Okay, if you’ve been inside CaptainU you know that Mike P, our technology guru is an outrageously good programmer. So what do 1 and 0 crushers do in their free time? How about hacking your Tivo to record HD video directly onto your Mac?!
There I was today, minding my business and making a few calls when a file comes across Skype from Mike. I accepted the file transfer only to find that it was a 210 MB, 30-second clip of Oguchi Onyewu’s goal against Mexico last night. A mere twenty minutes later, the file transfer was complete and I was looking at the most high-def video I’ve seen on my computer. Mike was deliriously giddy. I was pretty stoked too. It was a nice, if somewhat bizarre goal. Above is a screen shot (click on it for glorious high def.)
I have to give a shout out to the development team at the New York Times. Regardless of where you stand on the issues, you’ve gotta appreciate the new debate analysis tool and transcript analyzer NYTimes.com rolled out this morning. The text of the debate dynamically loads as you scroll over different portions of the debate. The design is straightforward and intuitive, making it easy to see who was talking when and what they said. The full text is searchable and graphically displays who referred to what issues when. So when I type in “college soccer,” for example, I get, uh, no results. Oh well. No less, very cool.
Eric Schmidt, CEO of a little software company called Google, recently told the New York Times that 90% of computing could eventually be done on the web. The bevy of web applications — Google Docs, Spreadsheets, Gmail — that Google and other companies have trucked out in recent years speaks volumes to the immediate potential of computing on the web. Web technology has improved dramatically in recent years, allowing websites to work like desktop programs (without continually having to reload pages, etc.)
For the uninitiated, web apps are computer programs that run on the web, rather than on your desktop. Instead of Microsoft Word, there’s Google Docs, a word processor that lets you collaborate with others and access your documents from any computer with internet access. There are numerous benefits to web apps, including the ability to collaborate with your friends (and the masses on the likes of Wikipedia) over the web and the ability of the app provider to constantly and seamlessly refine the software.
This is all very bad news for Microsoft, which made its name and vast fortune with desktop software. MS Office has essentially been an ATM for Microsoft over the years. While Word, Excel, and Powerpoint are far from obsolete at the moment, they are starting to feel the heat.
I can’t blog about web apps/Web 2.0 without reposting this video:
I’ve been known to rant and rave about the book Moneyball, and the Oakland A’s statistical approach to evaluating players and building winning teams on an absolute shoe-string budget. What better place to apply that methodology than MLS, where the salary cap is laughably low? Of course, soccer has always been cursed (or blessed, depending on your perspective) by the lack of obvious and meaningful statistics.
People always look at goals and assists, which are obviously important. But what about the guy who consistently makes the tackle at midfield that starts the counterattack which leads to all the goals? It’s difficult to quantify his performance.
No less, it appears that there are a number of people working to solve this problem. Among them: Billy Beane of Moneyball and A’s fame. According to a fascinating story by Jeff Carlisle of ESPN, Beane is an integral player in the reincarnated San Jose Earthquakes. And true to form, Beane has brought his statistical methods to the table, employing Match Analysis, a stats company, and relying heavily on their analysis for expansion draft decisions. (Ivan Guerrero, formerly of the Chicago Fire is an Earthquakes acquisition Carlisle discusses in depth.)
THE MORALITY OF STATISTICS IN SOCCER
Any time I start ranting about the untapped opportunity of applying statistical methods to soccer, I feel compelled to acknowledge that soccer is, at its core, a subjective game that in many ways cannot and should not be quantified. Imagine going to the Guggenheim Museum and trying to quantify all of the Mark Rothko paintings. It is argued that reducing soccer games to numbers undermines what is so cool and so unique about the game. But here’s the flip side: statistics have the potential to reveal unknown dynamics of the game.
What if we looked at a data set collected from 10,000 games and found that positioning a defensive center midfielder 10-15 yards in front of two center backs is highly correlated to scoring 2-3 counterattacks goals a game? That would be pretty powerful stuff that wouldn’t undermine the game. Rather it would deepen our understanding of how things work.
