Qualifying systems have a lot to do with the chances of the best losing and others winning. Chance plays a bigger role in single matches than in many. National qualifiers in Latin America leave little to chance. Cup after cup top teams qualify. But when one loss throws a team out of competition the system is flawed. Furthermore, in low scoring games (as most Cup games have been beyond the first round), one goal may be decisive. Round-robin (all-play-all) tournaments leave less to chance. However, they may be impractical.

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Portugal had the ball for more time than Germany. Parreira also insists on this. The logic behind is "if you have the ball, the opponent doesn't score". But not much time is needed to score. We need data on possession time and game results. We'll need to control for a bunch of variables, as time controlling the ball and scoring may both reflect quality differences between the teams.

Coded records from other sports tell us that there are more foul penalties called against visiting teams than against home teams. With a bit of effort we could check the validity of this finding when it comes to soccer, by type of tournament, field characteristics etc.

But the central issue will always be: do refs call more foul penalties against visiting teams because they are biased, do visiting teams foul more, or both? To answer this we would need computerized remaking of games, eliminating uniforms and ID's of any kind (faces included) and a panel of judges to evaluate possible foul situations.

Data, data. My horse for a data set.

I would like to get some feedback - comments, suggestions, criticisms etc. I am definitely not an expert blogger. Thanks.

Other structural advantages

Analysis of olympic medals shows a clear home field advantage. Interestingly, this advantage does not disappear in the following olympics. Part of the better results derive from a larger number of participants from the host country and the advantage is reduced when participation is controlled for. Reduced, but not eliminated. A good set of hypotheses states

• that Olympics spark interest in sports in the host country (more than in the average country);
• that local athletes and coaches have a first-rate experience with training methods and strategies;
• that sports' budgets increase.

Countries allocating more resources to olympic sports fare better. This was clearly the case of socialist countries, the the GDR and Cuba as outstanding examples. Excellence in competitive sports had an intimate association with national propaganda. GNP per capita and other indicators of wealth also correlate with medals (there are many ways of computing medals, such as simple sum, weighted sum, prior measures plus adjustment for team sports and so on). Excellence in a given sport, once established, tends to reproduce and has staying power.

Naïve thinking

A common comment after a game - in almost any sport - is "if" such and such had happened the result would be, say, 3x1 or another score. One learns a lot from chaos theory. In a highly complex system, such as a soccer game, you cannot just change something and assume that everythingelse would be identical to what it was. Eons ago I heard someone at the racetrack claiming against the rider when his come-from-behind horse lost by a neck. He wanted the rider to start accelerating two furlongs before it actually did and just assumed that the horse would run the two additional furlongs at the same speed that he run in the final stretch. And this looking only at one horse and rider, ignoring all interactions... It is a fruitless speculation to wonder what kind of result would we have in case so-and-so hadn't missed a penalty kick and so forth. We can't know how things would be if the weren't as they were....

More on Home and Regional Field Advantages

Seventeen cups were held up to now, including this one. Six were won by the hosting country, a high percentage when you consider the number of FIFA's affiliates. Nine were held in Europe and European countries won all but one. Six were held in Latin America, evenly split by Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. Two were held in "neutral" ground, the USA and Japan/South Korea and both of these were won by Brazil.

World Cup Winners by Region where Held, 1930-2006
	In Europe	In Latin America	Elsewhere
Won by an European country	8	0	0
Won by a Latin American country	1	6	2

Any doubts? The interesting issue is how. How? Public pressure over players and refs? Easier access to nationals of nearby countries when held in the same continent, particularly in Europe and South Korea/Japan thus far? There are conspiracy theories about England's win in 1966 as well as Argentina's in 1978. FIFA is doing a good job at chosing refs from countries uninvolved with the results. It is very difficult to win over the host team in finals at home: only two out of eight lost: Brazil to Uruguay in 1950 and Sweden to Brazil in 1958.

