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Welcome Welcome to wharton moneyball. Welcome to a full hour of sports analytics
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Here on the wharton podcast network. This is cade massey Hosting this week with two of my long-time collaborators and good
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friends oddy weiner And shane jensen our fourth co-host eric bradley out this week.
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He'll be back We're going to run a normal These days normal schedule this week.
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We're going to guest here in the first half hour. We'll open it up open lines in the
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second half of the show plenty to talk about god knows but to open we're going
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to also kind of open our soccer coverage and I would like to say for the year, but truthfully it's for the what the
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biennial the quadrennial coverage of soccer We're going to open we're going to have a few
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guests over the next month or month and a half As would be appropriate given world
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cup and not only world cup but us hosting world cup And our number one draft pick for soccer coverage Ryan o'hanlon ryan
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o'hanlon is back on the show. It's been a little bit Um, we love ryan o'hanlon And we think you guys
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should love ryan o'hanlon. He's a staff writer at espn Um, he's also the author of a book called net
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gains inside the beautiful games revolution net gains inside the beautiful games revolution It's about soccer
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and innovations, especially analytics based innovation. Ryan comes back Honestly, he played soccer in
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college if I remember correctly, maybe even dabbled at higher levels I don't frankly love this
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genre of book and I quite like ryan's and that's my endorsement to you Is that
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it's a great read and interesting go read it and you can also see ryan's stuff
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on Espn all the time ryan is coming to us from syracuse. He's in syracuse these days He's also teaching
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at syracuse in the new house school the journalism school there ryan. Good to see you You too, I was
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going to complain about not being on the show more often But if you give me an intro like that, you can you know,
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wait a couple years have two years between each appearance well, the complaint should be I
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mean if we're if If we talk about soccer, we really we bring you around. We just don't talk about soccer enough and
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um, It's not because we don't like soccer. There's just a lot else to talk about
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we used to get complaints from our friend sam vincera who Who is in the nhl about not covering hockey enough and it basically
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called out I've gotten called out by sam on several occasions and I exactly sam if
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you're still listening, I've raised my game. We're doing it We're gonna fix that.
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Can I just point out? We just said earlier We just said earlier. I don't think it was actually on the
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air that we're base rate people that explains it There you go we're base rate people,
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but we're also I mean, I think you're over rationalizing it audie because we're subject to
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our own, um twims, of course and Like when you're from west texas Didn't spend a
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lot of time thinking about hockey and soccer growing up so we could just do college
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football all year round but ryan, you know, uh We we even talk in the euros. We don't wait every four years We we
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talk about euros when they float around as well. But look we gotta what's true.
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What's true for sure Is that we have been distracted right? It's been a very interesting season around american
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sports We're in the middle of it. We're in the thick of finals still. I mean, this is it for basketball and
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hockey We're in intense final series. Um, I I I realized coming into this interview i'm like i'm a little bit like
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the guy Who landed at the family reunion? And I love these people. I really care about these people But truthfully
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I haven't been in touch with these people and now I'm, like sequestered with my brother
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You know in his hotel room. I just landed he's been there for a couple days He's got the scoop and i'm
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like tell me everything i'm about to see these folks Attention a little further.
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Not only are you back at a family reunion? But like there's double the number of family
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members than you're used to having to catch up on. That's right in this case Right.
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Yeah, I mean cutter cutter Is here exactly who's my is becky cousin again? Tell me ryan I will say it's not
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like there's a couple things here We don't actually follow and cover soccer all that rigorously
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throughout The years in between the world cup and a little bit we do think about
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soccer you know, we think about it from an analytic perspective and Some of our research
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has been in soccer. So i'm a little bit referee. We referee papers So i'm actually a little
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bit more up on the the analytical side of what's going on on the on the pitch But much less up on what's actually
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happening in terms of results well, I want to do both of those things because I understand that that that the phrase set piece
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revolution is not an overstatement But so that's an analytics kind of approach.
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But first ryan first just like top of mind for you How are you feeling? We're two days away.
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We're recording tuesday the show will go up wednesday We're the week of launching this thing
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that's been talked about for years on us soil. How do you feel about the world cup?
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How are you feeling about your your role? Like how are you going to take it in like what level of excitement you have?
