Valencia all the way down....

No this isn't my comeback post.
Neither because Valencia is doomed, nor because I still contend they will finish second, nor because I suddenly have too much to do (nonetheless true..).

... Note to Wren and Martin - sometimes neither/nor statements can simply end....

P.S Valencia -> Midfield -> Ever Banega.
All falling into place for you now? Unless you're Valencia that is....

Arsenal go to the Euros

The group stage of the Euros has just concluded. Okay, it concluded yesterday but I couldn't bring myself to write a post as I had had a hectic day at work. Okay, I spent my day stealthily reading ZM and calculating the speed at which the cursor moves in excel (measured as cells/min). Okay, I felt lazy.

So, Arsenal. (Yes, that is my smooth segue into the piece) How have the Arsenal boys been faring at the Euros? Have the shit-ones become less shit or more shit? Have the good ones become better or morphed into shit ones? Is RVP going to leave or is he going to leave? Is Rosicky alive? Such questions need answering and as the Arsenal writer on the blog it becomes my duty to answer them.

1. Theo Walcott. As many would have noted by now, Walcott is a footballer best used from the bench. When the fullbacks are tired and the game is slowing, bring on Walcott to do the one thing he knows best: run. That was exactly what he did against Sweden. His goal was flukey but his assist showed exactly what he is capable of. His quick burst of pace achieved what Milner had been  trying to achieve throughout the game, to beat his fullback and put in a decent cross. Walcott's speed took him past two defender with absolute ease and this, to an extent, excuses his poor dribbling. If RVP stays (of course he is leaving), then the much vaunted RVP Walcott combo would be something to watch out for next season.

2. Ox: Started England's first game against France. England did not see much of the ball and as a result the Ox was not fed, but for a debut he showed excellent composure and was lively when he had the ball. Far from being the end product, but I think Wenger will bring out the best in him. Totally different from Walcott.

3. RVP: RVP looked very average in a very average Netherlands team. Whether they deserve to be called a team is something that can be discussed given the way the played. I thought his movement around the box was very good and showed glimpses of what he did throughout last season. He showed his quality when he deftly turned Hummels and shot with his right foot (right foot!) past Neuer. Will he leave Arsenal? I don't think so. I cannot see him going to another EPL club, and at the rate at which Arsenal are buying players it might even be that we end up convincing RVP of our ambitions.

4. Bendtner: With the purchases of Podolski and Giroud being confirmed I don't see any place for the Bendtner in the squad. It is a pity because I quite liked him for he gave us another option when we found it difficult against teams that parked the bus. Like Messi for Barcelona if you get my drift. The Euros have been a good advert for this guy, an out and out striker who was wasted by Wenger on the wings just to accommodate RVP as the central striker (and a refusal to play with two strikers). Hope we get a good price for him this summer.

5. Rosicky: Didn't watch the game he played, didn't play the game I watched. He was absolutley godlike.

6. Koscielny: A sudden bout of writersblockolepsy meant I had to abandon this post midway and resumed writing it only today, post Spain-France and this means Kos gets to be pilloried and rated and slated in front of a demanding public i.e. the other guy who writes non-Arsenally things. Kos was the only guy in the French side who looked like he knew what he was doing. Although pairing up with Rami for the first time, he showed excellent awareness and concentration to put in a good performance. He tackled, he covered, he intercepted (joint highest interceptions in EPL) and he cleared. A centreback who is calm and confident on the ball. His performance would have helped boost his confidence although his first game at the Euros turned out to be his last game as well.

7. Giroud: Played the last 10-15 mins I think after replacing M'Villa. A striker needs the ball to do things. France needed balls to have the ball. They didn't so he couldn't.

Italy, like a fungus, have grown on me as the tournament progressed. A formation that is an exciting departure from the same ol' same ol', players who look more virile than two schwarzeneggers rolled into one on a strict diet of testosterone (I mean like me), a dreamy midfielder in baggy shorts with pin point passes, and a defender with a calf that could sleep with your mother. How can you not like them?

I hope England get thrashed mercilessly today. And maybe lose the game as well.

Death Metalist Kharkiv

I know what you're thinking…"third straight meme from the guy who hates memes"….either that or "why did big indian booty google search lead here…". I answer that first accusation as well as related complaints about why they're all about del Bosque with the same expressions, with a pithy request to pucker your lips on my posterior coz I'll do what I want on my blog. That being said, they're all about Spain at the Euro so defiant rebelliousness aside, there's cold hard logic to everything we do...much like Del Bosque....'s choice of dressing... This post is going to be flavored by the two major events in my life right now... thai green curry and this wonderful cucumber relish that seems to go with everything.... like seriously, who wuda thunk I could eat corn flakes with cucumber relish. So this post is going to be flavored with my deep insights from the new Be'lakor album for which I've been waiting 3 years, and my unfortunately under hyped Manali - Leh cycling expedition tomorow. 

Let's start with Be'lakor - the most superior songwriting band in Progressive Death Metal today, itself the most superior musical genre. After Frail Tide and Stone's Reach effortlessly overthrew Orphaned Land's Mabool off my P.D.M throne, a seemingly impossible weight of expectation hung on the nebulous mass that was Of Breath and Bone. 1st Listen : Disappointed, too many off-harmonic flats/sharps making it less accessible. 5th Listen : Greatest P.D.M Album ever. 15th Listen : Not as sustainable as Stone's Reach. Deep Insights : Spain might have been disappointing against Italy, they had a less accessible formation, and a few out of place chords (Cesc, Alonso) putting a dampener on an otherwise beautiful graceful harmony. But I'm thinking they are going to grow on me over the length of this tournament. Unfortunately like with OBAB's 15th listen, overall I don't think they have the evergreen and insistent greatness of Euro '08 or WC '10 - burnout loss in the finals looks imminent. 

Staying with Be'lakor, back when Stone's Reach was released, in an ill fated ill advised ill considered illidan Stormrage spate of wanting to spread the word of this vastly superior creation I had forced Countless Skies down quite a few people's throats (it's a song, despite my intense meditation and black magic occult training, I am yet not pagan adept master level 7 so can't manifest the forces of air into a throat-stuffable medium. But Lord Baphomet has assured me it won't be long now....). Unanimous response - music good, growling bad, how nice would it have been if it was the same music with a normal singing dude. Now while I try and respect opinions that differ from mine, even if they are wrong, myopic, and plain stupid... I wasn't sure how to react, apart from calling them wrong, myopic and plain stupid which I eventually did of course, in vastly more unpalatable language. I listen to clean vocal music and growl along, just so I can feel the vocals doing some justice to the rest of the music, to hear that people wish for the opposite is just weird, especially on high fidelity growling production examples like Be'lakor or Amon Amarth. 

Deep Insight Application : There was quite a bit of focus on Spain's forward-less formation, and its vindication upon Cesc's goal, with almost respectable football sites applauding the efficacy of this false 9, and even continued it to the ridiculous extension that it was responsible for Torres' chances after the formation was changed, in having spread play and created spaces. There was big talk about this being a radical shift in formation mindset and teams with MF strength could actually emulate Spain, especially Italy who probably boast the most MF talent in Cassano could drop back as a false 9, and any of their benched MF's like Montolivo, Diamanti, and Nocerino have the talent to make it to the first team. That's Be'lakor with clean vocals. I want non-death metal with death vocals. Spain should play Italy's formation, they have really similar players in defense and MF anchors, and extremely similar problems with lack of quality wingers (in the combined Spain and Italy squad, only Navas can be considered a winger, and he is not quality.....). My ideal Spain team for the rest of the Euro : Ramos, Javi, Pique in 3 man D - Drop Alonso in MF and pivot Busquets, Xavi, and Iniesta with Alba and Pedro providing width - Silva playing in the hole behind Torres. only difference from the Italy team that played Spain is Motta had quite a useless game, Marchisio was further back than ideal though he still played really well I thought, and Pirlo was both the most creative MF as well as their deepest lying - whereas Xavi would probably play like Motta did, floating around ahead of Busquets and saddling most of the creation. For the record, De Rossi had the most passes for Italy. from Centre Back. Roma. Word. 

