Can’t believe the cantankerous negativity which surrounds the relatively innocuous introduction of an extra point for the early-round League Cup group. This competition is our least precious, below the Scottish Cup, League title, Champions League, Europa League and at the top of the tree, the Petrofac Cup. Its purpose should be to experiment, especially in the early rounds.
My only issue with the change is its overwhelming conservatism. If you’re going to make changes, be bold.
An objective of any change in our domestic game or competitions should be to increase excitement and drama. Some work has gone into this with the research paper, Suspense and Surprise, by Ely, Frankel and Kamenica, who collected data from 24,000 ‘soccer’ matches across 67 leagues to “compute suspense and surprise generated from each soccer match”. It’s a weighty document, but in brief, they conclude that football is characterised by having plenty of suspense – during any minute a critical goal can be scored, but surprises, either during the game or with respect to the outcome, are few. They write:
“In any given minute of a soccer game, it is very likely that nothing consequential happens. Whichever team is currently ahead becomes slightly more likely to win (since less time remains). There is a small chance that a team scores a goal, however, which would have a huge impact on beliefs. So belief paths in soccer are smooth, with few rare jumps. This sustained small probability of large belief shifts makes soccer a very suspenseful game.”
So your game is suspenseful as a result of nothing consequential happening during any particular minute. It’s that “nothing consequential” line which is a tad disturbing.
The reason I’m referencing this is that on analysing his paper, Frankel accepted (in his academic terms) what kids and five-a-side players have known for decades. A football game where the winner is not decided by the team which scores most goals, but where the “next goal’s the winner” rule holds true, adds crushing drama and excitement to the suspense of the game.
Winning by six goals? So what, it’s next goal’s the winner now – and your chances of winning are no better than 65%. I’m not advocating a competition with this rule – football fans are far too conservative for that, but it’s worth considering why people watch sport, or any other pastime. Put the question differently, a ‘next goal’s the winner’ sport would never drop its dramatic finale to adopt a system which would allow teams to create winning lead with 75% of the game remaining.
Football has come a long way since the formation of the Football Association in 1863. It has cultural resonance and occasionally athletic brilliance, but for the most part the game flourished without that brilliance. It simply offered better entertainment than was on offer elsewhere. Football has never been dependent on skillful wizardry, for the most part this is a rarity. Don’t listen to people who tell you style or ability determines interest in the game, it doesn’t and never has done. The game will live or die on its ability to throw up drama and suspense.
My guess is that the game will last another 150 years, but it will be completely unrecognisable from the sport you and I know. It will be forced to change by increasingly sophisticated and diverse entertainment options.
Always play ‘next goal’s the winner’ at fives, unless it rankles your conservative tendencies too much.
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DD
How are ye big yin?
Well I hope.
DELANEYSDUNKY
Cheers,mate.
Bournesouprecipe made a similar compliment yesterday,so grateful thanks to him too.
If I’d taken the advice of my moniker a few weeks back,I could have saved myself-and others-lot of bother…
If the MSM are correct and we are interested in a striker at Aston Villa who is injury prone and has I believe only scored 4 goals since joining Villa questions should be asked.Why do we need to sign an injury prone and non scoring striker ? We have already had enough of this type of signing I would rather we played a youngster than waste more money . H.H.
Masty
All well thanks. Having similar problems on my Samsung S5. It is also running up my monthly data usage very quickly.
Hope all is well in the Brazen Head. Will need to pop over the Clyde after a game soon.
Hail Hail
Bmcuwp
Just sent you a wee text mate.
DD
Beers are on me mo chara
Joe,
It’s maybe just media talk but the player we are looking at is more of a Craig Gordon than a derk Bo type injured player.
The guy snapped his leg then struggled with connected problems. If he stays fit (big if) and the price was right I’d say he’s worth a punt.
HH
Masty
In that case, will see you very soon. Haha
HH
DELANEYSDUNKY
AWE NAW and HAMILTONTIM had a wee discussion about that yesterday,I think.
I’ll try to find it for you.
DD
Magnets all round then?
Geordie Munro. Let some other club take the risk on the player we have had far to many non scoring strikers. I wouldnt even do a straight swop for Cifti at least Cifti is fit. We seem to be the club to contact if you have a broken down non scoring so called striker you want to move on .If we want to see the guy in the hoops get him on a 6 month loan with a right to buy at the end of the loan period we have wasted to much money on dud strikers. H.H.
bmcuwp
Not sure how to turn off JavaScript , clueless at all this tech stuff.
I only use mobile for cqn, rarely use my laptop at all.
I’d be looking all over league 1 and championship for good striker.
Hooper was excellent for us and the 3 best strikers in premiership this season vardy, Wilson (now injuried) and ighalo have all come from outside the top league bubble.
Surely we can get another decent striker from those 2 leagues. Our investment in hooper worked a treat.