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Yeah, I feel like you're asking the wrong person because I Within the last like five
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days i've ranked all the teams in the world cup I've predicted every single game They
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had me write an article where I predicted every game in the world cup Which as fifa is saying this is the biggest world
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cup ever and then I had to rank the top 50 players, which You know doing that in any honest way is a pretty
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much impossible exercise for reasons. We've talked about on this show before Yeah,
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so i've thought about the world cup, uh Way more often than basically anyone else in
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a very strange and idiosyncratic way. Um, so in some ways I feel like it's over already and then in other ways
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like i'm excited to actually just See the games happen let a lot of the randomness
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take hold and just let it all wash over me You got your editor taking care of your past all that and now you
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get to watch soccer I feel like the last world cup you were over there. We were we were communicating Do I have
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that right? Were you overseas covering it in some way or am I making that up? No, I think my apartment in los angeles.
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What am I thinking about like a qatari hotel? Okay, my book had just come out in
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uh, 2022 right before the world cup. So okay. I don't know Maybe that that was the
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landmark Well, let's start at the top and ask since you did a week ago write
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a write a piece ranking all 48 teams Um, and I saw that cutter was last and that uh, hold on france was first
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spain after that england third germany Shockingly low fourth or something like that.
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I saw that brazil was above argentina. So maybe brazil is back Portugal must be in there somewhere.
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So here's here's one question for you How deep can you go down that list before?
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What's the last team on that list working down from the top? That could legitimately win the thing I think
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it's a good question because one i've often felt like it's kind of crazy that we've
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had so few world cup winners given how Random soccer is and how few games there are in the world cup And you guys
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probably can answer this better than me. But to me the 48 team world cup In the past it was 32 half the
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teams would get chopped off at the group stages this time 32 teams will advance to
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the knockout rounds So essentially we're like playing the old world cups in pure knockout fashion
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Because 32 teams will be in the knockout rounds. I would think that that will introduce more
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randomness If for no other reason than like the draw is going to be very bizarre
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and the permutations are almost impossible to comprehend um So I think that there's like I
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think that there's a chance that we get. Uh Like a weird first time winner this
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time but I would say there's like Well, hold on. Let's stop right there because now you you
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know, there's very more There's few obscure topics that we like better than than tournament design.
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And so there It feels like for sure this the final 16 the swede 16 will be more random than they have been historically
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because historically that's what's come out of the Pool rounds, which is like a group rounds
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So now you've got this thing where you're like that's coming out of this random event
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called the match of soccer So the 16 has to be more random, but does that necessarily translate?
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What's the translation from that to a different champion? right And I guess before we get to
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that final 16 Is there less? Because before I feel like in in the old round robin stages we would always talk
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about the group that the randomness that was there was partly the Is your whole national
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team in the group of death? is there because we've kind of Added a bunch of I mean slop is not the
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right term, but like a lot about a bunch of like Lesser teams into the mix. Is there less of a group of debt?
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Like is there less variation? Kind of between groups or so or less very like variation that matters like quality variation
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between groups. I don't I don't know Yeah, I you're speaking to someone who wrote an article called
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the group of death is dead back in uh, december when They announced the groups I
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just went back and looked at like the elo ratings for and figured them out for every group in world cup history and this
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Pretty much all of the worst groups in world cup history just by average rating Elo
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rating are in this world cup. I think the hardest group is by elo is france norway senegal and iraq um, which
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I think you could make a case norway and senegal are two of the like Under dark horses that things bounce, right?
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They could actually make a really deep run But it might not even matter in the group because iraq is a very weak team
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And if you win a game, you're probably going to advance out of the group So the groups are not uh anywhere near as
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difficult as they were but then you also have the added wrinkle of there's three hosts
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and the host teams are all quite weak compared to Sort of the top level teams and hosts get treated as Pot a so
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the highest ranked teams in their group so mexico canada and the u.s are the quote unquote best teams in three of the
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world cup groups while You know when the world cup is in france france is a host and but they would be a top
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uh seated team as well so that mixes things up and then the way that It's very arbitrary whether you get to play a
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second place team or a third place team in the knockout round and I think you know, for example if Everything goes chalk germany
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and france will play in the round of 16 Which is something that would have just not happened in the past and there's a
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handful of other situations like that, too Okay Can you give us a quick primer on?