Deep insight from Leh cycling expedition, it's a difficult task...like winning the Euro. So yea I just wanted to bring up the expedition really.... due to said unfortunate under hyping so far... Leaving tomorrow, probably going to die of atrophied muscle sudden re-usage shock, but either way we return as changed men (amputated) - so will Spain. If they do win this Euro, there's really nothing more Xavi, Iniesta can do, sort of like if Barca had retained the UCL this season. If they lose the Euro, there's going to be a rethink on tiki-taka strategy, a tectonic shift to more direct football. Only way things probably don't change too radically is if they make the Finals against Germany and lose a blistering open end-end encounter predicated on highly technical possession football. Haven't seen that since Valencia-Barca 2-2 in the beginning of the season, so don't think anyone is going to succeed, and so even try, playing Spain at possession football. Thanks to a brilliantly scheduled trip, we start tomorrow and return after the Euro finishes, with no TV access in the middle. At least I miss out on the depressing pathos that is the end of a Spanish Era. even if they win. 

Master Chef Espana

Crashed out of the UCL Semis, lost Puyol and Villa (in terms of importance, no.4 and no.3 resp.ly) but I imagine Spain can claim some moral victory basis Barca/RM being runaway best teams in Europe all season, and a 3-team Europa Semis showdown too.. speaking of moral victories, how about the race against time to secure one by getting the Spain Euro preview before FourFourTwo or Zonal Marking - although I suppose they can't really compete with our brand of hard hitting journalism. Not sure why they even try....chalkboards! like whatever that is so 20th century. Any hard core analysis needs to first be backed up with memes in the fast paced world of today, also the title of my latest book as one of the preeminent management gurus of our time.

Problem 1 : Position - Too few defenders. I'm not counting Raul Albiol who's been a joke ever since whoring himself out to Madrid from the Valencia team that made him what can be fairly painted as a younger faster last-year Pique. I shouldn't be counting Pique either on evidence of this season, but I will, and that gives us 1 CB and 4 Full backs in the squad. Ramos and Pique look to start in a no-brainer but really unbalanced back 2. Pique's spent much of the season playing with Mascherano and Busquets, both Midfielders so he'd be more comfortable with Javi Martinez who has, in a neat coincidence, spent the entire season at CB with Amorebieta the slightly more mobile Pique. Ideally - Javi, Pique at CB. Ramos and Alba at RB,LB. But assuming Ramos comes in at CB, definitely hoping Arbeloa doesn't play, I shudder to think about his fate with Silva/Mata ahead of him instead of Di Maria/Ozil. Juanfran's had a blinding season, but Arbeloa plays for the Real Madrid so I'm again going to head-shakingly assume he's in. Then again, a squad of 10 MF's tempts me to dream of maybe a 3-5-2 with Ramos-Javi-Pique behind Busquets-Alonso-Xavi-Alba-Cazorla playing into Silva-Iniesta. Notice how I've eliminated Chelsea f***s from the lineup - both of whom I assume will start, still workable with Iniesta back to MF and Silva with Torres. But bottom line extremely thin defence, I'm still finding a superlative for "astonishment" to describe the ludicrous picking of Albiol in the squad ahead of Victor Ruiz - with 2 more for CB depth available from a choice of Nacho, Navarro, Javi Lopez, Chico, Ballasteros, Amorebieta some of whom without exaggeration single-handedly dragged their sides through to results (think Kameni in Espanyol 4-5 years ago)

Problem 2 : Age - Everyone's older, Defenders are younger.... Although we needn't look too much into younger defense, that's majorly from the fact that Jordi Alba is 23 - and no real fear of inexperience there given the invaluable season he's had for Valencia.

Problem 3 : Location - So I'm a little biased by the fact that my football formative years were spent watching Spain teams built around Valencia and Italian teams built around Juventus and Roma, I don't insist on things remaining this way - Jordi Alba is on the team, and the only others from Valencia who were even close to being world class enough were Ruiz, ocean of tranquillity Albelda and possibly Soldado especially since Pablo H. hasn't played enough games. But, Euro 2008 had players from 11 different clubs (maximum from Valencia bythway...) - Euro 2012 has 12 players from 2 clubs (Barca 7, RM 5). I'd be ok with this if the argument was that the best players obviously play here. Albiol. Arbeloa. Fabregas.... Really? Best, really?.... Goddamn Albiol's started 8 games in all competitions!!!! I wasn't too kicked about the 4 players from EPL either, but then it was 5 last time so best not to complain too loudly - anyway Silva and Mata are hardly EPLic. 

Problem 4 : Fatigue - Problem with 12 players from RM/Barca is they compete in at least 3 tournaments a year. Barca 5 this season. The starting XI this Euro will have played 7 and a half games more than the starting XI last time. Anyone who followed Bilbao's last 1.5 months of the season could counter rubbish the rubbishing claims of he-men like me about fatigue being in the mind - frankly I think these footballers are a bunch of pansies, just the other day I did like 5 push ups in the morning, went to office worked all day, jogged back home jumping over all car hurdles, played football with pre schoolers coked up on steroids, did a grueling Tai Chi cool down and then danced to my overplayed Britney Spears CD... without complaining about fatigue. Actually make that 2 push ups... sat all day... took an auto home (although it did jump over car hurdles in my defence)... watched pre schoolers play football (which is actually less disturbing than the original image...)...and did a grueling Thai Chips cool down. I'll leave the Britney dancing routine open to discussion in the suddenly rampantly overrun blog comments section. Headline being a lot more games played than when they won the Euro in 2008, just hoping this is only because there's more football these days in general - meaning all the teams are going to have a team coming off more games played in their respective leagues.

Can't see Spain games as any scenario but the Chelsea - Barca semi : waves after waves of Spanish attack smash... on opposing shields. Cazorla as a sub might be interesting, Torres regaining some Atletico-era form would be great, I'm really only watching them for Iniesta Alba link up. The fact that this is just a preview for next season is now pretty much without doubt, with Valencia not telling Barca "he isn't for sale" rather saying their offer is too low or in other words "suuuuure, he's only our best player after Banega... go ahead and take him!!!! but could you throw in a few cents so we can catch the evening bus to our ghetto". I imagine it's strange to suddenly downplay Spain's chances basis Puyol/Villa and general squad balance, when they still definitely have the most talented squad in the competition. But if this UCL and Europa season has taught us anything, talent is usually the problem. I don't suppose I'll win the race against time for the Italy preview before FourFourTwo or Zonal so if they make the connection between post Calciopoli WC success and the current fiasco in Italy... you heard it here first.

Aukat Damemege.

God I hate memes. But they're just so friggin funny! I mean how could you possibly not love watching pompous red potato get, what can only be described by reluctant use of sellout tween net slang, pwned! The fact that a two year old could have created it is irrelevant...maybe... I still hate memes though.

