Showing posts with label LA SELECCIÓN ESPAÑA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label LA SELECCIÓN ESPAÑA. Show all posts
"Hay que saber dejar al margen las cosas de tu equipo y centrarse en la Selección. Ya analizaremos más adelante el próximo mes que es uno de lo más interesantes desde hace mucho tiempo".
El jugador del Real Madrid Sergio Ramos aseguró a su llegada a Las Rozas para concentrase con la Selección española que si tiene que elegir entre tener días más días de vacaciones e ir con el combinado nacional, se queda con esta última opción.
"Siempre es un orgullo venir a representar a España. No nos coge de sorpresa, siempre ha sido así. Yo prefiero venir a la Selección que tener dias de descanso", afirmó. Asimismo añadió: "Estamos aquí para hablar de la Selección. Tenemos dos partidos muy importantes y el objetivo es lograr las dos victorias para recuperar la línea".
El de Camas expresó su deseo de que España vuelva a "recuperar el rumbo". "Esperemos que salgamos de la mala racha que hemos tenido, que aunque han sido dos partidos y amistosos, tenemos que recuperar la línea que veníamos siguiendo", subrayó.
Sobre la baja de Cristiano Ronaldo en el equipo madridista, el jugador explicó que "es un jugador fundamental" y que espera que el portugués "esté listo cuanto antes".
Por otro lado, Sergio Ramos fue preguntado por el mes de abril, en el que podría haber cuatro choques entre el Madrid y el Barcelona. "Hay que saber dejar al margen las cosas de tu equipo y centrarse en la Selección. Ya analizaremos más adelante el próximo mes que es uno de lo más emocionantes desde hace mucho tiempo", concluyó.
For the Spanish version in it's original from Diario AS read here
My translation into English:
The infallible octopus Paul and his successful World Cup match predictions violate the "halacha" or Jewish religious law, as has sentenced a rabbi in Israel.
David Stav, Rabbi and Chairman of the board of Shoham, a city east of Tel Aviv, said in an interview that the use of an octopus to predict the outcome of the games is "an expression of bankruptcy (moral) that plague the Western world ", reported the Israeli newspaper" Maariv ".
"These types of predictions are contrary to Jewish law," declared the devout.
According to him, "Jewish society has been able to cultivate the mind in the fields of science and medicine and made great achievements," something praiseworthy and totally contrary to what it represents by the use of a cephalopod to predict the victory of La Roja.
The rabbi does not seem impressed by Paul's achievements and believes that the faithful Jews should not applaud the fortune telling skills of the animal revered by the Spanish fans, who requested his transfer to the Madrid Zoo Aquarium.
"It seems that the mind is not sufficient to meet the needs of men," says Stav, who warns that "to seek something beyond the mind can lead to the absurd" like having faith in an octopus to determine the outcome of a sporting event .
Stav is co-founder of the Rabbinical Organization Tzohar and the Yeshiva (Talmudic school) of Petach Tikva and gives classes in the school of Metivta, a women's seminary of the University of Bar Ilan.
He's been one of the world's hottest topics this past month and has even "spoken" to TIME's World Cup blog. But now Paul the psychic octopus is the subject of an international transfer request. Hold onto your tentacles.
Paul is an understandable hero to the Spanish, after he bravely predicted the eventual World Cup winners would defeat Germany in the semi-final. He then went with them again in the final, with Spain's victory meaning the octopus went eight for eight. To show how serious they were about taking care of him, Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero offered to send a security team to protect Paul from hungary -- and angry -- German soccer fans. But now a northwestern Spanish town has gone one step further: they want to bring him over.Officials in O Caraballino (population 14,000) have labeled Paul their "honorary friend" and would like him to promote a seafood festival. And a local businessman apparently offered $40,000 to buy him, but the Oberhausen's Sea Life aquarium has turned down the offers. And you thought the trade deadline in baseball could be exciting.
This is but the latest attempt from Spain, where there have been hundreds of requests to bring Paul to the land of the paella. The highest profile of which probably came from the Madrid Zoo earlier this week, who want him as a tribute to the country lifting the World Cup for the first time. Germany has so far not succumbed but it's clear that this story still has legs (yes, eight of them in this case.)
Reuters
This has been a FIFA World Cup™ of firsts: the first on African soil, the first won by Spain and also the first to be assessed second-by-second using the Castrol Index. This innovative system has utilised advanced technology to objectively analyse and evaluate every single player movement, and tonight it crowned its very own FIFA World Cup king.