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What advancing looks like you're basically just eliminating 16 teams. So maybe it's easier to say what gets
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eliminated Yeah, so it's top two automatically advance and then the eight best third place teams
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advance um And that's based on points first and I was gonna say is there like
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a long list of like tiebreakers? I know there is absolutely no schedule adjustment
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scenarios There is a chance that the tiebreaker will be uh Fair play rating or whatever
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fifa calls it, which is essentially a point system based on yellow cards and red cards
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um, if you're tied in goal difference points goals scored and goals against so but then
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it also is like There's a matrix on wikipedia that you can look up based on what groups the third place teams come from
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will then determine who gets put where because Fifa doesn't want teams that are in the
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same group playing each other in the knockout round So if it's like group a b
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c d e f g h, whatever up to eight, then it's a certain way But then any other permutation it's a different distribution
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of the team. So it's like Very difficult modeling problem even for people like you guys I would assume
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okay, so I interrupted you as you were walking us through on how deep you can go down your top teams before you think
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you Who's the last team that could legitimately win and you're saying well Let's start with
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the fact that it's a different tournament this year than it has been in the past
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But I but I stopped you Can you before you answer? Can you make it a little bit more
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specific? You say legitimately win? Yeah, I know He indulged me without requiring
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a specific it was a poorly I know but i'm a nerd and I want to know let's say capture 90 percent of the
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chance Yeah, okay. Whatever teams do you need to capture 90? And it's funny because I feel like I
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want to guess this ahead of time before I get an answer from you In my head and I think I want to i've
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got it I'm, i'm gonna save it for after you give me your answer. Hold on.
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Hold on if we if we gave a uniform over 16 that's 16 i'm trying to what what what how low would a percentage
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have to be before it was surprising the prior would have to be 10 isn't that
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surprising in this kind of a tournament? Maybe it make 10 10 percent what's the
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team that has a 10 percent chance somewhere between five and ten percent chance?
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What's the best team that has a five to ten? Yeah, it's just if you formed an empirical
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estimate based on who's won the last say 10 of these Or 20 of these then it'd probably only be like four or five
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or something like that. That seems small I mean, I think it's no it doesn't go back to yeah, it's
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argentina. Italy western, you know, germany brazil france and spain Okay, six That gets us back to
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like the 60s or something like that as far as unique winners well Yeah, uruguay is
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the only sort of non heavy so I mean so really the question is the answer going to be like six Or is the
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answer? Bigger than that and that's yeah The netherlands used to have a good club and you've
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got them like eight or something like can the netherlands win this thing? Like what's the chance of the netherlands?
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We're in croatia. Can they win nine? You have them? You have an eight you have an eight
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argentina seven forget argentina beautiful messy argentina Brazil six like these teams what chances do they
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have? yeah, so I would like even without putting specific numbers on it, I would say there's
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like there's like a Top tier of if you try to like model the team strength using talent and performance uh england france and
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spain are sort of the top top three teams because They have crazy amounts of talent.
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They've all been quite successful recently Argentina if you pull in performance would be there as
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well. But the issue with argentina is Uh, they had the essentially the exact same team as
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the last world cup They had no turnover and we see this all the time at the world cup where a team wins the
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world cup They don't turn the team over and then they just get like blown off
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the face of the earth in the group stages It's happened to germany happened to spain
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so I think there's some questions there, but if in doing these Models like it looks
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like argentina could actually end up with a quite an easy path if they win their
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group So I think you know, so you have those top three i'd add in argentina and brazil who I don't think are as
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strong as We historically expect those countries to be but they could also win and then
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you throw in germany netherlands and portugal as kind of the Next tier european teams and
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I feel like that's getting you pretty far. Um Like down the list of probability, uh,
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like total cumulative championship probability and then I think from there it's like can I convince
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myself that like home field advantage in mexico is worth a lot of uh value and then they have an easy group and maybe
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things go their way or Like norway has two of the best players in the world. Can they you know, is that gonna lead
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to something? so I I would say that kind of top eight is sort of the like In a vacuum if you had to sort of
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garner most of the championship probability i'd probably put it there I would say okay While
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we're thinking of it at this level Give us one or two teams that you're most
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intrigued by off of that topic You just named mexico nor mexico and norway. Maybe that covers it but like who below
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those top eight are most intriguing to you Yeah, I I think mexico is intriguing.