Have a bad feeling about Spain this time, Del Bosque suddenly in the news, slowly reminding me of Nestor Pekerman for WC '06, and we all know what happened then... Valencia is my fav team, and Chelsea probably my most hated, so it's pretty weird for me to say Torres ahead of Soldado is quite obviously the right decision, I think Soldado is made to look a lot better at Valencia than he really is, more so than Llorente, at Bilbao, who I'm hoping against hope is just a plan B. Where the B stands for Boooorrrinngggg. More detailed look at Spain later. For now, let's just think about David Villa's injury, look at the stars and say Whhhyyyyyyyyyyyy Goddd Whhhhhyyyyyyyyyy

Ultracrepidarian Post

Contrary to the misconception that living in N.India belligerently beats your I.Q down to nothingness (i.e contrary to the use of the word "misconception"), I find it to be largely thought provoking on deeply philosophical ideas. For instance, ruminating about your epistemology of "I know I exist, but cannot be sure others' minds exist" hits a huge gnostic roadblock in N.India since you're pretty sure others' minds do not exist... Other mainstay ruminations making for pleasurable scotch-accompanied fireplace conversations include "if life were indeed a computer simulated reality, where can I download a Norton scanner to eliminate the trojan virus known as South Delhi kewl dewd?" and the elaborately worded treatise "Intelligent Design? Haryanvis. Nuff said". But my personal favorite is "Hindi as a language should be allowed to exist. Discuss" with me advocating passionately and plot-twistingly.....that it should. I usually don't need to look beyond arguments of everything's-connected, or each-place-in-food-chain, but in case I had to (i.e in case someone politely pointed out that Tam would take its place at the bottom of the food chain), I'd lead with Hindi having contributed to global vocab the word "Aukat" (although if the definition of global vocab is usage by at least 20% of the earth, then I suppose all of hindi is global vocab). Can't really think of a translation, the tams have gamely tried "dai onnodai moonji ku..." which is "for your face...." (though to really capture the sentiment it should be "for your face and all...") but Aukat is just way more derisive...like just the other day this hot chick wanted to make out and I was all "....please...Aukat...." she readily agreed, in hindsight I think maybe the joke and aukat in question was mine... So here's Aukat Index for La Liga 2011-12. 

Aspirants : Like Brad Pitt Achilles eloquently puts it when posed the deceptively thought provoking rhetoric "why..." - "I wanted more" - these are teams who decided 2010-11 wasn't reflective of their capabilities and steadily climbed during the course of this season to their final league position. The fact that Achilles actually meant a second helping of his Moussaka is now lost to history, perhaps history will also swallow the fact that some of these aspirants only climbed after prostituting themselves out to oil sheikhs... and hopefully also the fact that I had to google "Greek cuisine" to arrive at Moussaka after deliberating for 10mins whether pita bread was a) greek enough and b) good enough for Achilles to want a second helping.... discerning connoisseur that he was, the analogy might have become nonsensical.. So in above graph, we're looking for Blue (final position in 2010-11 season) > Red (average position in 2011-12 season) > Green (final position in 2011-12 seson) - starting with Real goddamn Madrid. Leaving aside big teams (hint : EPL team...red jersey... called Arsenal.... from London, if you're still thinking then I'm jealous of your blissful EPL Ignorance) spewing their platitudes of "we always expect to be up there...beating the best", I imagine it takes an arrogance only RM are capable of - to truly believe they could beat Barca over 38 games. They clawed their way to 1st in Round 9 and grew their roots there for the rest of the season while Barca blustered around them and blew themselves out. Malaga aspired and achieved, after above mentioned prostitution. Osasuna are also here with slightly less ambitious aspirations, on the strength of Raul Garcia. Fortunately or unfortunately, enough articles notice him these days so I don't have to sing his erstwhile underratedness any more, and in general I'll get to player specifics in some other post and focus instead on composite aukat for the entire team. Mallorca and Sociedad also qualify with the former with especially ambitious aspirations, but given their really high standard deviation I'm not really counting them - more on std dev later. 

Slippery Slopers : Think Joe Pesci going after Macaulay Culkin on well greased stairs... it has nothing to do with the next bit, but you have to admit it's a funny image... the next bit is on Blue < Red < Green : teams who started with a gentle slide calmly dismissed by fans as teething issues with some mild expectation downward revision (UCL to Europa to Top Half) before they realized they'd gotten so used to their Mach 3 descent that they actually though they were standing still. Villarreal. Here's me talking about their teething issues and mildly downward revising my expectations for their season. In defence of current-me, I did go back in time to warn past-me about the delusion, but past-me told me to f*** off and die. What. a. dick. The good thing is, I think their teething issues are now done and they're going to top Segunda and even qualify for UCL two years from now with Borja Valero starring in ....who th f*** are you... yea future my ass, f***off and die. geez what. a. dick. yea so anyway Borja Valero starring etc etc. Sevilla and Bilbao the only lucky slippery slopers in the top half. Sevilla I'm really glad, I hope their slope continues till they're in the 4th division, although now that Kanoute has left I might have to downward revise my hatred for them. Bilbao got so caught up in their excellent first half and Europa streak they forgot to look around as Mallorca, Osasuna and Atletico just whizzed past them in the league. I'll leave out Gijon and Santander, I think their Aukat was relegation anyway although poor Santander actually had a lower avg position than Gijon and almost equal to Zaragoza. The real subprime aukat has been Espanol. 8th last season, an avg position of 9th all through this season, and then suddenly just slipped and slid their pebbly way down to 14th in what must have been a really annoying descent constantly meeting teams on their way up and asking "abeyaar, kitna door hai upar tak?" in the typical irritating n.indian "trekker" fashion. I can just imagine fat f***s like Getafe with their iPods and DSLRs huffing and puffing their way past a helpless Espanol. did I say helpless, I meant useless. 

Assorted Awards

Purple Patch Award : Atletico Madrid… as is obvious from the graph, started dismally - under achieved and then just had a rock star second half not realizing their success was a deal with the devil - having sold their soul and happily incubating the cancerous tumor that is EPLism. 

Laugh in the face of Aukat Award : Levante... but they also laugh in the face of youth, good looks, talent, money, and fame. So in the grand scheme of things, maybe the joke's on them... 

Strict Aukat Adherance Award : Valencia, who desperately try to escape their 3rd place limbo each season by selling off their best players in the hope that they drop to 4th where they're sure the air is a little fresher. Alba and Rami are probably going to be their roll of the dice this transfer season. The deeply disturbing thing if this were true, is that Miguel who's available on free transfer may be retained to boost their chances of dropping position - and Albelda might be released on Bosman!!! 

Encephalogram Award : Betis, standard deviation of 4.13 just had noooo idea what their Aukat was this season, having just been promoted. Zig zagged their way to an average position of 11 (having been top of the league twice) but then lost it a bit and ended up at 13. Bilbao had a std.dev of 3.4 on the strength of a miserable first 6-7 games, a brilliant mid season that saw them even reach 5th, and then a steady loss of cabin pressure while they snoozed through the final 3rd of the season. Positions 1-3 and 17-20 have the lowest std. dev. in the league, so I guess it shows where the league is really competitive. Barca and Valencia are 1 and 2 in terms of least std.dev. so that also shows who calmly accepted their career fate and concentrated on arts and crafts instead. 

Aukat Revision for 2012-13 : RM no change (2). Barca no change (1). Valencia haha. Malaga change (4). Atletico change (4). Levante stfu and sit (14). Osasuna no change (9). Mallorca marginal change (13). Sevilla slide (9). Bilbao up (5). Getafe meh (11). Sociedad meh (12). Betis up (11). Espanol down (13). Rayo up (16). Zaragoza same (13). Granada down (19).

