World Cup 2018: First Round Statto

Now that the first round is done and dusted, and we're through 75% of the tournament (sob), we know who's going to face off in the knockout rounds. The big story is how none of the five African teams managed to get through the group, making this the first time since 1982 that no African team has entered the knockout stage.

I want to make some joke about having a lot of time on my hands these days, but the sad fact is that even if I were still working a 40-hour week I'd have put together these stats, because I'm curious about how deserving each confederation is of its respective places. So, without further ado:

Confederation	Played	Points per game
UEFA	42	1.7
CONMEBOL	15	1.9
CONCACAF	9	0.8
CAF (Africa)	15	0.7
AFC (Asia)	15	1.0

I calculated each confederation's games, wins, draws and losses, and used those to determine how many points each confederation got per game. Some of this is a bit muddied by the fact that European teams faced each other, meaning that draws got counted twice (because each draw generated two points overall, one for each participant). What you see is that the South American teams were the most successful, followed by Europe, and the remaining three confederations quite a bit farther back.

There are some factors at play here, in that Panama and Costa Rica both fielded older teams, and Panama's has no experience of the World Cup, while Egypt (for example) is perhaps overly reliant on Mohamed Salah. And in the case of Senegal, while the team was undoubtedly screwed by the fair play rule, falling behind Japan on the number of yellow cards it got during the previous games, it's also undeniable that it failed to kill off the second game against Japan, when it blew leads twice.

The Asian teams helped themselves by pulling out wins at complete random, including when they were already eliminated. Saudi Arabia, so abject in its first game against Russia, found it in themselves to beat Egypt in their final, meaningless game, while South Korea dragged Germany out with them. 

What's really interesting is how well the South American teams did. Only Peru has crashed out so far, and it still managed to win its final game, although it's also true that Uruguay is the only team from the region to have taken maximum points. But even with the slightly disappointing showings from Colombia, Brazil and (especially) Argentina, South American teams have been more successful than European teams. In fact, between the middle of Matchday 3, when I started this calculation, and the end, UEFA teams dropped from 1.8 points per game to 1.7, owing to the losses by Iceland, Serbia, Germany and England, as well as France and Denmark's draw and Switzerland drawing with Costa Rica.

All these calculations are in service of determining whether the allocations for each confederation are fair or not, but it's hard to tell on the results of a single World Cup group stage. But at this point, I'm finding it hard to argue after all that the European teams are making up the numbers more than the African or Asia or Central/North American teams. 

Still don't think expanding to 48 teams in 2026 is going to be a good idea, though.

World Cup 2018: Not Tired Yet

We're coming toward the business end of the tournament, and I can say that it's been a fun one, what with all the dramatic late goals and all the scoring from set-pieces. Today Saudi Arabia took flight and beat the heavily fancied Egypt and their talisman, Mohamed Salah, which would have been impressive if the game had meant anything. And then both Spain and Portugal were held to draws by Morocco and Iran, respectively, paradoxically ensuring that the two European teams went through.

Tomorrow's games are a little more finely poised, with only one of the eight teams, Peru, already eliminated. The big surprise of the tournament could come if Argentina manages to lose against Nigeria, which would ensure its elimination.

It's fair to say that the big teams didn't really get into gear for the first round of games in this stage, with the big teams drawing (as Brazil, Portugal and Spain did), losing (as Germany did) or laboring for an unconvincing win (as in the case of France and England). Normal service was resumed, to an extent, in the second set of games, but the main favorites from before the tournament haven't looked like world beaters so far.

What I found notable was the immediate exit of a bunch of teams from the smaller confederations. As of yesterday, the following teams had already lost two games and been eliminated:

UEFA: Poland
CONMEBOL: Peru
CONCACAF: Costa Rica, Panama
CAF: Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia
AFC: Saudi Arabia

(South Korea isn't on that list because, despite losing its first two games, it still has a hope of qualifying for the next round through an arcane set of tie-breakers)

Looking at that list, with or without South Korea, it's hard not to come back to the discussions in my previous blog about the wisdom of expanding the tournament to 48 teams in 2026. My concern initially was that it seemed pointless to add even more European teams, when they already account for 14 of the 32 teams participating this year. With 55 members, it's the second-largest confederation (after Africa's CAF, which has 56), and it has not only the largest pool of former champions but also the three most recent champions (Italy in 2006, Spain in 2010, Germany in 2014).

It stands to reason that if you add 16 teams to the World Cup, the bulk of those is going to come from Europe, because those teams are more likely to have the stars that global audiences want to see. It's hard to imagine the European confederation, UEFA, allowing for more representation from Oceania, Africa and Asia, when it could get its own marginal teams in, and avoid big names like Italy and the Netherlands crashing out (again).

