every member has to run a specific distance, carrying a ‘baton’. Once he covers his distance, he has to hand over the baton to his other team member who starts to run his distance from there. Example: 4 x 100m Relay.

vii. [Team event] Relay – Long Distance.

2. Walking: This is another event, where people have to cover a distance by walking. There are variants like brisk walk, Race walk, etc where the speed and distances vary.

• Field Events

1. Events with Jumps: These events involve the athlete jumping for a certain target.

a. Horizontal Distance

i. Long Jump: Here the athlete attains a certain speed through a short distance sprint and then has to jump over a pit of sand covering the maximum horizontal distance possible.

ii. Triple Jump: Similar to Long Jump, except that the running is replaced with a hop and a step or a skip. This is followed by the final jump covering a good horizontal distance.

b. Vertical distance/ Height

i. High Jump: Here the athlete has to clear a hurdle along the vertical scale or he has to clear a hurdle placed at a certain height.

ii. Pole Vault: This is similar to High jump, except that, one has to clear the hurdle by jumping from the support of a long flexible pole.

2. Events with Throws: These events involve the athlete throwing a certain implement and measuring the horizontal distance of the throw.

a. Shotput
b. Discus
c. Javelin
d. Hammer

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Berlin, 28/02/18 – Chuck No Risk can do everything! With Chuck No Risk there is one thing that readers can especially do: Not to loose. The new sports website ChuckNoRisk combines the latest information on football and more with bookmaker comparisons. With statistical data, the club’s and player’s play level and form can be determined. On the other side you find pros and cons for the individual betting companies. This way, sports and betting enthusiasts don’t miss out on neither the next top matches nor the best free bet offer.

Football database with more than 25.000 players and 900 teams

Chuck No Risk also offers a wide range of content for sport enthusiasts, who are not interested in betting. Preliminary reports on the English Premier League, the first four German Leagues, Spanish LaLiga, French League 1, italian Serie A, the turkish Süperlig, russian Premjer-Liga, the Champion and European League and the latest top sport events can be found among other things, as well as data analyses on current sport topics. An elaborated database including data on 27 leagues offers readers a broad overview on the current performance capability of the clubs and the players.

Chuck No Risk offers international Flair

Like many football players, Chuck No Risk does not want to play only on national level. The portal https://ChuckNoRisk.com, that was launched in August 2018 in German and English, will be available in several other languages in the next years.

«In medium-term we want to cover 10-15 languages», says chief editor Benjamin Lode. «Chuck No Risk should become one of the leading international portals for sports and sports betting». So turkish, french, spanisch, russian or greek language versions will follow soon.

Ambitious goals! But what else can you expect of Chuck?

Sport news from Berlin

The portal is operated by the Berlin based content agency Monstertipp GmbH. The team of 11 editors with experience from big magazines and newspapers, such as bild.de, onefootball.com and haz.de combines expertise and knowledge in sports and the online segment. The content is optimised for our readers as well as for search engines. This is how the Chuck No Risk texts find their readers – and the other way around!

https://ChuckNoRisk.com is operated by the:

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Tel. 0049 30 74073145

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Sports as we know it today has come a long way. There were times when watching sports on television was considered a massive step forward in terms of technology. Fast forward 60 years, watching sports on television has become the most basic thing. Today we watch sports on the go on our mobile phones or any device with a screen and internet connectivity. Proud of how far we’ve come, aren’t we? Hopefully I can change your opinion on that by the end of this article.

What is sports all about? Sports is a bunch of people getting together to play a game with pre defined rules and a referee to ensure that these rules are adhered to during the passage of play. I am a sport lover and play sports all time. My love for tennis and soccer in particular cannot be defined. My issue when it came to technology and advanced analytics was with the game of soccer in particular. Soccer is such a beautiful game. The strategies that the coaching staff come up with and the way it is executed on field by the players, it actually is a thing of beauty. I was a soccer player myself (just an average one at that) and have been part of various teams. I know firsthand how strategies are built, how much thought goes into one single run of play.

Enter -> Advanced Analytics

Most of you would’ve seen the movie Moneyball. The movie was based on the book Michael Lewis wrote in 2003. It talks about how a jock turned luminary uses advanced statistics to gain a competitive edge over his better funded opponents. This book brought about a revolution is sports. Fans and boards of soccer clubs didn’t want to settle for subpar statistics or analytics anymore. What Moneyball did is, it took an old cliché – «sports are businesses» and made us move on to the next logical question – «how do we do things smarter?»

Now let’s talk about advanced analytics. Advanced analytics in today’s world plays a massive role in every business sector. Advanced analytics has been a boon for us. Moving from descriptive analytics to prescriptive analytics, we actually have come a long way. In various businesses, where the requirement is demanding, advanced analytics are of utmost importance.

When we look at soccer, its a game that does not require too much machine intelligence, it is a game that needs the human element. When you bring in analytics and technology and try to reduce the human element in the sports, it simply just crushes the spirit of the game.