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They're not anywhere near as talented as they've been. Um But they've been very good like results
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wise over the past sort of four years They've been way less chaotic not firing their
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managers left and right like they usually do They have one of the easiest groups like
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in the history of the world cup like they should win their group quite easily And
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they're going to be playing all those games at home and I you know I don't
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know how you would even figure this out exactly but I have to imagine like home field advantage playing in mexico city Is like
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among the more extreme home field advantages possible in All of sports is part of that
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in the world elevation altitude Altitude and then also just kind of the environment in the
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stadium if you know You like getting bags of urine thrown at you. Um, it's a good place to go um
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And then combine that with the altitude sickness and you got a party right there That
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I they might be top throw them in the top eight. Um And then like doing these permutations looking
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through them like they're they might have a quite an easy path to Make it to
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the quarterfinals you get to the quarterfinals. Maybe something happens there. But with norway, I would say they're like
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I don't know It's I don't know if you guys talked about norway's success during the
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winter olympics and how everyone was talking about like what makes this country um You know,
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so this small country so good. It's as jane is pointing out. They're very rich Um, but they also they
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also create a bunch of their own sports essentially in the winter olympics But soccer they
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didn't and they have the best Like goal scorer erling holland plays for manchester city in
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the world and they have one of the best attacking midfielders martin odegaard who's Uh a
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creative sort of passer and then they have a bunch of other guys that play in europe And international soccer is just like a
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much more simplified version of the sport So having like an organized team with a great
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goal scorer and a great creator um it feels like it could work and I think some of like Looking at modeling this stuff
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out or the data for it. Like norway just don't have a long track record of being very good They didn't even
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qualify Uh for the most recent euros, but in world cup qualifying they were like absolutely
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dominant So it would be like a historical outlier that a team would suddenly get this
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good But also I think it's a historically weird world cup Have they thought about asking
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that guy who skis so well to play for them because it seems like he could do Kind of actually can't run without skis.
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I don't know if you've seen this. No, i'm kidding can I actually ask kind
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of a kind of Almost the flip side of this question Which is you named a bunch of the kind of I guess the
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blue chip sort of like to those top eight kind of countries um Are there's a
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couple that stand out to you is kind of most likely to under maybe perform that blue chip status Either I mean it could
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just be number seven and number eight. That's the obvious one or but maybe again
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It sounds like you've been kind of doing Permutations respecting the structure of the tournament and
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how it's set up is like, you know, I know there's no group of death But are there?
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Do some of those blue chips have a tougher road than others? Yeah, I want to i'll shout out.
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There's uh, this group that does really great soccer analytics analytics stuff at uh university uh
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In leuven in belgium. They're actually led by this american guy. Jesse davis They do a lot of really
00:19:23
cool stuff and they have Their uh, you know their table out with all you can sort of click a team and see all
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the different paths they could take So that's how I know this stuff. Not uh, my own uh computing abilities.
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Okay, but so France, I think has the most talent. They just have the most talent every year
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now just because paris is such a dense center for Uh soccer talent and france is
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a large rich country where everyone plays soccer. That's not seven foot four um But they
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play germany in the round of 16 and then they would also end up on spain's side of the bracket They would have to
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play spain in the semis They might also get a tough matchup in the quarterfinals.
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So like I might think spain is the best team we're playing this Everyone has the
00:20:08
same schedule, but they they just have a tough schedule Then they also have quite a
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difficult group So maybe they get bounced to the second spot or the third spot and
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they end up playing One of the favorites, uh in the round of 32 like I could see that happening But I think portugal
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is probably the one that I would pick to underperform uh for two reasons, I mean
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Can you really say it's underperforming portugal is like not doesn't have the same structural advantages
00:20:34
of any of the other countries We've talked about by by underperforming. You really mean they'd kind of punch their
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weight as opposed to above their weight Which they usually do at this thing basically exactly
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but for two two reasons They rate out as like a very very weak defensive team And I think if you look at these
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things defense, you know I think weights out a little bit stronger in world cup performance
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than attacking strength Just because it's hard to be a good attacking team because you just
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don't practice together um They give up a lot of goals in world cup qualifying just
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like way more than pretty much any team Obviously you can control for talent, uh in
00:21:11
the various regions, but they're like among the highest Goal scores goals allowed and then they're
00:21:17
they're they're relying on cristiano ronaldo to be their starting center forward He's 41 He's been
00:21:23
playing in the saudi league for four years It's amazing that he's still able to play
00:21:28
professional soccer But he does nothing other than shoot and he's not as good at getting
00:21:33
into those positions as he used to be He doesn't add anything to sort of build
00:21:38
up play or add any other attacking value And then he's just a zero on the defensive side of things.