Its verdict? That Sergio Ramos, Spain’s daring and energetic right-back, has been the most influential and effective player on show over the past month. The Real Madrid star, an ever-present in the top 20 since the second round of group matches, went into the Final in pole position and retained his place in style. Indeed, Ramos emerged as the Castrol Performance Analysts’ man of the match, pipping team-mates Joan Capdevila, Iker Casillas and Andres Iniesta with a score of 9.64 that reflected his efforts at both ends of the field.
A couple of efforts on Maarten Stekelenburg’s goal reminded everyone of his attacking capabilities, but it is at the back – where the world and European champions restricted the Netherlands to precious few opportunities – that the Spain No15 and his team-mates once again excelled. Indeed, with Vicente Del Bosque’s side having conquered the world on the back of four straight clean sheets during the knockout stage, and just two goals conceded overall, it is no wonder that Ramos’s main challenge for the Index title came from his own defensive colleagues.
Sneijder the midfield master
La Roja, who scored just eight goals en route to the title – the fewest of any world champions in history – were heavily indebted to a back four in which Joan Capdevila, Carles Puyol and Gerard Pique also excelled. In fact, only Philipp Lahm prevented this Spanish quartet taking places one, two, three and four in the Index, with Pique the man to drop into fifth due to his comparative lack of attacking involvement.
With David Villa – who leaves South Africa ranked by Castrol as the tournament’s leading striker - also recognised for his early heroics, Spain had kicked off at Soccer City with five players in the Castrol Index top ten to the Netherlands’ one. However, that sole Dutch representative, Wesley Sneijder, cemented his position with another stylish showing in the Final. Once again, the Inter Milan star was adjudged to be the Oranje’s top performer, and heads for home with the consolation of knowing that Castrol’s analysis has deemed him to be the tournament’s top midfielder.
Of course, the Final wasn’t the only match to influence the concluding Castrol Index of South Africa 2010. There was, after all, the small matter of that thrilling play-off for third place between Germany and Uruguay, a match that involved a clutch of potential contenders. Conspicuous by their absence, however, were two of the Index’s erstwhile leading lights: Philipp Lahm, the list’s one time leader, and Manuel Neuer, its top goalkeeper.
Nevertheless, while Lahm’s illness-enforced absence denied him the opportunity to return to the summit, he remained Germany’s highest-ranked player at fourth, while Neuer retained his pre-eminent position at the top of the goalkeeping list despite a late challenge from Casillas. The German duo were even able to gain ground in the Index as they ended the tournament with a superior average score to some of those involved in the last two fixtures.
Suarez outshines Forlan
Although an impressive showing in the third-place play-off was naturally not weighted as highly as a starring role in the Final, others also climbed, with adidas Golden Boot and Golden Ball winners Thomas Muller and Diego Forlan making major gains to enter the top ten and top 50 respectively.
Forlan would have considerably higher but for a poor pass completion rate, with the Uruguay star ranking 61st out of 71 forwards who attempted more than 50 passes. Attacking colleague Luis Suarez ultimately outranked him with an eighth-place finish, while credit should also go to Ghana’s John Pantsil and Paulo da Silva of Paraguay, both of whom finished in the top 20 despite exiting at the quarter-final stage.
There could only be one winner, however, and it was Ramos who took the inaugural honours, completing a fairy tale couple of years for both him and his trophy-laden team.
1 SERGIO RAMOS DF SPAIN 9.79 2 JOAN CAPDEVILA DF SPAIN 9.74 3 CARLES PUYOL DF SPAIN 9.70 4 PHILIPP LAHM DF GERMANY 9.66 5 GERARD PIQUE DF SPAIN 9.63 6 DAVID VILLA FW SPAIN 9.59 7 WESLEY SNEIJDER MF NETHERLANDS 9.56 8 LUIS SUAREZ FW URUGUAY 9.53 9 THOMAS MUELLER MF GERMANY 9.51 10 MANUEL NEUER GK GERMANY 9.48 11 SERGIO BUSQUETS MF SPAIN 9.46 12 JOHN PANTSIL DF GHANA 9.43 13 MARK VAN BOMMEL MF NETHERLANDS 9.41 14 BASTIAN SCHWEINSTEIGER MF GERMANY 9.39 15 PAULO DA SILVA DF PARAGUAY 9.36 16 XABI ALONSO MF SPAIN 9.34 17 ARNE FRIEDRICH DF GERMANY 9.32 18 GREGORY VAN DER WIEL DF NETHERLANDS 9.30 19 JORIS MATHIJSEN DF NETHERLANDS 9.28 20 MAXIMILIANO PEREIRA DF URUGUAY 9.26
A NATION divided is now united. And, no, we're not talking about South Africa.
Spain, a serial underachiever, is one shot from glory. The pundits' favourite to lift the World Cup for the first time. And the people's favourite back home. They're celebrating on Las Ramblas and the Plaza Mayor. A national team, in the truest sense. For how long? Who cares. But right now, all of Spain is behind ''La Roja''. The power of football, and the scent of success.
