Another Batch of World Rankings

The idea of world rankings in soccer always has struck me as something of a fool's errand.

Especially when it is statistically driven ... by anything more sophisticated than who beat whom and where in the last year or so.

Certain sports lend themselves to statistical analysis ... because the numbers they generate are so enormous that, eventually, you have a sort of "truth" revealed by close study.

Baseball is the prime example of this, with 162 games in the major leagues, and 600-plus plate appearances for position players and 180-plus innings for starting pitcher. A bad player is not going to compile good numbers over that large a sample.

Basketball isn't far behind. Especially the NBA. Again, lots of games, lots of numbers.

Soccer? I am convinced that any dozen reasonably well-informed fans from anywhere on the planet are as likely to pick out the quarterfinalists of the upcoming World Cup as is the numbers-heavy system espn.com unveiled today.

The U.S.-based sports network commissioned Nate Silver, best-known now as a left-leaning but numbers-driven political analyst and blogger and, previously, as a mover in the "Baseball Prospectus" brands.

He has compiled a top-100 ranking of the world's soccer rankings for espn.com, which indicates the self-proclaimed "world-wide leader" finally is sitting up and taking notice of the sport.

I am a proponent of statistical analysis, and I give credence to the conclusions in many cases -- particularly in the two sports named above.

Soccer, however, is different. I am sure of it.

Not enough matches. Not enough matches against comparable competition. Not enough matches by the key players.

And, also, soccer is a famously fluky sport. In a goal-scarce universe, one lucky shot can lead a bad team over a good one, or a middling team over a great one.

But at the end of the World Cup, we almost all know who is going to be hanging around. And we don't need statistical analysis to tell us. We don't need a million numbers crunched.

Right this minute, I will give you six teams that will be in the quarterfinals at South Africa 2010: Brazil, Spain, England, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands.

I did that without adding up goals and comparing scores and giving points for a country's players who do well in club competition. We already know that.

What Nate Silver is doing for espn.com is interesting. It's fun. It stimulates discussion. But it doesn't tell us anything we don't already know.

There is the global elite, most of which can be depended on to go deep into the World Cup. There is the second tier of 10 or 12 nations that have a reasonably good shot of getting to the knockout phase. And there are the next 20 or so who might be in the current World Cup, but have little or no chance of surviving group play.

We all know this. Without studying statistics.

Bringing on a Big Brain like Nate Silver is an interesting concept. But I believe he has little or nothing new to tell us about the World Cup, and how it will sort out. The game resists statistical predictions much more specific than "never bet against Brazil." Read more!

Ronaldo Out of Bosnia-Herzegovina Playoffs

Some of us have been quietly rooting for Portugal to make the World Cup because we want the world's best players to be at South Africa 2010. Just as we were pulling for Lionel Messi and Argentina, despite the Argentines being coached by that loutish boor (yes, that's redundant, but he's worthy of it) Diego Maradona.

Cristiano Ronaldo of Portugal, current Fifa player of the year. Messi, previous player of the year. Just nice to have them around, let them do their thing, on the biggest of stages. While in their prime.

Ronaldo, however, will not be in South Africa -- unless his Portuguese teammates get him there.

Ronaldo has been ruled out of the home-and-home playoff between Portugal and a very solid Bosnia-Herzegovina side. This is one of the four second-place playoffs going on among European teams, and will generate four World Cup participants.

Not having CR9 can't help Portugal's chances. Portugal isn't a one-man team, but the current squad isn't widely considered to be the equal of the Golden Generation that came through about a decade ago, the one led by Luis Figo that won a Euro Cup.

But, there's nothing to be done about it. Ronaldo has had a bad ankle for more than a month now, and he aggravated it in a Portugal match back on Oct. 10, and it hasn't gotten better -- despite the best efforts of his club team, Real Madrid.

Earlier, it seemed as if this might be one off those club-vs.-country things, but it now seems fairly clear Ronaldo just can't play. Unless this represents an absolute cave-in by Portugal and coach Carlos Quieroz.

Portugal rallied sharply to finish second in its European group, and perhaps that momentum can take it past Bosnia.

The Portuguese talent cupboard isn't bare. Quieroz still can call on the likes of Simao, naturalized Brazilians attackers Deco and Liedson, and Duda and Bosingwa. And Nani, the 22-year-old from Cape Verde, probably will take over on the right wing for Ronaldo ... and Nani is good enough to play for Manchester United.

Still, you'd prefer to have the player of the year lining up for you with the World Cup on the line, but Portugal won't have that luxury Saturday, in Lisboa, and Nov. 18 in BH. Read more!

