Tag: sports

An English reader reviews the penalties of past tournaments. It would be interesting to review the data of the French, Germand, and Dutch teams to see if a similar dichotomy is revealed or if it is a statistical outlier peculiar to the English team. 

Your posts about the Euro final and black players not being composed under pressure got me thinking about historical penalty results for England.  I went back to the 1996 Euro and compiled the data for their eight shootouts since that tournament.  

• 1996 Euro vs Spain (W)- whites 4/4, blacks N/A
• 1996 Euro vs Germany (L)- whites 5/6, blacks N/A
• 1998 WC vs Argentina (L)- whites 3/4, blacks 0/1
• 2004 Euro vs Portugal (L)- whites 4/5, blacks 1/2
• 2006 WC vs Portugal (L)- whites 1/4, blacks N/A
• 2012 Euro vs Italy (L)- whites 2/2, blacks 0/2
• 2018 WC vs Colombia (W)- whites 3/4, blacks 1/1
• 2021 Euro vs Italy (L)- whites 2/2, blacks 0/3

Total: whites 24/31 (77{cc08d85cfa54367952ab9c6bd910a003a6c2c0c101231e44cdffb103f39b73a6}) vs blacks 2/9 (22{cc08d85cfa54367952ab9c6bd910a003a6c2c0c101231e44cdffb103f39b73a6}).  

In other words, blacks playing for England would have to make 22 straight penalties to have the same conversion percentage as English whites.  That’s one of the craziest sports stats I’ve ever seen.  Also, one could make the case that black underperformance directly cost England victories in at least two, and potentially four, big games. Diversity is a strength?

A substantial point against this observation is the famous penalty shootout that settled the 2012 Zambia vs Ivory Coast Africa Cup of Nations final, in which the first 14 shooters all hit their penalties. My conclusion is that the sample size is too small to be significant. We don’t have sufficient data to have an opinion. However, it is possible that the English managers are so eager to be not-racist that they are selecting inferior penalty-takers on the basis of their race.

 It never made sense to me that the NFL didn’t go back and compile sack statistics prior to the 1982 season. But now that they’ve been comprehensively compiled unofficially, it’s only a matter of time before the official statistics are updated. And given the way that the season has expanded from 14 to 16 to 17 games – I’m still a proponent of the 14-game season – it makes no sense to exclude them any longer.

The NFL has only officially counted player sacks since 1982, which means sack records and leaderboards present an incomplete history of pass rushing. In many cases we accept these holes in the official record and move on. After all, we don’t know how many rushing yards Jim Thorpe had, passing yards Paddy Driscoll had or even how many blocked shots Wilt Chamberlain had. Heck, we don’t even “officially” know how many tackles anyone had in 2020 (or any other season). However, thanks to Official Gamebooks, ‘unofficial’ tackle totals get published in many places (including here). In the case of sacks, thanks to decades of research by John Turney and Nick Webster, we have a very thorough accounting of the statistic all the way back to 1960. Given that accounting for these ‘unofficial’ statistics allows us to paint a richer picture of the history of the game, we think it is a no-brainer to present them on Pro Football Reference, allowing fans to gain a deeper appreciation of some of football’s biggest stars in the 1960s and 1970s. This isn’t terribly different from presenting RBI totals for baseball players from before 1920 (the first season the statistic was “official”). These additions allow us to print year-by-year and career sacks totals for not just legends such as Deacon Jones (173.5), Jack Youngblood (151.5), Alan Page (148.5), Carl Eller (133.5) and Joe Greene (77.5), but also for less recognized stars like Coy Bacon (130.5), Cedrick Hardman (122.5) and Jack Gregory (106.0) whose greatness and impact can now be more readily quantified.

The historic greatness of the Purple People Eaters becomes abundantly clear when one looks at the list of top 25 sackers. Three of the top 22 – Page, Eller, and Marshall – lined up together from 1967 to 1977.

Strangely, the revelation that Barkavius Mingo is a homosexual has not been greeted with the same rapturous chorus of delight as last month’s announcement concerning Carl Nassib’s similar preferences.

Mingo invited a teenage family member and the boy’s friend, also a teenager, to spend the day with him. Mingo took the boys to the Six Flags Over Texas amusement park in Arlington and K1 Speed, a Dallas-area go-kart complex. They had dinner at BJ’s restaurant, a popular local steakhouse. Mingo paid for everything, including a season pass to K1 Speed.