Spain is a country riven, historically, by the great political and cultural divide between the Catalans and the Castillians. Not to mention the Basques and the Galicians. Its football culture has been defined by the deep, abiding, hatred between Barcelona FC and Real Madrid. But all Spanish fans have one thing in common. An enduring frustration with failure. It's been 60 years since Spain re-entered the international arena. Since Real Madrid and, more recently, Barcelona, became the benchmarks for club football. But in that time, the national team has consistently flattered to deceive.
Hands up if you remember Estanislao Basora? The Barcelona forward scored five goals in the 1950 World Cup, but Spain went out in the second round. Perhaps you might remember Marcelino Martinez, the Real Zaragoza striker who got his head to the ball to help Spain win the 1964 European crown. Until two years ago, when Spain won the European title for a second time, that was the only trophy in the cabinet. For a nation with such a rich football tradition, the hall of fame is scandalously small.
Vicente del Bosque is the coach who has changed everything. Perhaps because he comes from Castile and Leon, an autonomous province that promotes linguistic and cultural harmony, he's been able to bring the various groups together. The first player to congratulate Carles Puyol - the captain of Barcelona - when he scored the goal to win the semi-final was Sergio Ramos, who plays for Real Madrid. This is a team in the truest sense of the word. No egos, no in-fighting. Del Bosque hasn't changed much at all since he took over two years ago - at least in terms of tactics and personnel - but he has brought a calming influence. And it shows.
Italy, France, Brazil and England have all gone home with a whiff of disharmony in the air. Spain is into the final because it has been forged by the sense of mission. To right the wrongs of the past, when Spain was routinely tipped to do great things but failed to achieve even the smallest ambitions.
The modern Spain, it must be said, is blessed with arguably the greatest generation of players in its history. Between 2007 and 2009, it didn't lose in 35 games. A world record. Since then, it has lost just twice. Spain's campaign could have spiralled into a vortex of self-doubt and recriminations. Instead it has bounced back. Opportunity is knocking like it's never knocked before, and finally Spain is ready to take it.
There’s been plenty of ink for Paul the octopus lately, and why not?
Octopus Paul chose a mussel from a glass tank marked with a Spanish flag, while ignoring the tank marked with the German colors - indicating a Spanish victory in Wednesday's semifinal.
The octopus, also known as the “Oracle of Oberhausen,” has successfully predicted the winner of six World Cup matches so far.
Now, Paul has forecast the winner of Sunday’s championship match. And rather than go out on a limb—or maybe eight of them—the critter is sticking with the favorite, picking Spain over the Netherlands.
Handlers of the 2 1/2 -year-old floppy octopus—a resident of the Oberhausen Sea Life aquarium—usually have him make predictions only for games in which Germany plays. But because of Paul’s recent worldwide fame and demand for his pick for the final, they made an exception.
Here’s how the seer sucker makes his prognostications: Officials put a mussel inside each of two clear plastic boxes bearing the national flags of the teams in his tank. Paul then makes his choice by opening the lid with his tentacles and devouring one of the treats.
Millions across Europe, in Taiwan and elsewhere watched a live TV broadcast Friday of his choice of Spain, complete with breathless commentary. He also predicted Germany over Uruguay in Saturday’s third-place game.
Paul has gotten business proposals, has thousands of Facebook fans and even has the attention of world leaders.
Animal rights group PETA wants him freed. Many Germans—upset that he correctly picked Spain over Germany in Wednesday’s semifinal—want him fried.
“Paul is such a professional oracle—he doesn’t even care that hundreds of journalists are watching and commenting on every move he makes,” said Stefan Porwoll, the Sea Life aquarium manager. “We’re so proud of him.”
After his prediction of his home country’s loss came true, German TV showed footage of a grilled octopus. That prompted Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero to fret about the safety of “El Pulpo Paul,” as he’s known in Spain.
“I am concerned about the octopus,” Zapatero said. “I’m thinking about sending in a team to protect the octopus because obviously it was very spectacular that he should get Spain’s victory right from there.”
In response to hundreds of angry e-mails from Germans, the aquarium actually took extra precautions, Porwoll said.
“I even told our guards and people at the entrance to keep a close look at possible football fans coming after Paul for revenge,” he said, adding that the hate mail was outweighed by declarations of love and requests for predictions.
PETA says Paul’s tank is too small. But Porwoll said the creature was born in captivity and has never had to deal with any natural enemies, so dumping Paul into the Atlantic would likely mean death. He could live up to four years in captivity, Porwoll added.
