The 2012-2013 Football Thread

[swiftaw]

Zenit fans showing that they are still stuck in the 19th century by demanding a white only team: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/20770678

Should be interesting for Johnson and Sterling when Liverpool travel there for their Europa Cup tie.

[Happybunny]

Ajax have drawn Steaua Boekarest.

I remember Steaua Boekarest for the most negative football cup final I have ever had the miss fortune to watch.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_European_Cup_Final

[twietee]

@ Happybunny: just received an e-mail from the UEFA: if you, or anybody else, are interested in the EL final in Amsterdam: they started selling tickets (about two days ago, or so).

[Happybunny]

Originally Posted by twietee

@ Happybunny: just received an e-mail from the UEFA: if you, or anybody else, are interested in the EL final in Amsterdam: they started selling tickets (about two days ago, or so).

I'll be on holiday in the USA/Canada at that time.I mean the date of the Final in May 2013.

[daneoni]

Bayern Munich...yay

[Cox Orange]

I am not a friend of conspiracy theories, but did anybody here about the election of the CL pairs?

The BBC was there, when they did a test run and the result was the same as the result that was later drawn out of the bowls live. "Der Spiegel" has calculated that the chance of that happening twice is (that all pairs match) is 1:5400 something.

[twietee]

Originally Posted by Cox Orange

I am not a friend of conspiracy theories, but did anybody here about the election of the CL pairs?

The BBC was there, when they did a test run and the result was the same as the result that was later drawn out of the bowls live. "Der Spiegel" has calculated that the chance of that happening twice is (that all pairs match) is 1:5400 something.

You've seen the comments below the Spiegel article? 30 pages full of arguing methematicians* ....Given all the limiting factors, I guess the chances are somewhat higher, still I do believe in manipulation, but maybe not this time.


*mathematicians

[Jaffa Cake]

Originally Posted by swiftaw

Should be interesting for Johnson and Sterling when Liverpool travel there for their Europa Cup tie.

Or indeed for the rest of the world when it tips up for the World Cup...

[Happybunny]

Loting kwartfinales KNVB-beker

Vitesse - Ajax
PSV - Feyenoord
FC Den Bosch - AZ
PEC Zwolle - Heracles Almelo

To be played on the last weekend of January weather permitting.

PEC stand a really good chance of progressing to the next round.

But the really tasty duels are Vitesse/Ajax and PSV/Feyenoord.

[swiftaw]

Originally Posted by Cox Orange

I am not a friend of conspiracy theories, but did anybody here about the election of the CL pairs?

The BBC was there, when they did a test run and the result was the same as the result that was later drawn out of the bowls live. "Der Spiegel" has calculated that the chance of that happening twice is (that all pairs match) is 1:5400 something.

Originally Posted by twietee

You've seen the comments below the Spiegel article? 30 pages full of arguing methematicians* ....Given all the limiting factors, I guess the chances are somewhat higher, still I do believe in manipulation, but maybe not this time.


*mathematicians

The chance of a getting a specific drawing (matching the practice drawing in this case) is 1 in 2,027,025. (and yes, I am a mathematician).

[twietee]

Originally Posted by swiftaw

The chance of a getting a specific drawing (matching the practice drawing in this case) is 1 in 2,027,025. (and yes, I am a mathematician).

Care to share the equation? I assume you respected all the limiting factors (group leaders will play away first, no teams from the same country can play against each other etc.)?

[swiftaw]

Originally Posted by twietee

Care to share the equation? I assume you respected all the limiting factors (group leaders will play away first, no teams from the same country can play against each other etc.)?

Darn, no, forgot about those. Hold on, let me recalculate.

Ok, I got 1 in 17088

Here's my logic.

Firstly, (for the curious) my original incorrect calculation of 1 in 2,027,025 came from simply the number of ways to pair up 16 teams when order is unimportant. The formula would be 16!/(8! * 2^8).

Now, we know that the 16 teams are actually separated into 2 groups of 8, and then 1 team from each group are drawn together. If you ignore country restrictions then the number of ways this can be done is 8! = 40320.