However, it's also hard to argue that Asia or Africa, or indeed North/Central America, deserve the bulk of the expanded places either, with the performances listed above. Much was made of Morocco's strength before the tournament, in addition to Egypt being highly fancied, but in the end both made barely a ripple and scored two goals each. While I would like to see teams from outside the two main regions (Europe and South America) win the World Cup someday, it's clear that the gulf is as wide as it's ever been, particularly since all the good players throughout the world get snapped up by European teams quicker than ever.

Expanding the tournament also risks devaluing the places, as South America (CONMEBOL) already consists of just ten teams, of which five made it to Russia, with fifth-placed Peru winning its playoff against New Zealand to book its spot. Given that Peru is one of the already-eliminated teams, it's hard to argue that New Zealand would have added much more excitement (though in their defense, when they qualified eight years ago they left after the first round as the only unbeaten team in the tournament).

I suppose that when the World Cup goes to 48 teams, they'll be able to abandon the playoff system, but again, should CONMEBOL get more places? Fifty percent of the confederation qualified this year, so should we just let all ten of them in for 2026 and save them the trouble of qualifying?

These are little more than thought experiments, in the end, and presumably when the World Cup expanded to 32 teams, there were naysayers who thought the quality wouldn't improve. Though it's worth saying that the expanded format hasn't actually led to more competition from the other confederations - so they may have been right...?

PREDICTION CORNER

All of the above may look short-sighted if Mexico goes ahead and wins the tournament. It may be football-induced euphoria, but given their win against Germany, their current pole position in the group, and the fact that they need to win or draw to ensure they progress, they look like going all the way, with a bit of luck from other groups. Specifically, they have to hope that Brazil wins its group, meaning Mexico would face Switzerland next. I can see them beating the Swiss, and then facing either Uruguay or Portugal, and in case Portugal pulls out a Ronaldazo for the ages, I can see Mexico beating them as well, and from there, who knows?

In this scenario, Germany would likely face Brazil in the next round, and probably go out, but beyond that it's hard to guess who else will make it past the round of sixteen. Though I do suspect that Argentina can make it, given they're Nigeria's bogey team. And while I'm hoping that both Japan and Senegal can make it to the knockout stage, I expect Colombia to be too strong for Senegal.

I'm also hoping we continue this run without 0-0 draws! Apparently this is the longest the World Cup has ever gone without one, so it'll be interesting to examine why - whether it's because the defending is so poor or the physical demands are too much.

World Cup 2018: Merry Football Xmas

I wanted to open my inaugural blog of this World Cup with some pithy comment about this being a once-in-four years event that doesn't turn awful, but the initial images of Vladimir Putin watching the game in the VVIP box with FIFA president Gianni Infantino and (I guess) the Saudi king maybe doesn't support that. But it does make me think that it's kind of a shame the US didn't qualify, allowing the current US president an excuse to meet with his paymaster and benefactor in person (again).

But maybe it's a bit early in the tournament for so much politics. Instead it's fun to note, as others have done already, that these were the two lowest-ranked teams in the tournament, with Saudi Arabia at #67 and Russia at a lowly #70. Which wouldn't bode well for 2022, when the World Cup will take place in Qatar (#98, behind such luminaries as India and Uzbekistan). Though as it turns out, Russia thrashed Saudi Arabia 5-0, so these rankings can perhaps be considered a moving target.

Not that I'm expecting Qatar to do a job on whoever they face in their opener, unless someone even worse, like North Korea or Thailand, contrives to qualify. Though North Korea does have a long and storied history of qualifying for tournaments and beating stronger opponents, so Qatar should hope for a team from Oceania to be able to pick up any points four years from now.

None of this bodes well for 2026 either, by the way. That tournament, shared between the US (#25), Mexico (#15) and Canada (#79), is set to expand to 48 teams. On the face of it, more teams = more football, which should = more fun, but in practice just means more terrible, terrible teams to waste everyone's time. The one positive is that it supposedly means powerhouses like Italy or the Netherlands will have a harder time failing to qualify, but given how my beloved Azzurri have stunk up the tournament since winning in 2006, not making it in this time should be a blessing in disguise, as it forces the Italian FA to figure out how to improve, rather than just papering over the cracks.

The other point about expanding the World Cup by 16 teams is that it doesn't exactly promise a more open tournament. UEFA will likely insist on getting the bulk of the new spots, even though it currently accounts for 14 of the 32 places. You can argue that the level of football is higher in Europe than any other confederation except for South America, but it's hard to argue that any of the teams that failed to get through the playoffs would properly be challenging for the trophy this year.

Coming back to Russia for a moment, I was hearing a lot of chatter about how this was a pretty bad national team. They apparently managed to lose seven matches in a row at one point, coming within an ace of sacking their current coach, and having to recall a 38-year-old Sergei Ignashevich to fill in for a bunch of injured defenders. This is also their first World Cup win since 2002, after having failed to qualify for 2006 and 2010 and posting two draws and a loss in 2014. The last time they made it to the second round was in 1986, when they played as the Soviet Union.