In the meantime, he might have a future beyond World Cup. A reporter from Greece asked if the mollusk medium could foresee the end of the financial crisis, and German TV stations have offered lucrative contracts, Porwoll said.
After Arab news sites reported Paul’s picks, it was suggested he be sent to Iraq to choose between two bitter rivals—Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his main challenger, Ayad Allawi—vying to head the new government.
Gary Jenkins, an economist with London’s Evolution Securities, hedged his market analysis note Friday with the phrase, “unless Paul says differently.”
Graham Sharpe, a spokesman for English bookmaker William Hill, said bettors have been asking the staff about the picks by the buoyant clairvoyant.
“If you had just bet 10 pounds ($15) on each of Paul’s six successive winning selections … so far, you would have made a healthy profit of 84 pounds ($126)—but if you had put the winnings from each bet all onto the next one, you would now be looking at 1,400 pounds ($2,108) of profit,” Sharpe said.
Paul is not without competition. There’s also Mani, a parakeet in Singapore, who predicted the Dutch would win Sunday by creeping out of his wooden cage and choosing between two cards that bore the two nations’ flags.
In South Africa, Spanish team defender Carlos Marchena isn’t putting too much stock in Paul’s pick.
“It’s only an octopus,” he said.
A sophisticated new analysis of team tactics predicts a Spanish win in Sunday's FIFA World Cup final and also shows why England were beaten by Germany.
Using the mathematical technique called Graph Theory, they have revealed the gaping holes in England's tactics against Germany game and made predictions about the Netherlands-Spain final that could rival the psychic octopus.
Ask a thousand football fans what they love about the
Spanish national team and you can bank on the fact that Xavi, Fernando Torres, David Villa, Andres Iniesta, quick passing and attacking verve will feature in the vast majority of the answers.
Only the anorak, and I, will fight for the good name of their defensive troops – Iker Casillas, Carlos Marchena, Gerard Pique, Carles Puyol, Sergio Ramos and Joan Capdevila. They are the least known and least appreciated of La Furia Roja, but some of the funniest,
cleverest and most hard-working
footballers at this tournament.
For example, had you any idea that for all Spain’s marvellously daring play when they tear into opponents, the World Cup semi-finalists have kept clean sheets in 19 of their 30 matches since winning the European
Championship in 2008?
And, based on the bedrock of their stingy back four, Spain have now won 40 consecutive internationals when they have gone 1-0 up. Marchena has racked up a world record of 53 inter-
nationals without defeat, beating Garrincha’s record of 49, Capdevila reached the quarter-finals in South Africa as Fifa’s highest-rated player of the tournament via their Castrol Index – earning 9.7 out of 10 despite the fact even the Villarreal man himself says he is “not a first line player”.
Ramos and Capdevila play more like wing-backs than full-backs and before last night’s win over Paraguay, the two had not only completed the majority of Spain’s 106 crosses into the penalty area (28 more than their closest rival) they also had two of the best pass
completion rates in the tournament, 79% and 81% respectively.
I wanted to be a bullfighter, not a footballer, but my mum was too scared
Sergio Ramos
Ramos is something of a law unto himself who told me last week that he got so high up the pitch against
Honduras because he has promised a girlfriend a goal and special celebration, so he’s flying down the wing regardless of tactical orders.
And Capdevila is a good footballer who is one of the most dogged of modern tacklers, but a flying machine he certainly ain’t any more. So shouldn’t Spain be conceding goals to clever opposition wingers? Isn’t the fact that they are often left with two at the back an invitation for quick counter-
attacking teams to score and to beat them on a consistent basis? The odd couple of centre-backs are a major part of why that doesn’t happen.
A couple of days ago, Argentina’s 1978 World Cup-winning coach Cesar Luis Menotti described Pique as “the greatest
centre-half I have seen since Franz Beckenbauer”. When I mentioned this to the Barcelona defender he stopped for a milisecond before confirming that “everyone knows that Menotti knows his football”. Which sums up Pique’s personality: good enough to be nicknamed
“Piquenbauer” in Catalunya, but cheeky, irreverent and occasionally wild.
Television interviews in the Camp Nou have been interrupted by Pique and Bojan dancing behind the presenter wearing only towels around their laps and this week at Ellis Park an interview with Cesc Fabregas was enlivened by the towering centre-half disrobing revealingly behind the interviewer in order to make his best friend, Fabregas, crack up in helpless laughter.
The fact he is so devotedly close to the massively serious, almost obsessively
committed Puyol is one of the
quixotic tricks football produces. They have played together 76 times for club and country, losing twice, and the bond works off the pitch too. “He’s heavy on your ears,” Pique admits about Puyol. “He thinks I lose concentration and he never stops yelling ‘Geri’ at me – even when the ball is in the opposition penalty area!”