EPL Rapture Revisited

Nothing quite reminds me as much of my previous posts as other insignificant unknown stuff I've done that nothing reminds me of either... and so on so forth till there's a rift in the wormhole that interpolates a timeline reminding me of last year's ambitious EPL Rapture series (although given it was a 4-part post, it's slightly less ambitious than suffixing "S01E01" on ill fated ventures like "Goal Maal" by Dr.P.Henry fellow writer) after Barca blew EPL kingpins ManU out of the sky. Firstly, let it not be said that I hadn't warned you about important games and post expectation bell curve meaning low probability of any word on the match itself although admittedly I did manage my 2 cents on the relegation battle which featured a lower probability on the curve than a meaningless Chelsea-Bayern final. On that note, you've probably seen the game yadayada I have nothing to add, except that we are all going to die... still want to waste precious moments reading a match review? Why not instead invest in a few moments going through our analysis of why we are all going to die .....knowledge is power, and the last thing you want after ascending the 8 circles of hell is to find the Merovingian between you and the pearly gates sipping wine and saying "and thees is ow you come to me? wisout why... wisout power???" Just to recap, we are all going to die.

To the grudging credit of most Chelsea fans, none of them are shameless enough to claim they won this game fair and square. They ground out an ugly grimy sludge concocted with the oozing bubbling congealed mass of their blood, sweat, phlegm, and opponent voodoo extracted from the lone hair on Robben's head. Not the prettiest sludge you could picture (yes there do exist pretty sludge picturizations, I for one maintain the saliva of Cameron Diaz brewed with the vitreous humor of Charlize Theron to be quite a heady mixture...), and perhaps also a slight exaggeration of real events (Robben has 2-3 hairs at least...) but the point is no one's really debating who played the better football that night, and that's a big step forward at least. Now we can get past arguing about defining "better" football, and smoothly transition to the heart warming conclusion that good football finishes last so to stop wasting time dribbling balls around orange cones and instead start pounding the gym and making appointments with bionic alloy implant surgeons (Chelsea is one step ahead, no more implants in calves, thighs or feet for power muscle performance...that is so 20th century. Instead remove the brain and replace it with a block of alloy that then slowly distributes alloy to all parts of the body, especially to the part that doesn't question why distribution happens from the skull and not the heart....). So while Chelsea fans wont be writing blogs about how they destroyed Bayern and brought about Bundesliga Rapture (coz I'd sue them for plagiarism...), let's not kid ourselves into thinking the Rapture isn't upon us. If Mourinho winning Liga, and Simeone beating Valencia and Bilbao to the Europa were the first few broken seals no one really paid attention to, Chelsea beating Barca and Bayern (although with small picture in mind, I do hate Bayern quite a bit...) to the UCL is the penultimate seal. I'm still waiting for England, France, or Portugal to beat Spain and Italy to the Euro next month - before I formally pronounce apocalypse, give away all my ....some of my... sell at reasonable rates all my stuff and head for the Himalayas.

Unfortunately, from many failed attempts I've come to realize it's hard to convince people the apocalypse is upon them without hard proof (although what more proof I needed last year than the fact that I'd been focused and productive at work for 2 days straight, I'll never know...). It's almost as if people are unwilling to accept that their world is going to end in a fiery ball of flames, geez big deal there's always the option of divorce later y'know.... and swinging... but back to flame balls, I figured just saying "they play ugly non-football" wasn't much better than growing a beard and walking the street with that double sided board saying repent repent end is nigh, although I personally find those street doomsayers quite terrifying and convincing enough make me reevaluate my priorities.... I now brush twice a day, sometimes.. So I pulled the stats on the past 10 years UCL winners, and instead of "ugly non-football" I'm using the convenient proxy of Chelsea not even being very good at the ugly non-footballness betrayed by their 6th place finish in the ugly non-football league (which is understandable given they're up against the champions of ugly non-football like ManU and Arsenal). The UCL winners of the last 4 years had all topped their respective country's leagues. The worrying thing is that the first half of the decade didn't have such an obvious correlation - starting off with Madrid (5th in Liga) beating Valencia to the 2000 title. Compare in this 1st graph, the 4 UCL teams of 2000 with 2008 and tell me which makes more sense...

Obviously some leagues are more competitive, it's purportedly harder to come 3rd in EPL than in Liga (why this is hogwash is for another day) so check the 2nd graph on points, since average points of all leagues (except the eastern european ones of course) are very comparable - meaning competitiveness of a league eventually evens out as we take in lower percentiles of team positions. First half of the decade, UCL winners consistently score less points than the runner up and semi finalists, 2nd half of the decade reverses and the team good enough to win the UCL is obviously good enough to win its league and score more points on average than the other UCL top 4. 2012 reversal might just be the Liverpool 2005 or AC 2007 one shot fluke, but in a radical twist to the entire tale - to be honest I kinda really liked the UCL of the first half of the decade when Attack v/s Defense nemesis contests were always Liga v/s Serie A, like the brilliant Juve 2003 campaign where they beat Barca in the quarters and then Madrid in the semis (before losing out to ugly AC in the finals, also the year where Inter defended like in an LOTR last stand scene and beat a completely marauding and dominant Valencia...probably the last truly world-class Valencia team). But Italian defending was a pleasure to watch, technically sound, positionally impressive, and wonderfully calm on the ball under pressure in dangerous positions.. Now Attack vs Defense is Liga v/s EPL and its a stain on football, and not the nice flavored stain that you want to finger and lick when noone's watching, think more oil spill killing all supply of oxygen and causing asphyxiated death (as in I want to choke myself to death just to stop watching them...). So anyway...that's kinda it... if you were looking for a key takeaway, how about the image of Cameron Diaz saliva and Charlize theron eye-goo....

Stress-Traumatic Post Disorder

It's strangely popular practice for some reason, to measure the success of our intellect by educational degrees, work achievements, research papers, and the ability to win Settlers of Catan with a gap of 6 points (popularity of said practice is still being evaluated, although now it strikes me that the popularity and its status as practice are probably inversely proportional) - I measure the intellect's successful plunge across another sewer flooded week by the number of times I feel like Lucky Eddie from Hagar, 0 : Sped across sewer in James Cameron's Mariana trench probe. 2-3 : Swam across sewer with snorkel on back of a turtle 5-6 : Swam across sewer without snorkel and with Turtle on back >10 : Drowned halfway, eaten by turtle (monstrous sewer turtle, it's not completely humiliating...). This week's wonderful Lucky Eddie episode involves our protagonist being told by Hagar to keep a lookout on the pier, with invaders expected. Invading hordes proceed to flood the village by Horse, Foot, Jeep, Helicopter, Jetpack and pillage away while Eddie watches the pier stoically. Eddie - me. Pier - Zaragoza. Pillage Village : Villarreal. Where...the...f%^&....did that come from!!!

In hindsight it could have seemed a bit optimistic to expect them to take at least a point off Europa Champions Atletico - who had absolutely nothing to play for, were coming off the back of a successful and tiring European campaign - but I wouldn't really know, since there's a huuuge banner saying "SEGUNDA" that's blocking my hindview mirror (that sounded much closer to an enema than I'd expected....) It's been 6 days and I'm still in shock, a looottt more in shock than last year's Deportivo relegation - that was a team whose golden age players were gone, and were playing without the rich talented squad Villarreal have. This shock is more like their Galician rivals Celta Vigo going down in 2003-04, but that was just the professional shock of a really good team going down, this was personal.... this was one of my teams! (yes I have sooo many teams. If you have a problem with that, what do you think of your mom having sooo many men.) After that unwarranted but vastly satisfying jab, which wasn't very good come to think of it, let's get to the conspiracy theories. I was really looking for some dirt on Granada aka ugly ass team playing ugly ass football, but unfortunately there came a barrage of dirt on Zaragoza (yes another team I like, if you have a problem with that, you're.....like.....stupid........there I said it). 

