A(nother) Request for Feedback and Suggestions

This blog has gotten a decent number of new readers so I thought I'd once again ask for feedback and suggestions.

Do you like the weekly rankings articles? Hate them? Want me to write something on a league I haven't yet?

How about the more general articles like the stats series? The weekly previews?

Any feedback, positive or negative would be appreciated. Please leave a comment below.

Thoughts on the World Cup Draw

Finally, and in typically controversial fashion, we have our 32 teams. FIFA have yet to announce what the pots will be for the draw taking place December 4th. Last time around they announced them on December 6th and had the draw December 9th so I don't think we can expect that for a fortnight or so.

I have written before that I believe that the seeded teams will be Brazil, Italy, Spain, England, Germany, Argentina, France and South Africa. This is based on the formula that they used last time. They may change the formula, they threw a wrench into the UEFA playoffs by making the draw seeded shortly before it happened, but my guess is that those will be the seeded teams.

That leaves these teams:

UEFA:
Denmark
Greece
Netherlands
Portugal
Serbia
Slovakia
Slovenia
Switzerland

CAF:
Algeria
Cameroon
Ghana
Ivory Coast
Nigeria

AFC:
Australia
Japan
North Korea
South Korea

CONCACAF:
Honduras
Mexico
United States

OCEANIA:
New Zealand

CONMEBOL:
Chile
Paraguay
Uruguay

Unless they completely blow up the format they've used for the last several World Cups, two pots will be the seeded teams and the non-seeded UEFA countries. For the other two, they have a few different ways to go and they've done them all before. They could go:
Pot 3: Africa and North America
Pot 4: Asia, South America and New Zealand

Pot 3: Asia, North America and New Zealand
Pot 4: Africa and South America

Pot 3: North America, South America, New Zealand
Pot 4: Africa and Asia

That last option creates uneven pots, but that can be dealt with in the draw and has happened before. In my view, the toughest group of countries by far when you take out the seeded teams and Europe, both of which have their own pots, is those from Africa. I think that's often true anyway, but even more so with the finals taking place in South Africa. So if you are a fan of one of the above countries then you want whatever configuration puts Africa in your country's pot. It may be possible to draw a team from your pot because of the rule that two countries from the same confederation can't be in the same group, but you are more likely to draw one from the other.

Getting back to the seeded teams, I personally put them into 4 groups. That's a big number since there are 8 of them but here's how I rate them:

Favorites: Brazil and Spain
2nd Tier: Germany, Italy, England
Your Guess Is as Good as Mine: France, Argentina
Please: South Africa

I have them sorted best to worst within. The first two groups are pretty self explanatory. For the third group, I think both of those countries are in an interesting situation where they have the talent to be up there, but due to bad management or something else they are playing far enough below their potential that they are not very good right now. The World Cup is still over 200 days away (and Hiddink is available!) so a lot can happen. If France and Argentina played to their potential I would put them up there with Germany, perhaps those three in the 2nd tier and drop England and Italy to their own. I may get heat from English supporters and possibly be underrating them, but I feel they lack the quality and especially the depth of the six other big teams that are likely to be seeded. I would put them ahead of France and Argentina right now, obviously. You will hear shouts of joy from the unseeded countries if they get drawn with South Africa who challenge the United States in '94 for worst host ever.

Looking at the unseeded teams, the countries to avoid are the Netherlands, Portugal and Ivory Coast. I think that these teams have by far the best chance of the unseeded teams to win it, as good or better a shot than England. Other than that, the teams to avoid depend on what the pots are. Along with those three, Mexico, the United States and South Korea are all likely teams to be in the group of death simply because they are likely to be better than the other teams in their pot. Again this depends on the format of the draw; it's especially true if the North American and/or Asian teams are put into a different pot as the African teams. Keep in mind that this doesn't mean they'll get a tougher draw. For example, Honduras is quite unlikely to be in the group of death because they aren't very good. However, the US and Mexico have the same chance of drawing any given 3 opponents as Honduras.

UEFA Playoff Predictions

I'm working on a couple other things so I'll keep this short. Here are the predictions for the playoffs tomorrow. These are probabilities of advancing according to my models. As I said before, using logit is less sensitive to quality of the two teams. It seems too much so but I'm not sure so I'm giving both the logit and poisson versions of the averages model. I'll list the logit version first and the Poisson second.