Iniesta is an amused spectator with club and country. “They are completely different characters and players which is presumably why the fit is so good,” he says. “They each improve the other and if Puyol brings the power and the determination then Geri adds elegance and a great ability to bring the ball out of defence. Honestly, I think Geri
playing for Barca and Spain has added a lot of fun to Carles’ life. Before he used to stress out quite a lot. Since he teamed up with Pique he laughs more and enjoys his football more.”
Only Fabregas disagrees. “They are both a pain in the butt – between them they never let me sleep, they are always tormenting me and not one squad get-together passes without one or other of them trying to catch me out in one way or another.”
On either side of the two pillars are two more characters. Ramos, the most expensive Spaniard transferred between two La Liga clubs is the guy who arrived at the Bernabeu wet behind the ears but ready to claim: “I want Fernando Hierro’s shirt number and I want to emulate his achievements with Madrid.”
It went down like a proctologist at a finger buffet – but with maturity he has become one of Europe’s most powerful
and dynamic defenders. With a strong possibility Jose Mourinho will either convert him to an out-and-out centre-half or sell him to AC Milan there are golden years ahead for the Andalucian.
Nevertheless, he complains: “I never wanted to be a footballer when I was growing up, I wanted to be a bullfighter
but my mum would never let me because she was too scared. I have had to calm down a little over the years because if I admitted all the tricks I used to get up to when I was younger then they’d probably clap me in jail. That has probably helped me in football terms because when I play centre-half for Madrid it is a less free, more demanding role where concentration is at a premium.”
Throw in the fact that captain Casillas
is a flinty, rock-hard competitor and you have the Dirty Half Dozen (Casillas,
Puyol, Pique, Ramos, Capdevila and Marchena) who maintain La Roja’s defensive purity. Except that the final statistic to is that dirty they are not.
Pique is scrupulous about winning the ball cleanly and is rarely suspended, and in the group stage Spain became the first team since 1986 to avoid a single yellow card. Both the Spain and Barcelona
coaches tend to have consistency of selection as a weapon because, for all their physical force, Pique and Puyol play the ball, not the man.
And, above all, they don’t care if you love Villa or Xavi, or El Nino more than them. “You get used to being undervalued or less famous because it is the winning that counts” admits Puyol.
History will remember this Spain squad fondly, but without the Dirty Half Dozen they’d be nothing.
Graham Hunter
After the Swiss aberration, Spain are back to where they belong: the best team at this World Cup. Their standard of play against Honduras was back to its usual height and had Fernando Torres been a touch sharper, they would have scored five or more. While Argentina and Brazil have been impressive and Portugal thrashed seven past the North Koreans, that Spanish attacking performance was a defining moment of this World Cup. It set down a marker.
What must have been particularly discouraging for the rest was the depth of talent available to Vicente del Bosque. Andres Iniesta was out with a thigh strain but the Spain coach could still afford to use Cesc Fabregas and Juan Mata off the bench.
With Fabio Capello trying to find players capable of freshening up his team for the crucial game with Slovenia it made for a depressing comparison. England’s squad looks desperately thin.
Spain have been the best international side in the world for the last three years – ignore the Fifa ranking of Brazil as No1 – and their first team is formidable. How many English players would make that XI? Ashley Cole for sure, but it is hard to make a case for anyone else.
What was driven home on Monday night, though, was how few English players would have a hope of making the Spain squad, let alone the team. Here’s the Spain squad and here’s the England squad. If you go through it systematically, like-for-like, you’ll see what I mean.
Not a single one of our three goalkeepers would make it. Spain’s No3, Victor Valdes, would easily be England’s No1. One England insider said to me before the tournament that Spain’s seventh-choice goalkeeper would be England’s first choice. He was only half-joking.
Spain’s only weak position is left-back, where Joan Capdevila is capable but not brilliant. Ashley Cole is certainly the superior player. But across the rest of the defence it looks less convincing. Rio Ferdinand and John Terry are not the players they were and Glen Johnson is miles behind Sergio Ramos at right back. You would probably take Terry ahead of Carlos Marchena as a back-up centre back to Carles Puyol and Gerard Pique.
The strength of the Spanish central midfield is ludicrous – Xavi, Iniesta, Xabi Alonso, Fabregas and Sergio Busquets. Steven Gerrard would get in ahead of Javi Martinez but that’s it. None of the English wingers are better than David Silva, Jesus Navas or Mata.
In attack you have the superb pairing of Torres and David Villa to contend with. Then Pedro Rodriguez provides real pace and trickery and can also play out wide. Wayne Rooney would go ahead of Fernando Llorente, the Bilbao target man, but I can’t see any of the other three – Peter Crouch, Jermain Defoe, Emile Heskey – making it.