It’s been rather quiet here at the CaptainU blog. Perhaps you chalked this up to the holiday shopping craze, thinking we were out doing our part to help the US economy recover from the housing funk. Not a bad guess, but not so, dear friends. CaptainU is buzzing behind the scenes, and I want to give you quick update on the goings up.
Mike the wonder programmer has been working overtime to get our full CaptainU site up and running. We’re almost there. If you’re not sure what the “real” CaptainU site is all about, it takes the self-recruiting concept I wrote about in Make the Team to the next level: the Internet (oooh, ahhhh).
We’ve got 500 beta testers lined up to help us work out the kinks in the software and then we’re counting on you to flood the system with player profiles, recruiting requests, and the like. Launch is coming soon, so stay tuned!
I was driving up to Evanston today and heard an update on a great story that I’ve been tracking for a while. The website MyFootballClub.com has been accepting contributions to buy a professional English soccer team. The team will be owned and run over the web by everyone who has contributed.
The news today: MyFootballClub.com has struck a deal to buy Ebbsfleet United.
This is an amazing use of the web and a brilliant marketing scheme. Not only will Ebbsfleet United have the built-in fan base of its tens of thousands of owners around the world, it will also continue to draw the attention of people who want to see how this experiment works out. (Here’s a case in point: the club’s website was down today after being overwhelmed by traffic. They may have to buy some new servers, but we should all be so unlucky!)
Interestingly, the people overseeing this effort seem to have already defied the will of the masses. Lowly (but once mighty) Leeds United was the team most preferred by fans as the acquisition target. Ebbsfleet was second.
If you didn’t catch the Chicago Fire – DC United game last night, I feel for you. It was a shining example of how exciting MLS can be when things actually matter. Kudos to DC’s fans, who were about as spirited a crowd as I’ve ever seen at an American soccer game. My brother was there and he said it was utterly thrilling. Apparently the fans didn’t sit the entire game.
If you missed it, the good news is that you can watch the extended highlights at ESPN Soccernet. Unfortunately, ESPN doesn’t seem to be as willing or able to share its media as YouTube and other forward thinking Web 2.0 sites. So the best I can give you is this link. You’ll have to navigate to it on the right-hand side of their page.
“Every setback is an opportunity.”Thus spoke a wise man.Or at least that seems like something a wise man would say.
The setback?A broken wrist.And not just your average six weeks in a cast broken wrist, but a really nasty one that could require surgery.(Don’t worry, the x-ray above isn’t actually mine.) It happened on Saturday in a men’s league soccer game. A guy and I were both going for the ball, we ran into each other and I took a tumble. Could it possibly be any more ironic? I mean, I essentially broke my hand playing soccer. To add insult to injury, somehow I managed to get a yellow card on the same play.(Those who saw me play in high school will not be surprised.)Well, enough of my lament.Let’s talk about the opportunity it presents…To buy a new toy, of course!!!
That new toy is Dragon Naturally Speaking 9, which is speech recognition software.So here I am, sitting at my desk talking to my computer screen.I kid you not. It’s surprisingly accurate, and I’m getting better with it.You have to use a series of rather hilarious commands to make it work the way you want it to. They say it also learns as you go.It’s having trouble learning my name, but it has begun to pick up CaptainU.For amusement sake, I’ll read the first paragraph of Stephen Colbert’s book “I am America (and so can you),” to show off the software and to try to heal my wounds with humor.
Clobert writes: “I am no fan of books.And chances are, if you’re reading this, you and I share a healthy skepticism about the printed word.Well, I want you to know that this is the first book I’ve ever written, and I hope it’s the first book you’ve ever read.Don’t make a habit of it.”Wow!Not a single mistake.Go figure, it seems to make a lot of mistakes when I dictate normally.
AN UPDATE ON CAPTAINU
As long as I have this robotic secretary, I figured I may as well give you a brief update on the development of CaptainU.(All right!It recognized CaptainU.)
We are fast approaching our launch and we are putting together a beta test group based in the Chicago area.On the artistic side, we’ve settled on a logo and a general look and feel for the site.This was developed by renowned local artist Cassio Lynm.
All along, the development of the site has been guided by a group of college coaches.I am delighted to say that as we’ve begun to show the site to others, we’ve gotten a very enthusiastic response all around.We’re looking forward to sharing it with everyone.