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Wow, and there's just a huge Question mark over like how good he actually is.
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Uh, Because I don't know how to do the saudi league translation for performance so I
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think they're There's a bunch of question marks there and their group is like the worst
00:21:59
team in their group is not as bad as you would think which I think that's the new group of death is like No,
00:22:06
terrible teams in your group rather than like any juggernauts So I think if like there's
00:22:10
a favorite that might get knocked out Could be portugal. So that would be my choice Ryan, we're
00:22:16
22 minutes into a world cup conversation and we haven't talked about the u.s national
00:22:20
team What does that mean? Should we? Well the u.s it's interesting like their
00:22:28
group is uh australia paraguay and turkey, um as the country now goes by Uh, and
00:22:36
when this happened, I think the initial reaction was oh my god Like they got australia
00:22:41
as the the tier two team and it's probably the worst tier two team. They got paraguay and then I think turkey
00:22:47
is probably the best this was like from the As yet qualified teams turkey was the
00:22:53
best team. Um That could have qualified that the u .s could have played But I think it
00:22:57
was viewed as like there's no powerhouse teams in this group. No teams that have um um won the
00:23:04
world cup No teams that have won, uh their confederation championships other than australia But actually
00:23:11
like all the teams are just decent which I think is the worst possible case for this situation so like if you look at
00:23:19
leuven's projections like the A team like australia has like almost like a 25 chance of
00:23:25
finishing first second third and fourth The u .s' odds of advancing are only like 73
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percent Um or winning the group are only 73 percent, which you'd think would be higher
00:23:37
So, uh, no, it's advancing is 73 percent winning. They're not 73 percent.
00:23:41
Um, so the group is a little tricky and then The draw just looks like it isn't gonna be great for them.
00:23:49
I think if everything goes chalk They'll play belgium in the round of 16 Which would
00:23:54
be a fun kind of redux of the I remember that classic game when the u .s Got absolutely pummeled and tim howard made
00:24:01
a million saves and we all treated it like it was some amazing achievement Uh, i'm,
00:24:06
sorry if you could sense the sarcasm uh belgium like they're way beyond like that golden
00:24:12
generation, but they still have a ton of talent and then if a couple things Don't
00:24:16
go chalk like the u.s might actually have a harder draw So I think to me it's round of 16 Is a good
00:24:24
achievement for the u.s quarterfinals is like that's awesome. Um, I think the thing with the u
00:24:30
.s is like They have the most talent they've ever had But also if you just look at all the other teams in a
00:24:37
similar tier like japan switzerland These teams also have the more talent than they've ever had
00:24:43
because it seems like there's like a situation where Like france Can't increase its share of
00:24:50
the world's talent, you know So like that's kind of just like stuck if anything they
00:24:54
can lose it because there's so many players that can play for other countries But it
00:24:58
seems like the rest of the world is started Starting to fill sort of the population
00:25:03
of professional soccer players um Like the bottom half of it and some of the top
00:25:09
half of it more than it ever had in the past And so it's like right all these all the teams that are like
00:25:15
in that You know, we said eight eight or nine teams, right? Then I would say the gap between like
00:25:19
nine and like 25 is very small And it seems like all of those teams have more talent so I think that's how you
00:25:25
get to this situation where it's like equally like The u.s has multiple guys starting
00:25:31
in the champions league almost their entire lineup is players based in europe and yet like
00:25:36
We shouldn't expect them to do any better than Like the 2002 world cup where they
00:25:41
made the quarterfinals make sure I understand what you're saying You're saying that if we looked
00:25:45
at say the top is it five european soccer leagues? And we looked at the at the player
00:25:50
level that nations they come from historically They probably mostly came from european nations or maybe
00:25:56
european and african nations And you're saying that has changed that the countries around the world
00:26:00
make up a greater percentage of those top international clubs In a way that didn't in
00:26:05
the past. Is that yeah Like just throwing this off the top of my head like let's say
00:26:10
the premier league uh had 400 English players 15 years ago now It's probably like 150
00:26:18
or something like that or 100 which like has no effect on the quality of the english national team But also can lead to
00:26:25
like these other countries all getting better but not getting to the level of england or
00:26:30
france still Okay, super interesting. Got it. Give us something Um about the u.s
00:26:35
squad to keep our eyes on like what what are you most interested to see in terms of Actual on the on the pitch
00:26:41
and something we might keep an eye out for Yeah, I think the interesting thing is
00:26:46
so Speaking of what a little bit of what we were just saying The u.s has a lot of people that have u
00:26:52
.s citizenship because of military bases across the world various things like that and so some
00:26:58
players will play for the u.s when they Feel like they're not going to get a shot for bigger country.