So out of the 23, if you go on a like-for-like basis, I reckon only four players – A Cole, Terry, Gerrard and Rooney – would make the Spanish squad. That’s the gulf in class Capello has to contend with.
Meet other Real Madrid Fans in NYC!
We are recognized by Real Madrid as an official Real Madrid supporter's club.
Real Madrid NYC is a not for profit club, our only mission is to share our passion for Real Madrid and building a large New York network of fans and friends.
You can now find us on Facebook: Peña Madridista NYC Facebook
Our official headquarters (nuestra casa) is:
Mr Dennehy's
63 Carmine St New York, NY 10014 An awesome place to watch the game! Spain vs Honduras Monday, June 21, 2010 at 2:15PM
Honduras is our next rival and despite being the group’s cinderella, they only lost 1-0 to the other “roja” of the group (Chile), which proved there is no easy opponent in a World Cup.
Passing to the next phase now seems a diffifult task for Spain after the dismal display against Switzerland. We cannot lose any points if we want to be with the big boys. World Cup history has proven that unless you are Brazil, Germany or Italy, being considered the heavy favorite into a tournament normally ends up in disaster…let’s prove the theory wrong!!!
Phantoms of underachievement have set again in Spain’s camp, we must send those away and the only way forward in winning, I do not care how, using tiki-taka, the old Furia or “a la italiana” but winning is the only way to redemption!
As Nadal would say…Vamooooooos!!!!!
See the full event details, including location, at http://www.meetup.com/realmadridnyc/calendar/13844508/.
I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE YOU THERE :)
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España domina en nueve de los 11 apartados ofensivos
A dos estadísticas de la perfección atacante. Ése es el lugar donde el repaso a los números ofensivos del Mundial colocan a España. La Roja domina en nueve de los 11 apartados analizados, y en los otros dos ocupa el segundo lugar. En posesión, pases con éxito, regates, centros al área, córners, jugadas en el área rival, jugadas con remate en ese área y pases en profundidad, los hombres de Del Bosque hicieron el mejor partido posible de este torneo el otro día ante Suiza. Y segundo en otros dos: remates totales y aperturas a banda. Además, existe otro dato que desmiente que Vicente haya abandonado la fe en el tiqui-taca: España ha hilvanado la jugada con más pases seguidos del torneo, 32.En remates y en aperturas a banda, la Roja es sólo superada por Brasil, a la que por cierto le costó ganar su encuentro contra Corea del Norte. Puestos a ser escrupulosos, quizá se debería haber jugado más por las alas...
En los números encontramos claves, como por ejemplo que Argentina no ha necesitado tener el balón mucho para ganar con solvencia sus dos encuentros hasta el momento. 28 minutos de media suman los de Maradona, lejos de los imponentes 41 de los españoles sobre un juego efectivo de poco más de 55. Una barbaridad de dominio que, sorprendentemente, se tradujo en derrota.
Statistics show good passing is still key
Criticism of the Jabulani is borne out by Opta, whose analysis shows an inability to shoot straight dominated the first 16 games.
The Jabulani may not have hit the back of the net very often in this World Cup, but the net of public opinion is closing around it. To the naked eye, the controversial Adidas ball that was introduced for this tournament has been a significant factor in the lack of goals so far, and that perception is supported by statistics taken from the first round of group matches.
Opta figures show that, so far, only 33.44% of shots have been on target. That is down by almost 10% in comparison with the Premier League and Champions League last season, and also the World Cup in 2006. While this may be partly attributable to the small sample size, the fact the difference is so pronounced suggests that it is more than a statistical anomaly. Only four sides – Italy, Japan, Slovenia and Germany – have hit the target with more than half of their shots.
The Germans are at the top of most positive lists, as you would expect of a side who have scored twice as many goals as anyone else. Their passing accuracy of 91.54% is the best of the tournament so far, while a total of 579 passes and a passing accuracy of 80.18% in the final third put them behind only Brazil and Spain.
Once upon a time it was the job of the World Cup to challenge received wisdom and introduce new tactical thinking. This time, the manner of Internazionale's Champions League victory under José Mourinho led to a school of thought that possession was less important than before, because of the increased prioritisation of counterattacking. And although Spain's defeat by Switzerland may reinforce that perception, the general trend of the first week has been to reaffirm that most basic of principles: the teams who pass the ball often and accurately are most likely to succeed.
Arguably the five best sides in the tournament – Germany, Spain, Brazil, Holland and Argentina – are the leading five in terms of passing accuracy, both overall and in the final third. Those teams also provide five of the top six in terms of number of passes; the other is Mexico. The lowest-ranked team are Switzerland, with 233.