France - Ireland:
France - 83.3%, 92.2%
Ireland - 16.7%, 7.8%

Bosnia-Herzegovina - Portugal:
BH - 22.6%, 17.9%
Portugal - 77.4%, 82.1%

Ukraine - Greece:
Ukraine - 49.2%, 48.2%
Greece - 50.8%, 51.8%

Slovenia - Russia:
Slovenia - 30.8%, 26.2%
Russia - 69.2%, 73.8%

WQC UEFA Playoff Preview: Ireland - France

Will Irish eyes be smiling? Will the French come out of next week with their joie de vivre? Is that a cheesy enough intro? No? In an epic struggle between Guinness and champagne, eleven footballers from each these two great republics will battle it out to see who books a trip to South Africa and who weeps in front of the television next summer. Will France be able to overcome the luck o' the Irish or will Ireland best France despite them having a certain je ne sais quoi? That should do.

How they did in the group stage.

Making the playoff always means the same thing. You did pretty well in the group stage, but not well enough. Unlike Ireland, France were expected to win their group. They went 6-3-1 with a goal differential of +9. The other teams in their group were Serbia, Austria, Lithuania, Romania and the Faroe Islands. I'd say that's an average to a bit above average group. Serbia bested them despite France getting a win and a draw against the Serbs. The French gave away points with an early loss at Austria and two draws against Romania, the last of which was two months ago in Saint-Denis.

Looking at results, Ireland are probably the most interesting team remaining. They are the only country in the playoffs that didn't lose in the group stage; their problem is that they got far too many draws. Their group mates were Italy, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Montenegro and Georgia. Again I'd rate that as a pretty average group. Playing Italy to two draws is certainly nothing to be ashamed of. Less impressive are the two 0-0 draws against Montenegro and 1-1 draws against Bulgaria. In terms of goal differential, Ireland weren't impressive. Their four wins over lowly Georgia and Cyprus were all by a single goal. I don't recall another team coming out of a group stage like that with every match either a draw or just with one goal in it. Based on that we can expect a couple of close matches.

Likely Lineups

France have some big injuries. Franck Ribery will be out with a knee injury. Jeremy Toulalan is also expected to miss out on one or both of the matches with a tweaked adductor muscle. In addition, Abou Diaby will probably be ready but has had injury issues. On the other side, Ireland have few injuries. They will be without backup forwards Shane Long, Noel Hunt and Caleb Folan.

One issue many have with Domenech is that the squad has lacked consistency in both lineups and tactics. France have run a 4-4-2, 4-3-3 and the somewhat in-between 4-2-3-1. Ireland on the other hand have kept to the traditional 4-4-2.

I think the lineups will look something like:
Ireland
...................Given

Finnan ...O'Shea ...Dunne ...Kilbane

Keogh...Whelan ...Andrews ...McGeady

............Keane... Doyle

................Gignac
Henry .........................Anelka
...............Gourcuff
...........Alou....Lass

Evra.....Abidal...Gallas...Sagna

.................Lloris

edit: I've changed the France lineup from my initial idea. For some reason I had Gallas out of the starting lineup despite being the most regular center back in qualifying. I also apparently got the replacement for Toulalan wrong. According to an article in Lequipe, Alou Diarra is the likely starter instead of Sissoko and the center-back pairing will be Abidal and Gallas. At least that's what my quite limited knowledge of French tells me the article says. They also list Gignac up top instead of Benzema. I could see that going either way and I think whoever doesn't start is a likely sub for whomever does.

How they rate.

I applied my new rankings system to all UEFA countries. Fully weighting all matches in qualifying and the finals for Euro 2008 and this qualifying campaign, France came out as the 15th best scoring team and 13th best defensively. I was surprised they were that low to be honest. Overall they were 10th indicating that they weren't far below the teams ahead of them in either attack or defense. Ireland came out 26th best overall. They rate 18th best defensively but only 30th best at scoring.

Predictions

I'm still unsure which model is best. I'm using the new averages model to come up with the coefficients and then either using Poisson or ordered logit to get the estimates for how likely each possible result is. As I've written before, the logit model is less sensitive to the scoring and defensive factors of the two teams. The results of each model are somewhat close but using Poisson gives a more extreme result.

For the tie as a whole, the logit model predicts that France will advance 62.3% of the time and Ireland 37.7%. The Poisson model gives France a better chance with a 73.1% shot at playing in South Africa, 26.9% for Ireland. For the first leg alone, the averages-logit model has it extremely even with France having a 37.4% chance of winning, Ireland 35.8% with the remaining 26.8% going to a draw. The Poisson model gives France a 40.5% chance of winning outright, Ireland a 30.3% chance of pleasing the home fans and them leaving it all to play for with 29.2% probability. For both models the most likely outcome for the first leg is a 1-1 draw.