Relying on analytics heavily killed the Premier Leagues long ball game and brought in the pressing, continual passing tiki-taka. Each league for that matter had its own style of play. The Premier League had the brash and brazen style of football that was termed «The way real men play football». There were beautiful long balls, harsh tackles but all the players just sucked it up, walked it off and it was all up to the referee on the pitch to penalize the offender or not. There were arguments and fights, the passion from the fans was crazy, that was the football that screamed of passion, when players got in the face of other players not fearing punishment. The Eric Cantona’s, the Ivan Genaro Gattuso’s, the Jaap Stam’s of the football world went missing soon enough and the diving and the biting began. Then there was the tiki-taka style of football that was played in the Spanish La Liga, the silky style of play that caught everyone off guard. The legendary Pep Guardiola and his army at Barcelona were the masters of the tiki-taka. There was Real Madrid who were always a star studded line-up with excessive parts of their play relying on lightning quick counters which most often than not left the opponents stunned. There was Manchester United who had their own brand of football being managed by the legendary Sir Alex Ferguson. That United team was a team of sheer grit and character. Each of these leagues had their own beauty and the teams had their own style of play.

When you bring in excessive technology and analytics, there emerge sorry technologies like VAR (Video Assistant Referees).

There are 3 stages as to how the VAR works:

Step 1

Incident occurs

The referee informs the VAR, or the VAR recommends to the referee that a decision/incident should be reviewed.

Step 2

Review and advice by the VAR

The video footage is reviewed by the VAR, who advises the referee via headset what the video shows.

Step 3

Decision or action is taken

The referee decides to review the video footage on the side of the field of play before taking the appropriate action/decision, or the referee accepts the information from the VAR and takes the appropriate action/decision.

Now the referee can consult with VAR for basically any doubts he wants clarified. What does this do?

• Removes the human element from the game.

• Takes up excess time and brings too many stoppages within the game, a game that was previously free flowing and continuous.

This makes it similar to Formula 1 racing. The analytics which brought about the fuel weight management systems and the numerous pit stops took the continuity out of the race and viewership reduced with the increase in technology. A pretty similar trend might occur in football if this implementation becomes mandatory.

The Positive Side of Advanced Analytics in Soccer:

Analytics are not all that bad in football. Let’s take the case of when Simon Wilson joined Manchester City in 2006. Simon Wilson was a consultant for an analytics startup called Prozone initially. He joined City to start a department of analytics and hired the best data analysts under him. He wanted to change the way how data was used by football teams. He saw that, after a defeat there was no introspection as to why they had lost and what needed to be done next time. City were a mid table club at that time. In September 2008, when the club was acquired by the Abu Dhabi United Group for Development and Investment, a private-equity outfit owned by a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family, the team suddenly found itself with the resources necessary to mount a challenge for the Premier League. Today, Wilson is Manchester City’s manager of strategic performance analysis. He has five departments under him, including the team of performance analysis, which is now led by a sports scientist named Ed Sulley.

After each match, the team’s performance data would be examined. The list is extensive. Line breaks (a rugby term), ball possession, pass success rates, ball win/loss time ratio were what used to be analyzed. «Instead of looking at a list of 50 variables we want to find five, say, that really matter for our style of play,» says Pedro Marques, a match analyst at Manchester City.

«With the right data-feeds, the algorithms will output the statistics that have a strong relationship with winning and losing.» Wilson recalls one particular period when Manchester City hadn’t scored from corners in over 22 games, so his team decided to analyze over 400 goals that were scored from corners. It was noticed that about 75 percent resulted from in-swinging corners, the type where the ball curves towards the goal. The next 12 games of the next season saw City score nine goals from corner.

Teams are investing heavily in analytics today and it is working in their favor. Look at where Manchester City are today, sitting atop the Premier League table and not being threatened at all. Look at Manchester United this season, their game has been such where their possession percentages are low but their goal conversions are high. The Manchester Derby on 7th April 2018 saw United have only 35% of the possession but they managed to trump City 3-2. Each team has their set of analysts who provide inputs as per the strength of the team.

Advanced analytics is like the coin Two Face in Batman has, «Heads you die, Tails you survive!»

It can reap crazy rewards from a team’s point of view but at the same time can disrupt the lovely game by bringing in unnecessary stoppages, replays and by taking the human element out of it. The numerous replays and the different angles, show the fans if the referee has made an error or not. Let the error happen, after all to err is human. Refereeing in soccer is not an exact science and it’s all real time. Let there be arguments about a decision, let the passion in the argument come through. Do you want to watch a football match like the El Classico or the Manchester Derby and sit with your bunch of friends and say «it was a very clean game, the best team won!» Hell NO! Don’t drive the passion out of soccer with technology and analytics. Let soccer be soccer and let technology stay away!

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