World Cup Soccer: Brazil 2 North Korea 1

Brazil gets punished for playing 60 boring minutes. They have to hope that North Korea ties one of the other two opponents (I hope North Korea punishes Portugal for playing boring soccer. Brazil v. CIV on Sunday on ABC. I'm looking forward to it.

World Cup Soccer: Cote D'Ivoire 0 Portugal 0

A boring and disappointing game.

BTW, CIV recognizes only its name in French, not its name in English. The
Spanish is Costa de Marfil.

World Cup Soccer: New Zealand 1 Slovakia 1

The highlight of the day and upset of the tournament so far, New Zealand scored a goal for the first time ever and showed that Oceania has a place in the World Cup.

Why Nate Silver's World Cup model is doing so badly

Quick thoughts, but Nate Silver's world cup statistical model is doing badly for several reasons.

1) Soccer is not baseball. It does not have repeated activities that are easy to measure statstically.

2) The World Cup delivers little data. Teams perform differently in the finals than in qualification. Those such as the USA that face poor quality opposition get ranked too high. Others get ranked too low.

3) The Africa factor. The African teams are underfunded compared to, for example, Japan, and therefore naturally perform less well than better funded teams. England's coach makes $9 million per year. The US coach makes $500,000. African coaches make less, and also may have a shorter tenure.

4) A low scoring game can have unpredictable results -- especially in games decided by a red card or penalty kick (or even a free kick).

World Cup Soccer: Great Websites for US Viewers

The ESPN / ABC TV schedule is here (I have it in EST).

This excellent diagram (h/t Glenn Strachan) provides several ways to slice and dice world cup data.

The official site of the world cup finals is here, and the qualifiers are here. Both are large sites with a lot of data, but you have to dig to find it.

Italy 1 Paraguay 1

Italy played the usual boring catenaccio. Paraguay, the number 2 team out of South America, played a far more timid game than I expected, but this bullet to the head is the likely reason.

Italy substituted their superstar goalie out of the game. I wonder how it will effect his confidence. The press was told he had a hamstring injury, but I suspect vicious Italian pique ("I have no intention of paying a salary to someone who has ruined Italian soccer").

World Cup: Japan 1 Cameroon 0

Sometimes, African teams choke on the world stage. This was sad to watch, but the Japanese played very well.

World Cup: Netherlands 2 Denmark 0

A strange game. No total football was played by either team. I hope these teams play harder in the future. I had expected a 4-3 win for Holland.

World Cup: Serbia 0 Ghana 1

Serbia played better than I expected them to and Ghana played worse. This game was decided by a penalty kick and a red card. I hope both teams do better in subsequent games.

World Cup: Germany 4 Australia 0

Australia is much worse without Kewell, who is very much like Michael Owen, but I expected more from them. They were brilliant in the last world cup and lost only to Italian cheating.

Germany played a perfect game, but one astute commentator noted that Argentina had a perfect game in the first round in the last world cup and did not win it. Germany's next game is very important and will show whether that perfection lasted only one game.

World Cup: England 1 USA 1

England scored both goals; USA happy with the result. But I expected more from both teams. Sloppy play from everyone but Gerrard, and Gerrard was playing solo too much. The English need better teamwork, and the Americans need better individual performances. Howard is a superstar. I hope he moves to Liverpool FC.

World Cup: Argentina 1 Nigeria 0

I felt bad for Nigeria, a team that has played beautiful soccer in previous world cups. I also expected more from Argentina.

World Cup: France 0 Uruguay 0

As expected, the Euros played boring and defensive soccer. Uruguay, one of the lower ranked South American countries, has potential but little confidence.

World Cup: South Africa 1 Mexico 1

This was a fun game with two good goals and a good lesson on the offsides rule. I think the offsides rule should be changed to "one player other than the goalie between the ball and the net".

The Return of the Defensive D

It's not the end of the goalie era.

Instead, it's the return of defense. Mike Green is out. Chris Pronger is in. Zdeno Chara is in.

Next year, expect playoff hopefuls to look for a Scott Stevens (not an Ilya Kovalchuk).

Craig Rivet and their fellow defensive defensemen deserve more praise than they have received. Eaton in PIT deserves praise too.

I expect the value of the truly forceful D man to rise at the end of the year.

Congrats to Yahoo for Calling Out the Blind Refs

Kudos for this blog post.

Joe Pavelski for Conn Smythe

Pavelski tonight scored the first goal and the GWG in a 4-3 victory over the Red Wings.

http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/boxscore?gid=2010042918

Pavelski's doing very, very well, standing out on a team with Heatley and Thornton

http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/boxscore?gid=2010042918

He has playoff goals 6 and 7 tonight.

First Lawsuit Against a League For Head Trauma

Keep an eye on this one:

California’s workers’ compensation system provides a unique, and relatively unknown, haven for retired professional athletes among the 50 states, allowing hundreds of long-retired veterans each year to file claims for injuries sustained decades before. Players need not have played for California teams or be residents of the state; they had to participate in just one game in the state to be eligible to receive lifetime medical care for their injuries from the teams and their insurance carriers.

About 700 former N.F.L. players are pursuing cases in California, according to state records, with most of them in line to receive routine lump-sum settlements of about $100,000 to $200,000. This virtual assembly line has until now focused on orthopedic injuries, with torn shoulders and ravaged knees obvious casualties of the players’ former workplace.

But Dr. Perfetto’s contention that Mr. Wenzel’s dementia relates to his football employment represents a significant shift, several lawyers involved in the California system said. They estimated the case’s potential value at more than $1 million if it reaches its conclusion, probably in two or three years.

I Believe the Capitals Will Win At Least One Round

But in addition to the concerns voiced by Umberger, I would add that they actually play too rough and will take too many injuries or suspensions in early rounds.

This is doubly true if they meet Philadelphia early on. I think anyone _could_ beat Philadelphia in round 1, but the physical cost might be so high that they would lose in the next round to any opponent.

Will TV Cash Bring NHL To Russian Olympics?

NHL Commissioner Bettman is making foolish promises to NHL owners about future TV deals. Problem is, he has no credibility.

Bettman now says that the Olympics will bring in more fans, but last month he said he wasn't sure the NHL would let its players go to Russia in 2014.

Bettman needs to do what's good for the sport:

1) Implement a real head shot rule and start calling the Intent to Injure 5 minute major.

2) Implement a short season in 2014 in order to make the Olympics possible and in order to not break players' health. A 60 game season would work.

3) Cut the season anyway to 72 games or less. With 4 groups of 8 teams and no cross conference play, you get 7 x 6 + 8 x 4 = 74 games at most. With cross conference play, you get 7 x 4 + 8 x 2 + 16 x 1 = 60 games.