Now, how about the country restrictions. There are 6 possible matchups that would violate the country restrictions, although some are mutually exclusive. Let's label them:

A = Malaga vs Real Madrid
B = Malaga vs Valencia
C = Juventus vs Milan
D = Barcelona vs Real Madrid
E = Barcelona vs Valencia
F = Man U vs Arsenal

Now, we need to know how many of those 40320 ways do not contain any of the 6 above matchups.

The easiest way to do it, is to count how many of the 40320 ways do include at least one of those matchups, and then subtract that number from 40320.

That is, how many arrangements in the set A union B union C union D union E union F?

Using the inclusion/exclusion principle, the size of this union is equal to the sum of the sizes of all the singletons - the sum of the sizes of all the pairwise intersections + the sum of the sizes of all the triple intersections - the sum of the sizes of all the quad intersections + the sum of the sizes of all the 5-event intersections - the sum of the sizes of all the 6-event intersections.

Lets start at the end. Since there are two teams that appear in 2 different events, there is no way that all 6 events can ever happen simultaneously, likewise for any 5 of the 6.

There are 4 different combinations of 2 of the listed matches occurring simultaneously: ACEF, BCDF and each of those can occur in 4! ways since the other 4 matches are free to be drawn in any order.

There are 8 different combinations of 3 of the listed matches occurring simultaneously, and each of those can occur in 5! ways.

There are 11 different combinations of 2 of the listed matches occurring simultaneously, and each of those can occur in 6! ways.

Each of the 6 individual listed matches can occur in 7! ways.

Thus, the number of ways in which at least one of the 6 listed matches occurs is:
(6*7!)-(11*6!)+(8*5!)-(2*4!)+(0*5!)-(0*6!) = 23232

Thus, the number of valid ways (in which none of those 6 matches occur) is 40320-23232 = 17088.

[Jaffa Cake]

Someone's had their balls in the freezer, I reckon.

[twietee]

Impressive, but I'm no mathemagician, so who knows

Anyway, I should have mentioned as well that the previous eight group-leaders can't play against each other as well.

[swiftaw]

Actually, I missed one restriction, that is, that a group leader cannot be drawn against the team that they were in a group with, that reduces the number to

1 in 5463

[oscillatewildly]

Something is 63?

[Happybunny]

This should be very interesting, after the winter stop here in the Netherlands it will be an automatic yellow card for protest at the referee.

I can see some heated matches ending with quite a few players having an early shower.
http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archive...tomatic_fo.php
http://nos.nl/artikel/454292-knvb-me...j-protest.html

[oscillatewildly]

They'll learn as Rugby players learnt.

[Peterkro]

***** hell Jaffa if you keep this up you're in danger of a place in the "best league in the world".

[Confuzzzed]

Originally Posted by swiftaw

Actually, I missed one restriction, that is, that a group leader cannot be drawn against the team that they were in a group with, that reduces the number to

1 in 5463

Can you run some exclusions on the Mayan calendar calculations and possibly come up with a new date whilst you're at it please?

[Jaffa Cake]

Originally Posted by Peterkro

***** hell Jaffa if you keep this up you're in danger of a place in the "best league in the world".

Blimey. We're level on points with Cardiff at the top and are second only on goal difference, and boast the division's best away record.

If we keep this up, it won't be long before the pundits start taking notice of us and begin saying we don't deserve a place in the Premier League...

[Confuzzzed]

Originally Posted by Jaffa Cake

Pundits...begin saying we don't deserve a place in the Premier League...

A Steve Bruce team being labelled non-progressive? I'd never have guessed.

[Jaffa Cake]

Originally Posted by Confuzzzed

A Steve Bruce team being labelled non-progressive? I'd never have guessed.

Actually, Bruce has got us playing some rather lovely stuff at the moment. But the Premier League isn't for the likes of us.

[swiftaw]

Amazingly kits for the 2013/14 season are starting to appear online. The first is the Chelsea Away jersey, which is very similar to their away jersey from the 1961/62 season.

[Confuzzzed]

Originally Posted by Jaffa Cake

Actually, Bruce has got us playing some rather lovely stuff at the moment.

That's what I have seen in highlights shows but the stereotype is hard to get away from especially as it is an easy headline for lazy, mainly London based journalists. Best man at my wedding is a big smoggie and he fears Hull more than Cardiff...