Mingo also treated the boys to a shopping spree, paying for items they chose from Nike.com. The relative’s friend chose a variety of T-shirts, shoes and shorts. The gear was shipped to the boy at the address of his friend, Mingo’s family member.

On the night of July 4, 2019, the boys returned to the local hotel where Mingo was staying. According to the documents obtained by Sports Illustrated, the boy fell asleep, but at approximately 3 a.m. he woke up and noticed Mingo in bed with him. He “thought it was odd,” according to documents, because the plan was for the two boys to sleep in a room separate from Mingo. He thought little of it and went back to sleep.

According to the document, “The victim was then woken by [Mingo] pulling at his underwear.

Looks like it’s time to update the ol’ meme again. 

1. Italy clearly deserved to win the European championship. They were the best team throughout the tournament, and after watching the Copa America final, in which Argentina beat Brazil 1-0, they have to be the favorites to win the World Cup next year.
2. Nice to see Messi finally get an international trophy. Pity he couldn’t score in the 88th minute; he should have shot sooner. And De Maria’s goal was a beautiful example of playing the miss.
3. Chiellini’s foul on Saka at the end of extra time was correctly given a yellow card. He was not the last man back, therefore taking down an attacker by pulling his jersey is a clear and obvious yellow, not a red. The ironic thing is that it was totally unnecessary, as all he had to do was put the ball out of bounds rather than wait for it to go out for an Italian throw-in. But he’s an old pro and he was taking no chances after the ball didn’t go out on its own before Saka arrived.
4. I don’t think there was any diversity agenda on England manager Southgate’s part. First, he was open about how Rashford and Sancho were the two best penalty-takers in training. If he’s lying, someone will leak it. Southgate is a genuine equalitarian, so he simply failed to take into account that emotional young Africans are not exactly known for their cool under pressure and practice penalties are not the same as the finals of the Euros at Wembley. Second, the fifth spot is not the high-pressure spot, in fact, it’s where you put your weakest of the five shooters due to the fact that it’s the only spot where the shooter might not get to take a shot at all.
5. That doesn’t mean that UEFA wasn’t attempting to take advantage of the situation. The VW ad for diversity playing while an African had the chance to win the championship for England was probably not a coincidence. It was amusing to see all three of them demonstrate so clearly that diversity is not a strength.
6. Southgate also said that he didn’t put Rashford and Sancho on earlier because he was afraid that if he did, the Italians would win the game in extra time. That’s not what one would call indicative of a diversity agenda.
7. Southgate’s real mistake was not sitting Harry Kane down for the final. Kane – or Kanezaghi as I like to call him given his predilection for flopping – is big, strong, and slow. It was obvious that he presented no problems for Chiellini and Bonucci, the two big, strong, and slow veterans in the Italian central defense. He should have sat Kane and put Sterling in the lone striker position, since Spain’s Morata showed how speed and quickness were the Italian defense’s weak spot in the center. Leaving Sterling on the wing meant that he could be marked by the fast young Italians on the sides.
8. Speaking of Sterling, it’s a fool’s game to think that you can successfully dive against the Italians. They have literally decades of experience in dealing with it; again and again Sterling looked to dive, but the Italians simply didn’t make contact with him in the box.
9. Most people didn’t notice it, but Italy should have scored in the 57th minute. If Insigne had kept the ball on the ground instead of going high, it was going right through Pickford’s legs.
10. Pickford and Walker were England’s best players. And Luke Shaw’s goal in the second minute was a LOT harder than he made it look.
11. If Spinazolla hadn’t been injured, the game wouldn’t have even been close.
12. Diverse teams can be strong in terms of the individual parts, but they are incredibly fragile as a whole. One minor difference of opinion between two players of different races can rapidly turn into accusations of racism and the complete destruction of any sense of being a team. France and England are experiencing this in the aftermath of their exits, which suggests both teams will underperform in the upcoming World Cup qualifiers.
13. The diversity-obsessed English sportswriters actually gave Saka, who was a complete nonentity in the game before missing his penalty, a 10/10 rating. “Saka was given a 10 out of 10 rating, the highest out of all England and Italy players, with the writers highlighting the winger’s bravery.” What a joke. He was a 5/10 on the field, and deserves to have a point knocked off for his choke job at the line. 4/10 is more like it.
14. Avanti Azzurri! L’Europa e’ vostra!

England got off to a shockingly good start, but the Azzurri took control of the game after the first 15 minutes and dominated it, although they only managed to break through and score once. However, if Insigne had gone low instead of high when he jumped on the rebound from Chiesa’s shot in the 57th minute, he would have put the ball right between Pickford’s legs for another score.