As a consequence, the usual suspects top the lists for individual creativity: Robinho, Xavi, Lionel Messi and Wesley Sneijder are almost ubiquitous. Xavi hit the most successful passes in the final third, while Robinho and Messi created the most chances. Brazil's dependence on their full-backs to provide an attacking threat is reflected in the fact that only Xavi and Messi played more successful passes in the final third than Maicon.
Frank Lampard was England's most accurate passer at the business end of the pitch, but his completion percentage of 84 is relatively modest. In football circles, the phrase the English Disease once referred to hooliganism; these days it is more likely to mean the apparent chronic inability to pass the ball to a team-mate, which has driven Fabio Capello to distraction and led to Franz Beckenbauer disdainfully asserting that England "have gone backwards to the bad old times of kick and rush".
The statistics don't necessarily support Beckenbauer's comments. Only 13.88% of England's passes against the USA were long, which makes them the 14th-most direct team of the tournament, a fraction ahead of Brazil, for whom jogo bonito is increasingly little more than romantic rhetoric.
Against the USA, England played 425 passes, which puts them 11th out of 32, with an accuracy of 76.94% (19th out of 32, and below even Greece) and an accuracy in the final third of 66.20% (10th out of 32). Yet despite their occasionally blundering nature, England managed regularly to threaten the USA goal. They managed 23 touches in the opposition penalty area, which puts them sixth on a list headed by Spain, whose total of 49 touches was 17 more than the next best, Chile, and 48 more than Honduras at the bottom of the list. Japan, in an affecting display of minimalist attacking football, beat Cameroon 1-0 despite only having three touches in the opposition's penalty area.
In the first round of matches, Spain had the most passes, the most shots and the most touches in the opposition box. If they keep losing, the voices of those who feel that possession is overrated will be heard. Yet for now, it seems that keeping possession of the Jabulani is the way forward, even if you may not want to shoot with it.
Study tries to evaluate performances of players
Yet they tied as the two best players at Euro 2008. At least according to a study out of Northwestern University's engineering school, which tried to quantify the performances of soccer players.
The report was published Wednesday in the scientific journal PLoS ONE.
Luis Amaral knows he isn't exactly unbiased when it comes to watching his beloved Portugal. The Northwestern engineering professor wanted to find a way to objectively evaluate players in a sport with few statistics because of the rarity of goals.
"When things are going well, I think they're playing better than they truly are," Amaral, the study's senior author, said in a phone interview Tuesday not long after Portugal tied Ivory Coast 0-0 in a World Cup match. "When they're not going well, I'm probably harsher than I should be."
Amaral and colleagues Jordi Duch and Josh Waitzman did a computer analysis of the play-by-play from each Euro 2008 game. The best players would be the ones who most often touched the ball as part of a sequence that resulted in a shot.
Of the 20 players with the highest scores for the tournament, eight made the all-tournament team. Amaral said that indicates the computer analysis is an accurate tool.
He believes it would be most valuable for scouting lower-level events and comparing players across different leagues and different seasons. Just as statistical analysis has influenced how baseball teams spend their millions, he predicts soccer clubs could follow suit.
"You start to ask, Are these players you're paying this amount of money to actually performing at that level?" Amaral said.
He suggested this type of analysis could also be helpful in basketball, even though the sport, unlike soccer, produces a plethora of stats. Assists are a widely used indicator, but what about the pass that led to the pass that led to the score?
These evaluations could even extend into business, measuring the individual contributions of employees working as a group.
Spain's Ramos may want to show this study to any potential future employers. The Real Madrid defender got off to a rocky start at Euro 2008, getting beat for a goal against Sweden and arguing with his coach at a practice.
But he wound up being a key cog in Spain's run to the championship — and apparently was just as important in his team scoring all-important goals as the much-honored Xavi.
___
The top 20 players at Euro 2008 as determined by the computer analysis:
T1. Sergio Ramos, Spain
T1. Xavi Hernandez, Spain
3. Marcos Senna, Spain
4. David Silva, Spain
5. Wesley Sneijder, Netherlands
T6. Deco, Portugal
T6. Joan Capdevila, Spain
8. Cristiano Ronaldo, Portugal
9. David Villa, Spain
T10. Armando Petit, Portugal
T10. Cesc Fabregas, Spain
T10. Carlos Marchena, Spain
T10. Gokhan Inler, Switzerland
T14. Jose Bosingwa, Portugal
T14. Rafael van der Vaart, Netherlands
T16. Ruud van Nistelrooy, Netherlands
T16. Ivan Rakitic, Croatia
T16. Nigel de Jong, Netherlands
T19. Roman Pavlyuchenko, Russia
T19. Andre Ooijer, Netherlands
SERGIO RAMOS
Researchers find a new approach to ranking and rating soccer players
Amaral, now a professor at Northwestern University, combined his love of soccer with his research team's computational skills to measure and rank the success of soccer players based on an objective measure of performance instead of opinion. The results of the study are published in PLoS ONE, a journal published by the Public Library of Science.