Long Way to Go to Determine a Berth

It's getting close now. The last few matches that will determine the final nine participants in South Africa 2010. Nov. 14 and (in some cases) Nov. 18.

All the teams still in contention have made long journeys, figuratively. Hard matches, long schedules.

One team, Bahrain, is making a very long journey, physically, as well.

Bahrain is the fifth-place team out of Asia. If these guys weren't being jetted around on Gulf Air charters, they would have some huge frequent-flier miles amassed. All those trips across Asia, the biggest of continents.

Since World Cup 2010 qualifying began, in 2007, Bahrain has traveled to Malaysia, Thailand, Japan, Uzbekistan, Japan again, and Australia. And now to New Zealand for the second half of their home-and-home playoff for a World Cup berth.

This story in the Gulf Daily News, an English-language newspaper published in Bahrain, has some details from the team's departure, today, for Australia, where the team will practice several days before "hopping" from Sydney to Wellington on Thursday -- which is a flight of 3-4 hours. (Since when is that a hop?)

But given Bahrain's itinerary the past two years, that's a short trip.

The other long hauls here in the final 10 days, among matches that matter ...

--Slovenia and Russia take turns playing at the other guy's home. Get out your atlas. Moscow to Maribor is not a commuter flight. It appears to be 1,100 miles; I thought it was more.

--Costa Rica and Uruguay go home and home. -- Concacaf No. 4 vs. Conmebol No. 5. Another lengthy flight (about 3,500 miles), and I'm just going to guess that you can't fly direct from Montevideo to San Jose, or vice versa.

--Cameroon plays at Morocco, and those two aren't exactly next door. Cameroon needs to win, too, to clinch a berth.

--Tunisia goes to Mozambique, needing a result. and that's from the north tip of Africa to almost the south end. Africa is a big continent, and especially north-south. A site I'm checking suggests it's 4,500 miles, but that seems high. It might involve a plane change, because very few African countries have direct flights to other African countries. Usually, they have to go back to Europe to get back to Africa. Yeah. Wacky.

But the winner is Bahrain, 9,000 miles from Wellington, New Zealand. Also, the Bahrainis jump forward 10 time zones. A tough trip. But Bahrain goes to South Africa if it manages a victory or a tie at anything that isn't 0-0. I guess that makes it worth the trip. It's latest long trip.
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More Ticket Fraud

Have to be careful when buying tickets to South Africa 2010. The cyberspace cockroaches have hit upon internet sales of non-existent World Cup tickets as a gold mine for scamming.

The latest? Australia has uncovered at least one bogus ticket operation, as this story outlines.

The story notes that Australian watchdogs found the site, which offers tickets in bad English -- which ought to be your first warning sign. If your site doesn't do grammar, it probably does do fraud.

All that's missing is a simulated Nigerian businessman named Prince Innocent asking you to hold a couple of million dollars for him after you send $10,000 to him in Lagos, via cashier's check, to demonstrate your good will.

This really is a very simple process. If you are not on the FIFA.com site, you're taking a risk.

Yes, there will be an after-market for tickets. But consumers need to be very careful and follow all the common sense warnings. Be very stingy with your credit card information. If it seems too good to be true, it certainly is.

Fraudulent predators take advantage of enthusiastic consumers. And who is more enthusiastic than soccer fans who want to be in South Africa for the big event? Read more!

When Players Go Off on Coaches

Don't you wonder what a player gains by trashing his national team coach for not including him on a team?

Take, for example, France midfielder Patrick Vieira, who verbally slapped around Raymond Domenech for not being called up for the two-game playoff with Ireland for a 2010 South Africa berth.

Here is that story. It's out there now, and soccer fans around the planet have seen it. But what did Vieira gain?

Perhaps he gained some momentary mental relief from blasting Domenech. "Ah, that felt good, mon ami!"

But how does this work for Vieira in the long term?

Is Domenech likely to change his mind here at the last moment and call in a 32-year-old who hasn't been a regular for Inter? The one who just pilloried him in L'Equipe?

If France qualifies, and Domenech continues to South Africa as coach (which seems a near-certainty), is the coach more likely to feel all warm and fuzzy about Patrick Vieira, upon further reflection, and call him in next year?

However long Raymond Domenech survives ... it now seems quite unlikely Vieira is going to appear with les bleus.

It takes some mental gymnastics to see how this helps Vieira. OK, let's try ...

If France qualifies, but looks awful doing so, like perhaps an Ireland own goal puts the French through ... maybe the French federation fires Domenech now, and hires someone for 2010, and Vieira has contributed his own bit of criticism against the guy who just got dumped, pointing out the horrible mistake he made by not calling in Patrick Vieira ... and maybe he is more likely to be seen as a positive "change" that the new coach can embrace.