00:27:02
So the u.s has this striker fuller and belligan who Came up through the arsenal academy Uh played for england's youth teams, but
00:27:10
was eligible for the u.s because of one of his parents a couple years ago He decided to play for the u.s
00:27:16
Um, and he is like by far the most accomplished Center forward goal scorer in europe
00:27:23
that the u.s has ever had. Um, but he's also like the perfect Player for u.s fans to think is terrible
00:27:32
because he is like a Star at the thing that matters which is getting lots of really good shots But he he like if
00:27:41
you look at his conversion rates compared to expected goals He's like right in line with
00:27:46
his expected goals while most of the better Most attackers in the world are like around,
00:27:51
you know, 10 better than that So belligan is like he does he scores a lot of goals, but he also misses a lot
00:27:57
of chances which I think for novice fans will be a thing that he could miss like two huge chances and they Will be
00:28:04
like he needs to be benched when it's more like no like another guy's going to
00:28:08
come in and not get those chances so I think like given his sort of history as a player I think like His ability
00:28:16
to convert one or two chances could be like the difference between Third round of 32
00:28:22
exit quarterfinal appearance. So i'm very interested to see how he does. Can you can you put a little perspective
00:28:28
here for me? Hold on real quick. I'm just gonna play a game real quick is an equivalent statement If he's lucky on
00:28:36
some of those chances, that's enough to make a difference at all. You said his ability to convert I mean
00:28:41
do we that's we probably believe that to be mostly a chance like performance above expected
00:28:46
given a chance is With very few exceptions like messy apparently is sufficiently So it's basically
00:28:53
like if he gets he's going to get chances If some of those break his way the u.s might advance one round further.
00:28:59
Is that an equivalent statement basically? Yeah. Yeah, I it's lucky like or like I
00:29:07
don't know I bristle against using lucky even though I use it sometimes because it's like
00:29:10
you still have to like Do the physical act that converts the chance? That's right we get we get philosophical this
00:29:16
is philosophy we can argue about this all day is there actually any luck in in soccer At all, right?
00:29:22
There's obviously luck Audie go ahead. So yeah, I mean I guess to put it in perspective and we actually talked about
00:29:29
this We do as we do talk about soccer. We actually talked about this in terms of
00:29:33
how you estimate uh talent above expectation in in goals relative to xg And there was
00:29:40
a there's been a lot of work in the statistical community saying that mostly there isn't
00:29:45
A very very very rare exception is to someone to just consistently score more than they're
00:29:50
expected to um, but now taking about this american player, um, uh Just to put it
00:29:56
in perspective. He's by far the best player. We probably have ever had right?
00:29:59
Um, How does he rate? internationally Internationally Don't hide it just let us
00:30:10
have it did he make your top 50, right? Uh, no, I would say christian flessick is
00:30:15
the best american player ever Uh, but he's more of like a winger creator ball mover
00:30:21
and goal scorer while balligan is kind of just like your pure Center forward he's good
00:30:25
at like linking up play a little bit, but he's a goal scorer But yeah, I think he's added about like 0.5 goals
00:30:32
per 90 which is like fantastic that's like one every other game But that's gonna you
00:30:39
know, give or take That probably makes him Let's say he's like the 15th to 20th
00:30:45
best striker in the world. Let alone. We're not talking about all positions.