After that unwarranted vastly satisfying AND quite good jab, let's get to the conspiracy theories... Rayo tells Granada that they're safe. Villarreal tells Atletico they have nothing to play for, and Getafe have 3 men sent off against Zaragoza... Zaragozan referee apparently "screws" Granada in the previous round resulting in their loss to Real Madrid, a fixture Granada had obviously taken for granted to be a facile victory - not unreasonable given a high flying season where they've scored 11 goals less than CRonaldo alone. What a sham, I can't believe this ugly ass team gets to stay in Liga! or to rephrase, I can't believe one more ugly ass team gets to stay in Liga (a close thing between Levante, Sevilla, and Granada.... and I'm not really getting into Levante's blinding season...). But back to the Villareallycrap, what a woefully hilariously off-the-mark post this was, I assume at the time I would have been hoping my caustic tough-love would spur the team on to realizing their potential and winning back my favor... now I sadly conclude our 1 reader wasn't the Villarreal coach.. 

I can't believe nothhinggg changed from that pathetic game against Barca, unless you count Rossi and Nilmar missing pretty much most of the season after that. Enough dandruff has been shaken from Lotina's target-marked scalp, so I'll take the high road and... WTF WERE THEY THINKING????? Anyway, slight silver lining is both Depor AND Celta are on their way back! How awesome is that. Villarreal B get demoted to the third division since two teams can't compete in the same league, I was wondering if it might be allowed for them to get promoted up to Liga? Villarreal B in Liga, Villarreal in Segunda.... but possible ruling aside, there's also the small matter of them being 15 points off the last playoff spot, with 4 games in hand.... impossible? maybe Lotina can help, after all I thought Villarreal getting relegated was impossible.... ok improbable... actually it looked quite likely but WTF WERE THEY THINKING!!!!!! LOTINA???? Joins Hiddink, Koeman, and Ranieri in my blacklist.

P.S : The Champions League final is tonight, did anyone notice? Most inconspicuous UCL Final in modern times! Chelsea probably going to do what they do best. Nothing. but end up winning anyway... Really hope Toni Kroos starts, coz me likes what me sees (and I'm not licking my lips while saying that, so don't imagine it...)

Did you know...

..that Arsenal have the highest short passes per game in the league? Putting the ball on the ground and passing it around has been central to Arsenal's style of play and this particular stat shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who has watched even the odd Arsenal game. Wenger's answer when he was asked what he looks for in a player is unforgettably sparse - a good first touch and a good pass. That is all. (If I were the interviewer my follow up question would have been "Walcott?", but never mind) His belief in building a team with such players shows through in the statistics. At 503 passes per game, Arsenal sit comfortably at the top of EPL, followed by Man City, Swansea and Man Utd. What about the passmasters of La Liga, I hear you La Liga supremacists holler. Surely the El TechincalWizards dwarf the English Ogres when it comes to playing football the way it should be played? Surely?

Combining the teams of La Liga and EPL, quite expectedly, Barca come tops at a mammoth 657 passes per game thereby annoyingly skewing my graph and messing up my y-axis. I have omitted them in the graph to make things more readable (and competitive). Next in line, albeit a distant second, is Arsenal beating some obvious contenders like Madrid, Bilbao and Valencia (who are some way down at 393) very, very comfortably if I may add. What is striking is for all the depictions of the Spanish league as the short ground passing, highly technical, pure footballing league and the EPL as physical brutes plying their Rugby trade in the wrong sport, it is the EPL sides which dominate the top 10 positions. 

I will have to admit I was very surprised to see Liverpool and Chelsea beat a team like Bilbao who are way more exciting to watch the mind-numbing, paint drying style of play of the English sides like Liverpool. So what explain this discrepancy between numbers and experience? Maybe short passes don't measure what we intend to measure, namely the attractive style of passing football that we here like? Or it could be that looking at a single stat in isolation leads to missing the bigger picture and perhaps if we look at short passes along with number of crosses, zones of attacking play, number of touches in zones, shots etc. we will get a more holistic picture. Or maybe whoscored's definition of short is not short enough? Or maybe my experience is wrong? I don't know. All I know is Arsenal top the EPL when it comes to playing some neat, tidy, short passes (and are also third in the league) and that is very faith-reaffirming.


Data from the wonderful www.whoscored.com

Narzidamus Returns

Last day of football till Euro (not remotely interested in the UCL finals, though I'll watch it anyway just to boo both of them, and still haven't found a streaming site for the Copa del rey finals) so here's my customary lord of destiny post for the critical games in Liga and Serie A tonight. Far as Liga goes, I see no reason to change the final round predictions I made last week - though on review there's far too much dollop of hopeful biasedness, in the form of Zaragoza beating Getafe (who admittedly have nothing left to play for, but are in good form and have an annoying propensity to beat teams I like) , Villarreal beating Atletico (little less irrational since I expect Malaga to thump Gijon and seal UCL, while Bilbao should win at Levante though I'm going for a draw there - in essence sealing Atletico's Europa place regardless) and Rayo beating Granada (my head says Draw, but that means Rayo goes down and Granada stays up...so some generous dollopness required here) - these aside, only other result I'd change from original prediction basis last week's performance is probably Sevilla snatching a late draw at Espanyol instead of losing.

Over to Serie A, where I need to significantly up my prediction accuracy,

AC Novara - pointless win for AC

Juve Atalanta - Win seals an invincible season

Cesena Roma - Roma win another pointless game to end a miserable season for them, no Europe next season

Parma Bologna - could be an entertaining draw, but purely on form Parma win, no real consequence though

Catania Udinese - Udinese win and seal UCL

Chievo Lecce - on to the 4 games of actual consequence, last week I'd imagined Lecce to take a point at Fiorentina and win at Verona to escape relegation at the expense of Genoa, but after losing to Viola I'm not so sure anymore. I'm going for a draw, which means Lecce go down to Serie B

Genoa Palermo - Palermo slipping down steadily, but should do enough to grab a draw - if Genoa lose this and Lecce win at Verona, Genoa get relegated on goal difference, but can't really see Lecce winning...

Lazio Inter - game of the night, Europa league up for grabs, no room for biasedness since I hate both teams, and I think they've both burned themselves out in the past 2 months so dull draw for me, so in hindsight I guess it's not game of the night after all. no europe for Inter next season haha stupid Inter.

Napoli Siena - Napoli win and seal Europa.

Birds of a Feather

(continued from title).... get cooked and eaten together in the same way, but on different days... Across this season, Bilbao has always struck me as a Valencia without brains, but with much more talented attackers in Susaeta and Muniain. That aside, these are the two most similar teams in the league (apart from Real Madrid and Sevilla, coincidence I hate them both?...I think not..) and I'll get to some nice proof of that later on (from the wonderful whoscored website which is an intellectual masturbator's ultimate porn, leaving aside actual porn of course - but since I've used the word intellectual it has to be well structured in terms of plotline and philosophical dialogue). The post isn't to say two of my favorite sides play really similar football - something that should be a given for people who support teams for style of football hence my portfolio of Roma, Valencia, Villarreal, Barca, Zaragoza, Juve, and of course the holy mother may she rest in peace early-2000's Ajax. The post is to wonder why teams don't learn from the success or failure of their twin teams, especially teams with cerebral coaches like Bielsa - Atletico Madrid punking Bilbao 3-0 in the Europa finals with just about an identical performance to their 4-2 and 1-0 punking of Valencia in the semis (and I guess philosophically from the Barca-Chelsea but that's only to bring up Barca in this post to catch some google search hits - since gameplay wise there isn't really similarity to that game or to Barca in general).  