Through their analysis, Amaral and his team were able to objectively rank the performances of all the players in the 2008 European Cup tournament. Their results closely matched the general consensus of sports reporters who covered the matches as well as the team of experts, coaches and managers that subjectively chose players for the "best of" tournament teams.
"In soccer there are relatively few big things that can be counted," said Amaral, professor of chemical and biological engineering with the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science and senior author of the paper. "You can count how many goals someone scores, but if a player scores two goals in a match, that's amazing. You can really only divide two or three goals or two or three assists among, potentially, eleven players. Most of the players will have nothing to quantify their performance at the end of the match."
To find a quantitative way to rank players, co-author and Northwestern graduate student Josh Waitzman first wrote software to pull play-by-play statistical information from the 2008 Euro Cup website. This type of extensive statistical information is usually only gathered for important matches, Amaral said. Amaral and Jordi Duch, the paper's first author and an assistant professor of applied math and computer science at Universitat Rovira I Virgili in Spain, used the data to quantify the performance of players by generalizing methods from social network analysis.
"You can define a network in which the elements of the network are your players," Amaral said. "Then you have connections between the players if they make passes from one to another. Also, because their goal is to score, you can include another element in this network, which is the goal."
Amaral's team mapped out the flow of the soccer ball between players in the network as well as shooting information and analyzed the results.
"We looked at the way in which the ball can travel and finish on a shot," said Amaral, who also is a member of the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO) and an Early Career Scientist with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. "The more ways a team has for a ball to travel and finish on a shot, the better that team is. And, the more times the ball goes through a given player to finish in a shot, the better that player performed."
"It would never happen by chance that we would get such striking agreement with the consensus opinion of so many experts if our measure wasn't good," Amaral said.
He says this kind of analysis can be used outside of the soccer world, too. Companies could use the method to rank and evaluate the performance of employees working together on a team project, for example.
The title of the paper is "Quantifying the Performance of Individual Players in a Team Activity."
The National Science Foundation supported the research.
The title speaks for itself. I don't have much to say at the moment except for the fact that it seems that these men were still stuck on the set of the commercial as they played against Switzerland...
or we can always blame Jabulani.
Meet other Real Madrid Fans in NYC! We are recognized by Real Madrid as an official Real Madrid supporter's club. Real Madrid NYC is a not for profit club, our only mission is to share our passion for Real Madrid and building a large New York network of fans and friends. You can now find us in Facebook: Peña Madridista NYC Our official headquarters (nuestra casa) is Mr Dennehy's at 63 Carmine St, New York, NY 10014 An awesome place to watch the game!
Spain vs Switzerland
Wednesday, June 16, 2010 at 10:00AM
So the day has finally come!!! From dark horse to fiery steed, España were changed forever by the Euro. Thanks to Torres's goal against Germany and Fàbregas's penalty against Italy, La Selección finally won a major tournament – and a new identity. A new mentality. Declaring themselves favorites is nothing new but this time, more than ever, Spaniards truly believe it.
As I have quoted Cesc before, let's hope this will continue to be the case:
Un día nuestros nietos leerán esto en los libros de Historia: "El fútbol es un deporte que fue inventado por los ingleses en el siglo XIX y que siguió su desarrollo en el XX e inicios del XXI. Pero en el año 2008 apareció un equipo que apodaban La Roja e inventó el sky-football (fútbol celestial)".
And now my English translation: One day our grandchildren will read this in the history books: "Football is a sport that was invented by the British in the nineteenth century and continued its development in the twentieth and early twenty-first. But in 2008 appeared a team, nicknamed "The Red" and invented the sky-football (heavenly soccer). "
Un día nuestros nietos leerán esto en los libros de Historia: "El fútbol es un deporte que fue inventado por los ingleses en el siglo XIX y que siguió su desarrollo en el XX e inicios del XXI. Pero en el año 2008 apareció un equipo que apodaban La Roja e inventó el sky-football (fútbol celestial)".
And now my English translation: One day our grandchildren will read this in the history books: "Football is a sport that was invented by the British in the nineteenth century and continued its development in the twentieth and early twenty-first. But in 2008 appeared a team, nicknamed "The Red" and invented the sky-football (heavenly soccer). "
Mr Dennehy's
63 Carmine St
New York, NY 10014
63 Carmine St
New York, NY 10014
See the full event details at http://www.meetup.com/realmadridnyc/calendar/13808889/.
(I look forward to meeting every one of my readers!)