Southgate made a horrific error at the end of extra time, in my opinion, by having two young Africans, who hadn’t played at all throughout the 120 minutes, take the penalties. Not only did both of them miss, but one didn’t even put it on target.

Italy was clearly and consistently the best team of the tournament, and definitely deserved to win. And in light of Brazil’s underwhelming performance in its 1-0 loss to Argentina in the Copa America final last night, they have to be feeling very optimistic about their chances at the World Cup next summer.

The Italians, of course, are taking the championship calmly in their stride, as is their wont.

L’Europa è nostra!

Italia campione d’Europa a Wembley, Inghilterra battuta 4-3 ai rigori. Donnarumma para i due tiri decisivi.

That was big. Italy was much better than the world #1 Belgians, although a stupid and totally unnecessary foul gave Belgium the penalty that let them keep it close. I thought the Italians were the best in the group stage, and I don’t see any of the teams that are left beating them now.

Speaking of penalties, the Swiss did a fantastic job of playing catenaccio for 45 minutes to take the game to penalties after a dubious red card took them down to 10 men against Spain. But they promptly choked, missing three in a row to go out in an unexpectedly respectable performance against a better Spanish team.

It’s official. NFL football is gay. 

If you love this game, you are welcome here. Football is for all. Football is for everyone.

The NFL stands by the LGBTQ+ community today and every day.

That should go over super well with the black players, the Christian players, the black Christian players, and about 90 percent of the fan base.

I definitely don’t regret not watching any NFL games last season except the Super Bowl for the first time in 45 years. And you know this is definitely malice, not stupidity, because no one is stupid enough to watch how the NBA has destroyed itself and decide, “yeah, that looks like a great marketing strategy!”

The NFL has been converged and is being destroyed from the inside. The old school owners should have been a lot more careful about those whom they permitted to buy the teams.

 But I’ve seen hundreds of soccer matches, and I’ve never seen any player, at any level, simply face-plant like the Danish player in the Denmark-Finland match today:

Denmark midfielder Christian Eriksen, who collapsed during the first half of the game against Finland in the Euro 2020 on Saturday, is stable in the hospital.

Danish FA confirmed Eriksen was “awake” and is being further examined at Rigshospitalet, a hospital in Copenhagen.

Around the 43rd minute, Eriksen had played a short pass when he fell face-forward onto the ground and was unconscious.

Spectators inside the stadium in Copenhagen went silent as players from both Denmark and Finland stood around Eriksen as CPR was administered. Eriksen received chest compressions for about 10 minutes after his collapse on the field.

Obviously, everyone hopes the young man is all right. And perhaps it was just an unfortunate coincidence. But let’s just say it would not be a massive surprise to learn he had been vaccinated. 

UPDATE: If it was the vaxx, this could have some very serious long-term implications for Serie A and other sports in Italy:

Dr Scott Murray, a leading NHS consultant cardiologist specialising in prevention of heart problems, claims Italy pride themselves on their record of preventing cardiac arrests in football – so the Danish player’s problems will likely spell the end of his time in Serie A.

He told the MailOnline: ‘It probably is (the end of his career) for him. The Italians stop people participating in sport if they are found to have a significant cardiac abnormality, it’s in law.

‘They’ve been doing that for a long time, beyond 20 years and they’ve reduced the death rates from cardiac arrests in sport from beyond 3 per cent down to below one per cent.’

It’s not so much that I had to spend a few hours at the hospital yesterday following a soccer practice – no worries, I’m fine – or the fact that I’m on some antibiotics as the fact that I was having a very strange, but rather aesthetically pleasing dream about driving a minitrain to a friend’s house through the snow to the strains of Celtic music that make me question the wisdom of doing a lot of posting over the next day or two.

Who wraps their Christmas presents in blue wrapping paper with red-and-green tartan ribbons lined in gold? And what was the significance of the little mouse riding on the minitrain? Why were the presents in the very large medieval fireplace instead of under the tree? And how was I controlling the speed of the train when there were only two buttons that let me switch lanes to pass the cars in the tunnels?

I did score four goals after two weeks of being shut out, though, so it’s all good. The full volley on the rebound from a teammate’s shot was particularly nice.

Forget despair. I’m not talking about that. Everyone understands that despair is worse than useless. What I’m talking about is a refusal to hope, which is entirely different. And the problem with a refusal to hope is this: you will not be in a position to act or take advantage of the situation in the event that things happen to break your way.