00:30:49
So But he's very young and he could develop into something better still. Okay I'm, just trying to perspective united states
00:30:56
talent relative to I mean that which brings back a kind of a general statistical question
00:31:01
Which is how do we assert? probabilistically, I know or even odds on all these teams given their Construction and I always
00:31:12
wondered how we just seem to know that based on base rates the six teams have won almost I think all world cups only
00:31:19
six teams have won since the 70s add england um, maybe you get uh Back to the 60s.
00:31:27
Are we just doing this by base rates? Are we or do we actually have more more data that really helps us separate?
00:31:34
I I think it's it's just a really hard thing to predict for the reasons you
00:31:38
said because These teams just like barely play soccer, uh, right to start then they barely
00:31:45
play any games that have real stakes world cup qualifying has stakes but How important are
00:31:50
they and the games are also happening while All of these guys are playing for club
00:31:54
teams that pay them way more money than their national teams so like You go to macedonia for a world cup qualifier.
00:32:01
You're playing for bayern munich. Do you want to like pull your hamstring? On a messed up field or do you
00:32:07
like hold off a little bit? Um, so there's that aspect then it's like the players are changing all the time because
00:32:12
of who's available who the coach is picking Um, the players are also aging a lot
00:32:16
because they don't play games that often so it's like we're using games from three years
00:32:21
ago, so I think like most of the models I see you try to find some way to uh, Figure out talent and the
00:32:29
ways you do that are usually like transfer value or like wages which are not Necessarily
00:32:34
super accurate for a number of reasons and then you look at performance and you do
00:32:38
like a million different adjustments for like Figuring out what does it mean to beat paraguay
00:32:43
and paraguay versus what does it mean to beat sweden and england? you know, so I think I think it's
00:32:49
mostly Base rate stuff going off of that But when you even if you just like took elo ratings and like found the transfer
00:32:58
values of each team And mash them together, which is essentially what I did with the
00:33:03
rankings. I came up with it still produces the same uh, eight or nine teams that are
00:33:08
going to be the betting favorites and are going to be uh, we're That we talked
00:33:12
about earlier. Okay Shane were you trying to jump in? Well, I just because you I you you
00:33:17
kind of brought up. Uh, I another thing that probably we don't have enough data to estimate but do players
00:33:23
get injured more often at the world cup than they do kind of as their base rates through like a season because you're their
00:33:30
Routine is totally off as you sort of said like at least in this case they're
00:33:34
gonna some of the fields are pretty suspect like they have to play at met life which is like death to football and like
00:33:39
American football teams and I i've seen articles about the tampa bay field for example and
00:33:43
stuff like that So, I don't know if I mean that's obviously specific to this world
00:33:47
cup, but in general because it's kind of out of their regular routine and you know,
00:33:52
not the regular team like dude, do you actually tend to see a Agree to the base rate entry level at these things Yeah,
00:34:00
I don't think so or at least it seems like something I would have seen and know about if that was true um The
00:34:08
world cup games are not happening. I guess like that there's a decent amount
00:34:12
of space between them but I think one interesting thing is like Basically after covid happened
00:34:17
the soccer schedule got really screwed up They had to move the euros the year the
00:34:21
season got bumped around Then we had the 2022 world cup was in the winter And then we've also added a ton of games
00:34:27
to the schedule based on the proliferation of all these tournaments that fifa And other federations
00:34:33
are creating so players are playing more games than they ever have before And this is
00:34:37
the first world cup of that era that is at the end of the season as opposed to 2022 Was the middle of the
00:34:43
season? um And it's going to be super hot. So you would think that there would be
00:34:49
Prop if there was going to be a world cup where injury risk was high or like physical output was low It would be
00:34:56
a world cup like this one Um, ryan, we have kept you long and longer than we expected, but I just ask you one
00:35:03
more question. You've noted that the premier league has seen the set piece revolution meaning Scoring rates off
00:35:11
of corners free kicks throw-ins have blown up while open play scoring has declined historically
00:35:16
low So we'd love to dive into that but maybe we don't have time right now
00:35:20
to do all that but it's easy to ask To what extent is that going to transfer you've referenced multiple times just in the
00:35:26