And yet that 5-0 scoreline indicates something. It could be that Russia's better than we've thought, or it could be that Saudi Arabia is worse than we thought. Whichever the case may be, Saudi Arabia, on this evidence, is surely out, though I wouldn't be surprised if they scrape a draw against Egypt, particularly if Mohamed Salah is still far from match fit. Russia, on the other hand, has managed to pick up those important three points, which means earning a draw against Egypt and/or Uruguay will be enough to progress.

However, like the French Revolution, all will become clear in time. I was planning at first to go full-on crazy, and make sure I'm up at 5am for all the relevant games, but today's 8am kick-off has convinced me that I should probably chill out and just catch what I can. After all, I'm now effectively self-employed, so the more I goof around the less time I have to, y'know, earn money. But rest assured I'll still be here with ill-informed opinions, and thoughts stolen from the multitude of football podcasts going on during the tournament.

Truly, this is the most wonderful time of the year.

Some Thoughts on Welfare and Criminal Justice

Among the fun stuff I've had to do since losing my job and all that jazz is the admin-stuff related to getting access to healthcare and unemployment benefits.

I finally had my interview today with the County of Santa Clara social services office, who thought I was still gainfully employed, in part, I guess, because I hadn't yet applied for unemployment. The healthcare part itself wasn't so bad, because the lady on the phone with me seemed considerate and knowledgeable. But the signing up for unemployment stuff was a little weird.

Let me clarify. It's not weird that it asks if you're looking for work, or if you're willing to give up your  private contracting work if offered a job. And it's not weird for them to ask questions to ensure that you actually need the money, and aren't planning on swindling the state.

What I find interesting is the undertone of some of the questions around whether you deserve to receive benefits. The word "deserve" doesn't appear in any of the web pages I had to fill out, but it was implicit in the whole process, somehow. Just desserts, for lack of a better term, are at the heart of how the country looks at benefits and poor people, so I wanted to talk a little about that today.

"Just desserts", incidentally, is what Republicans seem to think people on food stamps buy when they go to the store. Desserts, steak, all the expensive stuff - I've seen someone complain about this on Facebook, and I've been in a car with someone complaining about this IRL. It's probably the heart of my argument here, much more so than the questionnaires and interviews I went through today.

The argument from these two people (and I have no reason to think they're alone in saying this stuff) implies that the people on food stamps shouldn't be buying expensive stuff. I'm the first to admit I don't know how food stamps work - but it stands to reason that if you're buying grass-fed filet mignons every night, your food stamps won't last very long. It also stands to reason that if you're a generally smart person, then you probably know that stretching your food stamps by buying only Cheetohs and ramen is a ticket to obesity and bad health.

As I say, I don't know how the SNAP benefit (to give it its proper name) works, and I assume that someone has figured out a way to cheat. But I get the sense that Republicans, and right-wing people in other countries, would rather see a thousand people starve or suffer malnutrition than have a single family game the system. Which is allied to that Protestant, or more precisely Calvinist, work ethic, where if you're poor it's a sign of God's displeasure and you're going to Hell. So when they go to the store and see someone buying "all the expensive food", as my two interlocutors so vaguely put it, they're filled with this righteous rage that someone's eating well while they themselves have to scrimp and save and go to Ranch 99 or something.

This idea of deserving what you get is also at the heart of our judicial/penal system. Australians, in my experience, seem to really love implying that if you go to prison you get whatever you deserve when you're in there. Murderers, rapists, kiddie-fiddlers - all deserve no consideration of their human rights or anything like that. But that viewpoint ignores people who commit less serious crimes, and who aren't hardened, serial offenders. After all, in this country at least, you can still go to jail for relatively minor crimes like narcotics possession, and some places strip you of the right to vote forever. Other places still actively use convicts as unpaid servants and laborers, in an interesting reading of the Thirteenth Amendment banning slavery.

Maybe it's a bit provocative to equate convicts with people on benefits, but it's not hard to see the same attitudes at work against both groups. The idea seems to be that if you've slipped up once, you are a failed person and can't ever rejoin proper society again. And I agree that for some crimes this is true - which is why we have things like life imprisonment.

But for convicts, we have to think seriously about whether punishments fit crimes, and whether we're interested in rehabilitating convicts at all. If we aren't, how can we honestly call ourselves a just society, when a violent (but not necessarily deadly) crime strips you of the right to vote forever?

And for people on benefits, we need to find a better way to get them off benefits than taking their benefits away. It's like unemployment figures: the official rate ignores those who are under-employed and those who have completely given up on ever finding a job again. You can slice those numbers to tell whatever story you want, but if your welfare rolls go down because you've booted a bunch of people off unemployment and food stamps, then you haven't actually solved the problem.