Valencia and Bilbao have almost identically high % of open play goals, and low % of fast breaks and set pieces. Leaving RM/Barca aside, Val/Bilbao both have the highest avg possession,and the highest pass completion %. They have scarily identical shot zones : 8% in the 6 yard box (highest in the league) and only 38% outside the box (2nd lowest only to who else but Barca). They play an identical lone striker 4-3-3 with 1 side of the field marshalled by a more-defensive wingback behind the more talented winger (Bruno/Pablo and Aurtenetxe/Muniain) while the other side depends on hugely versatile players who play excellently off each other (Alba/Mathieu and Iraola/Susaeta). And they lost to Atletico in identical fashion. Valencia's 4-2 loss was because of a static right flank (R.Costa is really a center back, and Feghouli is a bald loser) and a static under manned MF (Topal in his new man-marking avatar, and Costa woefully out of form) - all the right changes for the 2nd leg in a 3-man MF of evergreen awesomeness Albelda, my new favorite Sergio Canales, and neat and tidy Parejo - problems? R.Costa replaced the faster and positionally brilliant Victor Ruiz, while Barragan is too defensive to play against a bus-parking team. Lost 1-0 to tight, efficient and admittedly tactically superior Atletico. 

Thus came the Bilbao-Atletico game and Bilbao had the chance to look at the Valencia-Atletico mirror and realize it was their reflection, or they could think it was someone else. The previews made a big deal about Bielsa watching Atletico tapes and making his players watch tapes of who they'd be marking or playing around. He should have spent all that time watching Valencia play Atletico and making his players watch corresponding Valencia players. He should have seen R.Costa/Barragan get totally overrun by Arda Turan and Parejo get bossed by Gabi. They should have thrown Iturraspe back into a 3-man D to allow Iraola the freedom to get beyond Arda, while allowing Ander.H to drop back away from Gabi's attention instead of counting on him for drive and width. Valencia suffered from Albelda getting pulled away from Canales too often in attack, and getting pulled towards the wings when Turan/Adrian broke on the counter thus exposing the CB's to Falcao and Diego - further case for a 3-man D to watch for Atletico's fast breaks. The problem with watching Atletico's tapes is they play a much less compact game in Liga, case in point Malaga game last week. 

A lot was made of Amorebieta (who both the commentators insisted on calling "Amorebiate") having a bad game, which I think was unfair given he often had to cover for Aurtenetxe being out of position. Player of the game : Arda Turan. Most of Bilbao's moves come down the right wing (Just like Valencia's left wing) with Iraola and Susaeta (my fav. Bilbao player along with Javi) - they were just completely quiet with Arda's off the ball movement being incredible - consequently all Bilbao could muster was from Muniain down the left exchanging quickly with De Marcos and pulling Aurtenetxe into a more attacking position than I've ever seen him occupy. Gabi bossed Herrera just like he did Parejo (compared to Tiago geez what are they still doing with that moron), in what turned out to be a painful replay of the semi-final. Bilbao beat Atletico 3-0 in Liga, Valencia beat them 1-0, but neither Bilbao nor Valencia shed their naivete in thinking teams don't regress tactically in knockout fixtures so I guess they're identical in this too. Then again, Atletico were really good to watch before Simeone came in with his blood/guts/heart/courage/freedom speeches so major sighage this season on the result vs gameplay debates.

 P.S : The part about liking a certain gameplay and hence following many teams with similar styles - and for Arsenal fans claiming they are the Liga-ic team of EPL : Arsenal have the third most number of crosses/game in the EPL (next only to Lpool and ManU obviously), and the highest % of fast break goals in EPL (almost double that of the next highest), ironically they have the same % of fast break goals as the highest in Liga.... which would be? yep, Real Madrid and Sevilla. How awesome is whoscored.com!!

If at first you don't....

If at first you don't succeed, retroactively redefine KPIs to stoop to level of failure (which in hindsight seems too obvious a corpo-ism to not be some dilbert comic somewhere, no I don't think dilbert is funny, how'd you guess….), now that I've vaguely connected the post title and the cartoon, let me proceed to spin a yarn that dangerously flirts with the most thoroughly frayed strings of relation. Last week, most teams sealed their destinies, barring anything dramatically..well..dramatic on the last day - I explore whether they feel a sense of achievement (however trivial) considering their expectations at the beginning of the season. 

Messi : is going to be Pichichi and Golden Boot, Cron beat him to it last year and Barca said the league was more important. Cron beats him to the league this year, and Barca saying Pep's and Messi's moments are more important. If you don't play to win, why play at all, Barcelona....they always win. 

Valencia : 3rd place ist unseren. Heil. They finished 3rd last year 25 points off the top, KPI this year would have been 3rd but only by 10-15 points, and UCL Quarters. They've been 3rd 28 rounds of the season, an avg position of 3.25, made it to the Europa semis, but finished thirty-friggin-six points off the top - B. 

Malaga : seal 4th, considering their final fixture. Finished 11th last year, but UCL qualification would have been minimum KPI, should be celebrating given a strong finish after a miserable start - B +. 

Atletico : I see them losing their last game in the interest of my Villarreal fandom so 7th place. Given their squad, UCL qualification should have been a KPI, although through the course of their dismally inconsistent season I suppose that was downward revised. Europa finals tonight will tell - ?. 

Bilbao : Going to finish below their last year's position BUT Qualified already for Europa next year, in 2 Cup finals, 1 of which I expect them to win. Destroyed the most despicable team on the planet ManU. AND Bielsa not poached by Barca. A++. 

Mallorca/Levante : Finished 1 and 2 points respectively off relegation last year - this year looking set for top half and quite possibly Europa for both! A. 

Granada : Looking on track to fulfill my bold prediction of dropping from 15 to 18 and relegation, especially after their quite brilliant ban-monging after the RM game. But they were one of the promoted teams so meh KPI couldn't have been much more than 17 - B - . 

Villarreal : F. 

Zaragoza : Not there yet but....What..an..escape. My byutiful Zaragoza. Despite lowly Granada casting aspersions on the Zaragozan referee in the RM game, this has been a stunning fightback by Zaragoza in 2012. That being said, they finished 13th last season and always play really brilliant football, so I imagine their KPI was top half. So wonderful escape (not yet final obviously...) aside, C+. 

And on the topic of base humans feeling happy about trivial achievements : who noticed I got 8/10 right on Liga Quiniela as opposed to Phil Ball 5/10! My 6/10 on Serie A has noone to compare with, so I'm just going to assume that's awesome too. More on Serie A next week after the final positions, but for now let me just say.... Juventus. Booyakasha. and of course this really heart warming and nostalgic (if you're a fan...and I suppose after this invincible season there's going to be no dearth of "diehard" Juve fans)  goal.com timeline too. 