Well, probably not. If anything, Vieira probably just identified himself as a crabby old guy looking for one last shot at la gloire before shuffling into the golden years of his career. It's more likely that France's next coach will say, "That Patrick Vieira is a whiny guy who will rip me if I decide he can't play anymore, so I'm not even gonna bother with him."

I guess the main idea here is ... be really careful before you trash a coach. If you're at the end of the career, and you are sure you have nothing to lose ... well, then, go for it.

If there is the slightest chance you might be called in at some later date, or that you might pop up again on the roster after a regime chance ... just keep quiet.

Save the really tart stuff for when you're a TV commentator, or having columns ghost-written for you in the press. Discretion, valor, all that. Read more!

The Ireland-France TV Tiff, in English

We knew something was up, two days ago, when we saw the story, in French, about TV negotiations between Irish and French TV stations about televising the two matches in the upcoming European playoff. When we wrote about it on this blog and tried to puzzle out what the French story was telling us.

Now we have an English version of it, thanks to the Irish Independent newspaper's Web site.

This is about the France vs. Ireland home-and-home playoff, one of four two-match playoffs pitting second-place finishers from European group competition -- for the final quartet of South Africa 2010 matches.

The issue seems to be ... that France is annoyed that Ireland sold the broadcast rights for the Dublin match on Nov. 14 to an independent outlet ... and now France is asking for far more money (about $3 million) than Ireland expects to pay (about $1.2 million) for the Paris match on Nov. 18.

Television problems are not unusual in qualifying matches, unfortunately.

The story mentions how Ireland was unable to see the 2000 Euro Cup qualifier when the Irish played at Turkey.

Just last month, the critical United States-Honduras match, in Honduras, was sold to a Spanish firm that decided to show the match via closed-circuit TV -- an archaic distribution system that limits exposure to individual outlets that pay high rates for a hookup.

A tiny fraction of American soccer fans saw the match, and many of the rest were outraged that the game was, effectively, blacked out in Anno Domini 2009.

And now ... if the French and Irish don't get this figured out, fans in Ireland (and the rest of Britain, it appears) won't be able to see the match at Stade de France. With a World Cup berth on the line.

That would be awful.

The way FIFA handles this? The home country controls television rights. Usually it works out. Reasonable people get together and make reasonable deals. But then there are times ...

FIFA ought to consider making rules that establish basic over-the-air TV access for all qualifying matches. It only hurts the sport, frustrating and angering fans, when critical matches go unseen.
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Ronaldo, and Country vs. Club

I don't think it was always like this. Ten years ago, certainly 20, players were eager to play for their country, and clubs let them. Or so it seems in the warm, fuzzy, sepia-toned images of my memory.

In recent years, it has been less of an obvious connection. Clubs have begun to come ahead of country.

In Germany 2006, a leading Brazilian analyst suggested the country's players didn't even want to be in the World Cup. They wanted to rest. They feared injury. It didn't make economic sense. They were too good to be messing around at the World Cup.

And that is why Brazil went out in the quarterfinals, according to the author of the piece. A collective lack of interest in playing hard enough to win.

Now we have another brouhaha developing. Involving Cristiano Ronaldo, Portugal and Real Madrid.

Ronaldo is the reigning FIFA world player of the year. And he just arrived at Real Madrid, from Manchester United, at a cost of about $120 million. So, yeah, Real has a serious investment in the guy.

Real's issues are two-fold. The last time Portugal had a big qualifying match to play, Oct. 10, Ronaldo showed up and lasted 26minutes before he aggravated the ankle injury Real already had said he had. That's beef No. 1.

Now, Portugal is in one of the two-game playoffs for the final four European berths into South Africa 2010. A fairly big deal, that is. In the World Cup or out of it, determined in matches Nov. 14 and 18. Portugal vs. Bosnia-Herzegovina, which is a very solid side.

Beef No. 2 for Real is ... it says Ronaldo is still hurt. And doesn't want Portugal to take their investment and mess him up some more.

Portugal's coach, Carlos Queiroz, insists he is going to call in Ronaldo, no matter what Real says. Queiroz wants national team doctors to look at the kid. Real is unhappy. Ronaldo probably is torn between trying to please both club and country.

This sort of thing no longer is unusual. Clubs suggesting their expensive players skip this or that national match. Because countries don't pay the sort of money the clubs do.

This is bad for the World Cup because it means some of the best teams may not advance because some of their best players won't want to play -- or their clubs won't want them to.

This will get worse before it gets better as long as clubs are throwing around enormous sums at players ... and country's can answer with only pin money and the gratitude of a country -- unless their teams fall short of expectations.
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