The Fire beat DC United last night in the first game of their two-game MLS playoff series. Chris Rolfe (check out his blog here) was the man for the Fire, drilling a nice finish from 15 yards. I’m a big Rolfe fan, and expect him to play a role in the National Team picture over the coming years. Young players can learn a lot from watching how cool he is on the ball. I ran into Chris a couple years ago in the Nike store on Michigan Ave. and found that he’s a really nice guy as well.
Here’s an amusing, hyperserious commercial that featured Rolfe:
Last night’s game was intense, no doubt. But the fact that the Fire won highlights a profound problem with MLS’s playoff structure. DC United was arguably the best team in the league this year. The Fire? One of the weakest until a late-season surge won them the last playoff spot. Exciting stuff, no doubt. But the problem is that 8 teams out of 13 (62%) qualify for the playoffs. This means that the team that is arguably the best in a given season (DC) can lose in the first round of the playoffs to one of the weakest (Chicago.)
This conundrum makes me think of Moneyball, which is one of the best sports books I’ve ever read. It’s about the Oakland A’s, the baseball team with the lowest payroll that also happens to be one of the most consistently strong performers in MLB. Oakland uses a quantitative, statistics-based approach to evaluating players. It turns out this is very different from most of the other teams, which sign players because they have “the look.” Without getting too technical, Oakland’s success is based on a large sample size.
BEWARE: MATH DISCUSSED BELOW
Here’s how it works. In a given game, Joe Schmoe might go 3 for 3 or 0 for 3. But does Joe really have a 1.000 or 0.000 batting average? Clearly not. The idea is that over the course of a 162-game season, Joe has a lot of at-bats. So his average becomes a better reflection of what he’s actually capable of hitting than you get from a single game or a even a handful of games. As the number of at-bats increases, his batting average becomes more accurate. This is just like when you flip a coin five times. You might get four heads (80%), But if you flip a coin 100 times, you’ll probably get something more like 53 heads. 53% is clearly much closer to the probability of getting a head on any given toss. Had enough yet? Never!
Back to Joe. The problem is that come the post-season, Joe may go 3 for 20 (.150) even though he batted .290 throughout the season. This may happen for the whole team, as seems to happen to the A’s every year in the playoffs, and they get knocked out.
The same is true in MLS. DC United was the best team over the course of the regular season, but on any given day they might have lost to a weaker team. Now, when you get to the playoffs, all it takes is two flukey games and the best team is gone and one of the weaker teams advances. We have all seen this happen many times in the NCAA. While it’s thrilling when a team like the University of Alaska at Prudhoe Bay beats UNC, it doesn’t really feel like justice has been served. (Unless you’re a Dukie.)
A RECOMMENDATION: TWO TROPHIES
My recommendation for MLS is a single table format, like any normal league in the world (EPL, La Liga, Serie A, etc., etc.) At the end of each season, a single team (the best team!!) would be crowned the league champion. This would make every regular season game important and exciting. Have you been to a Salt Lake-Kansas City game in mid-season? It can be painful.
The playoffs would then become an added bonus — a knockout tournament at the end of the year. There would still be a thrilling race at the end of the season to qualify, much as there was this year with the Fire and Galaxy. The rest would be icing on the cake.
Chelsea 2 – Shalke 0 with about 20 minutes left to go. Michael Essien was just subbed out and up popped a very interesting statistic: distance covered. Essien apparently ran 8,289 meters today, which is about 5.2 miles. This great application of technology in and of itself is as interesting as Essien’s superhuman fitness. (You mean it’s not invisible elves with measuring sticks?)
The cool thing about this is that it’s a statistic that we can use to look for correlations with good performances. In other words, does Chelsea do better when Essien runs a lot or do they do better when he’s not all over the place? And does that correlation (or lack thereof) tell us anything about strategy?
This reminds me of something I heard when Thierry Henry left Arsenal. Arsene Wenger found that Henry was running 25% less in each game than in years past. This was one of the factors that informed the decision to let Henry walk.
BTW – if you didn’t get a good dose of Champion’s League action yesterday, here’s a great synopsis along with plenty of clips.
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