The results apply to all international competitions. Latin American and European national teams met 185 in FIFA tournaments until 2005. Latin American teams won 77, tied 41 and lost 67, scoring 291 goals and allowing 243. But wins and losses were not randomly distributed geographically.

Critical unfairness

In 2002, the picture of Cafu holding the Cup was published again and again. His dedicated words were everywhere. Now, together with Roberto Carlos and, of course, Parreira (the man everybody loves to hate), they became objects of all sorts of accusations and insults. In Argentina, our traditional (and very good) competitors, one of the main sports journal has "Morimos de pié" in its frontpage. No such welcome here. The contrast tells us little about the players and a lot about the critics.

Professional Critics

I abominate professional sports critics. If a coach fails miserably, he/she loses, but what about critics? Their opinions are inconsequential. There is no responsibility when they err. They are not called to task to justify their wrong opinions. It is so easy to criticize... Futhermore, they are not a particularly analytical bunch.

Two Zidanes


I saw Zidane in several Real Madrid games. His club performances paled by comparison with his brilliance in two cups. Ronaldinho Gaúcho, on the contrary, exhibited a colorful and beautiful soccer whilst playing for Barcelona, but did not do well in this Cup. His many critics, endowed with a short memory, have forgotten that he played well in 2002 and that his performance against England was essential in the final score.

Altitude and unfair home field advantage

Certain countries and clubs have a very strong, perhaps unfair, home field advantage. Bolivia plays many of its games in La Paz. As La Paz is about4000 m above sealevel Altitude sickness is frequent unwanted companion, it can stike anyone however fit, especialy if you fly directly . Symtoms are headache, nausea, vomiting, fatigue, lightheadeness, confusion arre some of the symptoms. Bolivians from la Paz do much better when they play there, but often lose elsewhere. The same is true of Ecuador, but Ecuador does slightly better than Bolívia in the away games. Bogotá and Mexico City also pose problems, however minor. Teams classified with this advantage do not do well in the World Cup and other "away" games.

RESULTS – BOLÍVIA QUALIFYING MATCHES FOR THE 2006 WORLD CUP BY HOME AND AWAY
	WINS	TIES	LOSSES
HOME	4	2	3
AWAY	0	0	9

The differences in wins and losses reflects the differences in goals: at home, Bolívia scored almost twice as many goals as away, and opponents scored one third of the goals that they scored away, in their own "home games". This extreme home advantage works against a better representation of South America in global competitions. In 1930, Bolivia lost 4-0 to Yugoslavia; in 1978 there were play-offs qualifying between Bolivia and Hungary: in La Paz, Bolivia lost by a tight score, 3-2, but in Budapest, there was a disastrous 6-0 defeat. What is the point of preventing a more competitive South American team from competing through extreme home field advantage if teams that benefit from high altitude games do not fare well at sea level?

RESULTS – BOLÍVIA GOALS PRO AND CON QUALIFYING MATCHES FOR THE 2006 WORLD CUP BY HOME AND AWAY
	HOME GAMES	AWAY GAMES
GOALS PRO	13	7
GOALS AGAINST	9	27

Although Bolívia is an extreme example because of altitude (as is Ecuador), one should not expect similar differences between home and away games of all countries.
Ecuador did not lose a single match at home - won seven and tied two. Scored 17 goals and let five in; but in away games, it only won one, tied two and lost six. Scored six goals (approximately one third of the home games) and let 14 in, approximately three times as many as at home.

It is not by accident: all Cups held in Latin America were won by a Latin American country; whereas all but one cup held in Europe were won by an European country. The exception was Brazil in Sweden. Brazil won both cups held in "third" countries, the US and Japan/Korea. England only won in England (1966) and France in France (1998). In 2002, South Korea went to the semi-finals and Japan did very well. They left early this year. There definitely is a home field advantage and a regional advantage. This holds for the World Cup and its qualifying rounds, for UEFA and its Latin American equivalent. It translates itself in about two goals in the home field team for every goal of the visiting team.