Neither win Norwich

In a rare mood of optimism not commonly observed among Arsenal fans I had imagined that Arsenal would swat the just promoted unheard of club from the hinterlands of East Anglia (me neither) like the undeserving, above-weight punchers that they are and that I could sing paeans of such an imperious victory in a celebratory post cleverly titled "Nor which?". But, like the second half of the opening line of that infamous soliloquy,  it was not to be.

Arsenal went into the game with their fate in their hands: win the next two games, seal the third spot beyond doubt. One would have thought such an incentive would have spurred the players on to come out of the blocks flying, get to top gear and so on. For about two minutes, it looked so. Just after the first minute, Benayoun scored from a pearler of a curler, drifting in from the left and finishing in the top right corner. 1-0 to the Arsenal. My optimism doubled and I opened my browser and typed in the words 'Nor which?'. (It said webpage not found. I had to then go to blogpost, sign in, click on create new post and type in the text box for titles the words 'Nor which'. But brevity is the soul of wit yeah.)

Having done that, Arsenal decided to relax and stroll around a bit having collectively come to the conclusion that the Norwiches of the world don't have it in them to stage any sort of comeback. Ramsey dawdled, Song cantered, Vermaelen started playing centre forward. Or def midfielder. And at times, right back. Norwich happily dominated the midfield and sent forth waves of attack that was entirely our doing. If we had kept pressing and kept our concentration things wouldn't have snowballed the way they did. Some idiot shot at Szcz who fumbled with the ball and let it bounce off his hands into the net. This gave Norwich the impetus and drive to attack even more. Arsenal continued to stay back and invited pressure. Ramsey went AWOL. Some sloppy passing in midfield resulted in a 3 on 2 situation and some other idiot shot at Gibbs, whose block looped over a stranded Szcz into the goal. 2-1. I closed my laptop.

To Arsenal's credit, they improved massively after the break although admittedly it was very easy to improve upon their first half performance. Ox was brought on to make the midfield more direct and give us more presence and Ramsey was taken off. The substitution took some time as Ramsey was nowhere to be found.

Right after the introduction of Ox we had more possession in the midfield and it looked like there was a bit more fluency in the way we played. Gervinho, who had earlier joined the anonymousolics anonymous along with Ramsey, became livelier as the game progressed and made a name for himself (heh). Rosicky began to play with more freedom and moved further up front. It looked to be a matter of time before Arsenal equalised. A matter of time went by and Song and RVP did their chip and volley routine to make it 2-2. Song dinked the ball over defence, like he has done n times this season, to find RVP who cleverly beat the offside trap (n times) and volleyed with his magic left foot (n+1 times) giving the goalkeeper no chance. Arsenal seemed to have learnt from their mistake and instead of relaxing continued to pile on the pressure and attacked in hordes. Gervinho did well on the left flank, beating two defenders with ease but only to waste it on a poor final ball. Coequlin bombed forward from the right, Vermaelen continued to play centre forward. Everyone was pushing for that winning goal and with so many options to score, it was RVP who scored again. Someone shot (think Gervinho), RVP collected the rebound and slammed it into the net to make it 3-2. I wept in joy and opened to check whether a draft of my post had been saved.

With 10 mins to go and Arsenal being Arsenal I knew nothing was certain. Song having put a stellar pass earlier on decided to keep going for the showboating spectacular goodness all throughout resulting in his giving away the ball in the most inexperienced of fashions. He lost the ball in our half, the Norwich goons were only too happy to try their luck one last time. Some idiot throughballed, another idiot shot past Szcz from a decently tight angle. 3-3. I wept. Songinho had let us down yet again.

Things went pear shaped post match yesterday but today's results have brought some much needed cheer. 10 man Spurs drew with Villa and as added bonus cheer that little fack Danny Rose was sent off. Newcastle lost to City and that means it is the our fate in our hands situation all over again. Win the West Brom away game, finish third irrespective of other results. Draw, then finish fourth and hope Bayern can beat Drogba (i.e Chelsea). Lose, weep.

I don't think I want to think of titles for the West Brom post yet.

SMBC - Saturday Morning Bull Crap

Liga fans (complement Madrid/Barca) like me are always contemptuously dismissive of morons saying Liga isn't too competitive, at least those morons who base this on no teams being capable of challenging the top 2 for the title. We repeat the "Liga starts at no.3" and evade the damning pathetic defeatism by happily pointing out RM/Barca would run away with the top 2 positions in any league (and though a Clasico final would have been a nice cherry to prove that point, the fact that it was popped by Chelsea/Munich in a knockout fixture proves nothing much). But the competitiveness of the league really comes to light when trying to predict results. This flowed into my g.reader a few hours after my liga table projections, and I thought it was an obvious and simple but quite nice thing to do, check % prediction accuracy and get others to do the same - especially if the same person does it across leagues, % variation could be used as an indicator of unpredictability of the league rather than just ignorance of the predictor. Of course I don't have the energy to predict fixtures from 2-3 leagues every single week, so I'll just do it this one time and mathematically induct the results to be true for all cases, especially now that I've started the post off with a neat 3-color squiggly graph which is just about arcane enough to need a second look for parameter comprehension. 

On the whole, the graph shows Liga to have the lowest point difference slope once you remove the first 2 teams - that they're the most competitive. EPL looks as mismatched overall as an F1 race with its associated pointless battles here and there, barring a quite meaningless 10-14 squabble, and  slightly less meaningless 15-18 curfuffle. Serie A might have the highest average point difference from team 20 among the 3 leagues, but the slope of the graph right from 3 - 17 is almost as low as Liga, evident from Novara, Cesena sealing relegation almost 3 weeks back, and everyone else climbing over each other for position (mainly by losing games from impossibly advantageous positions). On the strength of this conclusion that EPL is far too obvious to bother wasting time predicting (and the less important but disclosure obligatory "I know diddly squat about EPL"), here's my Serie A Quiniela to check predictability vs Liga (or my ignorance vs Liga)

Home	Away	Result for Home Team
Lecce	Fiorentina	D - Hope Delio Rossi is happy now
AS Roma	Catania	W - God what a boring game this fixture was earlier
Siena	Parma	L - Hate to admit Giovinco, Biabiany have been \m/
Atalanta	Lazio	L - Irritatingly efficient Lazio, on ascendancy lately
Bologna	Napoli	L - like duh
Novara	Cesena	D - but WHO CAAARREESSSSS
Palermo	Chievo Verona	D - both sliding down happily
Udinese	Genoa	W - byebye Genoa, Lecce to survive
Cagliari	Juventus	L - booyakasha chaammpiiioonnssss
Internazionale	AC Milan	W - day has come when I support Inter…

Los Che Ergo Sum Tertia

Excellent mid week round of La Liga on Wednesday, not even remotely because there were some lovely matches yielding exciting unexpected results, but really because the sorely used and abused (much like the phrase used and abused...) title race is finally over. Who it is over in favor of is irrelevant, not even remotely because the team I support had false started and been disqualified from the race, but really because RM won and I'd rather not admit the point relevant thus having to give them any credit. What's relevant though, is that focus has finally shifted to the real La Liga, Valencia down to Santander in a two week finale that sees 5 teams fighting for UCL, all the way down to Sociedad at 14th place fighting for Europa, and Granada below them at 15th still in the 5-team relegation curfuffle. After Valencia lost the critical Malaga fixture while their sole Indian fan missed the game on account of some Himachal snow prancing, a strong comeback 4-0 against Osasuna (who themselves have followed up a really strong 3 months with a home stretch slip up lately) sees Che almost cement 3rd.There's been enough and more said about Valencia's raison d'etre in Liga nowadays, an argument mainly hinging around the fact that they're not good enough to fight for the title, yet too good to ever slip below 3rd - an argument they've tried to rubbish by showing they can quite easily slip to 5th and depend on the incompetence of others to push them back up.