But sure I’m probably talking ballix
P.s
Watched good movie last night, Judge with Robert Duvall. Recommened it.
PROUDBHOY
This should help.
http://m.wikihow.com/Disable-JavaScript
What would help a lot more would be if I could find that exchange between AWE NAW and HT.
Confident they can beat anyone at home! What was that score against St. Johnstone? Away yi go ya furgen bam pot yi.
Rangers assistant manager David Weir expressed his relief after the Gers were drawn against Cowdenbeath at home in the fourth round of the Scottish Cup.
The lower league side convincingly beat Arbroath 4-2 in the third round of the Scottish Cup to ensure progression and the Blue Brazil will travel to Ibrox in the second week of January to face Mark Warburton’s side.
Rangers were the first ball out in the draw and that ensured that the Scottish Championship leaders were to play the tie at home, and Weir is confident that his team can beat anyone at home.
The 45-year-old expects Colin Nish’s team to treat the clash as a cup final and expects a tough tie against the Scottish League One outfit.
Speaking in an interview with the club’s official website, Weir said: “It will be tough, they always are and it’s a massive occasion for them coming to Ibrox and it is their cup final to a certain extent so we will need to watch that.
RELATED NEWS STORIES:
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40 Goals In A Season? Not Got That Many In My Whole Career – On Fire Rangers Striker
Rangers Match With Raith Rovers Postponed
Read more: http://www.insidefutbol.com/2015/12/09/phew-rangers-assistant-expresses-relief-at-home-cup-draw/256737/?#ixzz3tpJTsmlA
Masty
Magners would be better bud. :-)
DELANEYSDUNKY
Or this?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=fq9sjysalqQ
“We seem to be the club to contact if you have a broken down non scoring so called striker you want to move on”
Joe,
Like who?
He’s as non scoring as Henrik was when injured.
I do agree with proudbhoy though. There are leagues outside the top leagues littered with good young rough diamonds.
HH
“If we want to see the guy in the hoops get him on a 6 month loan with a right to buy at the end of the loan period”
Joe,
I take it you don’t understand what the phrase ‘if the price was right’ means?
;))
HH
Bmcuwp
Think I read the exchange , was basically Chinese to me.
My data doesn’t seem to be the problem (not from what Iv noticed anyway) just getting sent to different web address’s and then trying to force it back to CQN usually means I lose where I left off.
Bigger problems in the world but just annoying that it’s only happening since the site supposedly got upgraded.
You’ll not BILLY Hawkins gets his we dig in at the end, if he thinks some will be disappointed even if we do win the treble, and if we do a treble, he can come and watch me party, farking crackpot hurting Hun bassa.
Speaking to the Scottish Sun, former Celtic striker Frank McAvennie has expressed his belief that Celtic have enough about them to win the treble this season, despite failures on the European stage.
When asked if the Bhoys can win the treble, McAvennie said: “They need to focus on winning the Treble and these guys could do it.”
Celtic fell out of the Champions League during the qualification rounds, and has struggled in the Europa League, having been knocked out with one game remaining.
However, the Bhoys still go strong in domestic football, sitting four points clear of Aberdeen at the top of the Premiership table, with a game in hand over their closest rivals.
They are also in the semi-finals of the Scottish League Cup, and are set to play Ross County at the end of January, whilst their quarter-final tie against Stranraer in the Scottish Cup is scheduled for the start of the New Year.
SEE ALSO: Aston Villa outcast linked with Celtic; selling him makes no sense
Ronny Deila’s men will undoubtedly be considered favourites for all three tournaments, and McAvennie believes that they are more than good enough to win the domestic treble, as long as the Bhoys remain focused.
However, even with the treble secured, there will still be a sense that Celtic’s season is a failure, having struggled so much on the European stage.
Fred Quimby
Why didn’t someone tell me it was time to talk p@@@ I’d have joined in, I’m usually doing it all the time according to my mates.
BMCUW
Someone at Guinness with too much time on their hands.
new article posted.
Delany’s Dunky: I’m planning that trip to Stranraer for Jan 10 so let me know if you can secure two tickets for me.
HH
Morning all
Thought I’d bounce this one just in case some had missed it.
At a time when things seemed bleak on here, we can still do what do best.
Attabhoys all round.
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WINNING CAPTAINS on 8TH DECEMBER 2015 7:30 PM
A wee update on the progress re getting the left back who made the pass to Willie Wallace in that Dukla match to get full access to Celtic matches when he gets home from hospital.
Celtic today gave me full access to Celtic TV for Tommy.
We raised around £650 on the blog over the weekend. We will pick up a laptop for Celtic TV viewing and have sorted out the Sky installation for 8th January. We will sort BT when that’s done so he’ll not miss a match.
I went to see the warden to make sure we could get Sky in without any problems. Apparently all the other residents have it already.
As Tommy be online more I’ll even get Paul to remind him of his CQN log-in details! Maybe he’ll pop in here unannounced!
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