Personally, I expect it to be very close. I think Ireland definitely have a chance. Part of that is that I am not a fan of Domenech. My suggested lineup above is what I think they probably run based on what they have done in the past. That lineup should get the job done, but if I were French I'd be worried about both who and what he'll put out there. Ireland should be a tough opponent and I don't see France playing them off the park either leg, especially the first. Despite all that, I think Franced definitely have an edge.

German Bundesliga Rankings

I'll keep this short because I don't know a lot about German teams other than what I've read and what the rankings say:



Bayern Munich have been far from great. Maybe not as bad as their 8th place in the table suggests, but van Gaal has a ways to go to get them back in the title race. Leverkusen look like by far the best team so far.

edit: I just looked at Leverkusen's schedule because I found their huge margin at the top odd. They have played a very tough set of fixtures thus far. Looking at the table, they sit top and have played all teams from 2nd - 7th. Their five matches to round out the first half of the season are against teams that are currently 8th, 10th, 14th, 15th and bottom. While I have yet to see them play, I think it's pretty safe to say that they are likely to extend their 3 point lead if they can just play at something close to the level they have thus far.

French Ligue 1 Rankings and Analysis

I have to admit that I have not seen a single match from the French Ligue this season. Having said that I have seen several matches involving French clubs in European competitions. I watch their top clubs in Europe a lot because I like their style of play and find them entertaining. Other than Spanish, I think French teams are my favorite to watch. I definitely plan on seeing more domestic matches as well as the season moves along.

England and Spain look to have 3 teams with a decent shot at competing for the league. Italy really has one but I'll be generous to Juventus and say it's a two-horse race. In contrast, the Ligue 1 is wide open. 12 matchdays into the season there are 4 clubs within 3 points of the leaders and 4 more within another 3 points. That is amazing and there's nothing close in the other top leagues. Other than lowly Grenoble, the league is pretty competitive top to bottom.

Here are the rankings:


O Rank - rank by goal-scoring ability
D Rank - rank by ability to prevent goals
EGD - expected goal differential if they played a new season and all teams played at level shown by results thus far

Bordeaux third shows why especially at points this early in the season it is handy to have a model around. They sit on top of the table and have the highest goal differential. My rankings are based on goal differential, but, importantly, take schedule into account. Bordeaux have played an incredibly easy schedule. Just looking at the table, in just 12 matches they have played every team in the bottom 7. Adding in their match with Nice, two-thirds of their matches have been against teams in the bottom half of the table. I'm not sure a team has ever played an easier schedule this far into the season when you look at how where their opponents are in the table.

Other than that, a look at the third column confirms my suspicion that there isn't a lot in it at the top. There are 7 other teams within 10 goals in the rating system! Things are wide open. Other than Bordeaux which I discussed above, the other standout in terms of where they are in my rankings compared to the table is Paris Saint-Germain. I think they are 12th in the table for a few reasons. The obvious one is that they still have a match in hand. They also have played a somewhat tougher schedule than average (incredibly tough compared to what Bordeaux have dealt with). In addition to all of that they have had slightly below-expectation luck when it comes to getting points for a team with their goal differential. I expect Les Parisiens to make a surge and at least get back into the fight for the European positions.

Italian Serie A Rankings

This season I've seriously neglected the Serie A. This is somewhat for good reason because the league is shaping up to be a one-horse race. Inter have just looked far and away the best club. Whether you look at points, they have 29 of 36, or goal differential, +19 for an edge of over 1.5 goals per match, they have been impressive while other teams thought to be contenders have been inconsistent. Behind them, Juventus have gotten decent results but seem too shaky, particularly at the back, to put too much pressure on Mourinho's boys. AC Milan have recovered from their early struggles and now sit third, but other than their Champions League match in the Bernabeu they've looked a lot more like old AC Milan than the AC Milan of old. Napoli were considered by many, including me, to potentially fight for the Scudetto but they have struggled and are midtable 11 points off the lead.

It's early still, too early to declare things over but I've seen nothing in watching matches or analyzing results to suggest anything other than Inter running away with it.

Here are the rankings:


O rank - rank by goal-scoring ability
D rank - rank by goal-conceding ability
EGD - expected goal difference if all teams played a full season at the level the results thus far have shown

Other than Inter rating nearly 30 goals better than any other club, the first thing I noticed is that I have AC Milan seventh despite them being third in the table. I believe this to be due to them having had better than average luck when it comes to close-match results. In contrast, Bari are 2 goals better in goal differential but 4 points further back.