But despite Che fans being quite unforgiving this year about any off game (or...5 straight off games....) in a more unreasonable manner than usual (tell that to Genoa, Roma, and probably Delio Rossi now - each trying to outdo each other in a bid to attract TV viewers to switch from Primetime soaps to Serie A) Valencia's realistic raison d'etre is to be a placeholder in Liga, the pace setter that the league can try and follow, a pace setter that the league leader would be in any other league. They've secured UCL and need 1 more win to seal automatic UCL, although I think they really need just the point. Bilbao have already booked their Europa spot since they're in the Copa del Rey finals so I expect them to cool off and save their breath for Europa finals. I'd hoped Atletico would go for Levante's jugular and along with Mallorca finally boot Levante out the European spots they've usurped undeservedly since... round 1 (so maybe not "undeservedly", but I just don't like their faces...) - but now it doesn't seem possible given Atletico / Mallorca have tough fixtures (Malaga & Villarreal / Levante & Madrid) and the fact that Levante have a better head-head if they end up level on points. So my projection for end of season table - almost unbiased logic-centered projection, if you leave aside the fact that Zaragoza win both their games and Granada lose both theirs to ensure my byutiful Zaragoza escape relegation..... Zaragoza meet Santander whose raison d'etre is to lose, but then finally Getafe, whose raison d'etre is to piss the sh*t out of me so fingers crossed. And yes, this post's raison d'etre was to use raison d'etre as much as possible...

Away Sweet Away from Home

At the cost of sounding the whiny-ass-b**ch that I'm trying not to be after Barca's mournful exit to blue pig dogs, I'm going to have to exhume the dessicated corpse of UEFA's Away Goals system. First the facts, let not Chelsea fans kid themselves that they won 3-2 on aggregate, the game was won 2-2 on Away goals, the Torres goal was for all practical purposes after the game was over, one of those keeper-comes-up-for-last-try counter-goals that are more a final whistle than the "knockout punch" a winning goal might otherwise have been. So now that we've established game was won on away goals, time to do some exhuming. The objective is to incentivize away teams to attack, make the game more exciting, and bottom line : reward teams that played better overall i.e in harder conditions (away). I'd argue what it's really done is make the home team in the 1st leg become more defensive, I'd much rather take a 0-0 at home into the return leg than a 2-1 or maybe even 3-1 victory. All 3 objectives therefore mega fail at very first hurdle, and I venture this is so because of 3 main flawed assumptions. 1) Home is inherently a huge advantage, for all teams 2) Easier to score at home and (therefore) concede away. 3) Goals scored under harder circumstances are the best proxy for "better team" overall.

The graph above shows how great a home advantage is just within each league, I find the results even more stark when I consider cross-league encounters like UCL, and Europa (but given these are flavored by having to play under the rule being analysed, it seemed a biased sample.) - for eg: Valencia have lost 24% of their Home games, and 29% of their away games so I've taken their net home advantage as 5%, Averaging this out for all of La Liga gives 23% while for Serie A it's 21%. My point is not only EPL at 14%, but also the league wise differences in number of teams that are actually better away than home - both showing the inherent assumption of Home being advantageous to not be true universally and more a function of football philosophy/style. Notable names in the right hand graph? The 3 league leaders Real Madrid, Juventus (who haven't lost any games so...), Manchester United - and before some smartass says "hey, that proves the best teams do better away hence Away goals is logical", that's a tautology of "The team that played better away, is the better team..because.... better teams play better away.." we're talking about the rule emanating from an assumption that Home teams are at an advantage. Clearly not, in some places more than others. like with Blue english pig dogs. Oh did I mention, EPL is also the only league (of these 3) where teams 11-20 travel better than 1-10 (something I would have found intuitive for all leagues)

2) Scoring and Conceding. I'm taking this separately and not a duh-sequitor from the "Home teams Win" assumption, since the rules prefer a team that loses 2-3 away and wins 1-0 at home. The graph on the left : Blue is Avg Home Goals / Game minus Avg Away Goals / game, red is similar for conceding though. My reading, especially since now overall goals scored / game bias gets removed, Liga teams score .6 goals less away than home, and concede .6 goals more away than home, compared to EPL at .4 - again saying the popular wisdom that teams score more at home, and concede more away is less a factor in EPL than Liga. Serie A is a really nice median column in almost every graph we see, testament to its simultaneously technical yet pragmatic style, but more on that some other time.

3) Away goals for the "Better Team" - Before quite advertantly (whose red squiggle informs me shockingly that it isn't really a word) opening the Pandora's box of mother of all existentialist footballism questions "How do you define a better team", whether in terms of possession, passes, chances etc - all of which are way beyond the intellectual capabilities of someone writing a blog post from office (does that explain all the extensive excel work by the way.... imagine how many points I've racked up by staring at a complicated work sheet of sizeable data tables all day...). But I started my rant saying Away Goals were presumably to incentivize previously defensive away teams to attack more, or in general make the game more exciting. The fact that it's done just the opposite might just render this assumption superfluous, but in the interest of argument, assuming an exciting game is what they were going for - I hardly think goals presuppose excitement. Ironically enough, if excitement was priority 1, why devise a method to eliminate extra time and penalties, I doubt spectators find the excitement of an attacking away team (which never happens anyway) more appealing than extra time and shootouts. So excitement is out. We're back to effectiveness, result orientation and all those nice words that were invented to describe EPL one day, so I'll straight away throw out any hopeful suggestions of draws being decided by possession stats, number of passes, or derivatives thereof. 

Barca clearly outclassed the crap out of Chelsea 83% possession and Xavi completing 66 more passes than the entire Chelsea team, the arguments that they deserved to crash out anyway were of meaningless possession, horrible finishing, and ruthless chance conversion by Chelsea, only the latter two of which I agree with even remotely. But at 2-1 up, and 2-2 on aggregate, agreeing that Away goals are fundamentally flawed, and also agreeing that maybe all draws going to extra-time/penalties are good for spectators but bad/unfair for teams, if we had to agree to decide the game based on the balance of the fixture (that doesn't mean possession due to above mentioned "wasteful possession" accusation, and that it incentivizes teams to randomly pass among back 4, though quite how that makes sense when both teams are trying the same doesn't really strike me...) - I suggest not just "chances created" since Barca are not just horrible finishers in this game, but all the time. I suggest goal extrapolation basis chance creation and conversion ratio statistics.... Barca, in all Liga games so far, have 563 Shots, 258 Shots on Goal, and 93 goals. That's a conversion ratio of 17% goals from shots, and 36% goals from shots on goal. Against Chelsea in the second leg, they had 23 Shots and 6 Shots on goal - using either metric it is 3.8 or 2.2 goals respectively. This gets added to Barca so they're at aggregate (taking lower metric of 2.2) of 4.2. Chelsea have 517 shots, 175 shots on goal, and 48 goals. A conversion ratio of 9% and 27% resp'ly, and given their 7 shots, 3 on target against Barca - have notional goal count of .65 or .82 - I'm taking the higher one meaning their overall aggregate is 3.82. Barca wins. Fvck you english blue pig dogs. 

Did I mention Bilbao and Valencia tonight need to hope for an away goals progression haha. I'm going for Bilbao through 3-2 on aggregate, Valencia through 4-4 on aggregate, only because I friggin need something to cheer after these last 2 weeks. Away goals FTW!