last half hour How simplified the international game is versus the club game and some of
00:35:31
the reasons for that Well, does that mean that we won't see the same? Difference between open play and set pieces in
00:35:38
the world cup as we're seeing in the premier league Yeah, I I think there's a
00:35:42
good chance that it's an even bigger difference this summer. Um, Because set pieces don't require a lot
00:35:48
of practice It's it was what's happened in the premier league is like it was just
00:35:53
a strategy change which the strategy, you know We could do a whole another podcast on
00:35:59
this and we should because I think you guys would like it that's not me begging
00:36:02
to be invited back, but basically teams are crowding the goalkeeper with Extra players more players
00:36:11
than ever before and then they're playing in swinging corners So a righty from the left
00:36:16
side, so it's curving in toward the goal basically into the six-yard box like the
00:36:20
rates I think it's It was like 20 percent of historically free kicks were put into
00:36:25
the six-yard box and it was up to 50 percent this season If you look at it, it just skyrockets And tracking the
00:36:31
number of players The you can just see a massive change and so goal scoring I think 3.5 percent of corner kicks led
00:36:40
to goals And this year it was five percent um And you see it directly connected to this strategy change and it's become such
00:36:47
a big story in the premier league that people are like talking about maybe we should
00:36:52
change the rules because This is not why people love soccer. We don't want this to take up a
00:36:57
higher portion of the game but it's also become such a big story that I Any team that wants to win the world cup?
00:37:05
They should be good at set pieces. They should be creating what one analyst called
00:37:09
a meat wall in front of the keeper and then there's hitting an Inswinger into that
00:37:13
area because this one of the things that makes it work, which is interesting players are
00:37:19
so physical in those areas that basically resembles american football and The issue there is like
00:37:25
if a defender is physical and gets called for a foul It's a penalty kick and
00:37:28
it's in 0.8 percent, you know an 80 percent chance of a goal While if an attacker gets called for a foul, it's
00:37:33
like whatever it was. This was a five percent chance of a scoring It's worth doing so like the incentives
00:37:39
are for the attackers should just be way more aggressive than defenders And I think I
00:37:42
was gonna say it was all it's almost like adopting the hockey like to you know
00:37:46
so much a hockey goal scoring is like deflections and stuff like that, but I didn't
00:37:50
even think of the asymmetry of Kind of the punishment of the physicality in that in
00:37:54
that region, you know Yeah, so it's it's led to like you can kind of see
00:37:59
it in the data with The percentage of balls played into the six-yard box that are claimed by keepers are also lower than
00:38:05
ever before despite their you know being a massive increase in it's To what extent is
00:38:11
it going for like throw-ins as well and throw-ins catches Our eye because we had thomas grunemark on here a number of
00:38:16
years ago Thomas has been a consultant to a bunch of these clubs part of the revolution on making throw-ins A thing as
00:38:23
opposed to just getting the ball back on the field. Are we seeing that impact as well?
00:38:27
yeah, so the Season before this 20 percent of attacking throw-ins and the attacking third
00:38:34
were thrown directly into the penalty area and this season it was up to 45 percent
00:38:39
Yeah, so like two things that just clearly change and there's like tactical things that we
00:38:46
can tease out it's not just random variation of converting chances um and I think thomas
00:38:52
worked for fc mitchell and in denmark who are owned by the same Uh guy that owns brentford in the premier league and brentford
00:38:58
other ones that started this and then everyone copied them and the big Thing there have
00:39:02
been teams that have taken long throws in the past But the big change is teams realize you're not supposed to score off the
00:39:09
throw-in You're supposed to have someone flick the ball on with their head and then
00:39:14
the next person scores Because the ball's like not you almost can't throw it far enough
00:39:18
and then it's not moving fast enough to get enough power On like a direct header
00:39:21
as you would on a corner kick, but with a throw-in Launch it have a guy flick it on then another person comes
00:39:27
runs and heads it in and kicks it in and both of these plays are just It's different from soccer because there's no offsides
00:39:35
on corner kicks or throw-ins. So That aspect of the game is gone, too. Right, right, right Um, so can you just
00:39:42
to finish this off here? What what changed? People must have known that getting throwing the
00:39:49
ball into the penalty was probably good But what changed is that they learned how to
00:39:53
throw far farther that they invest in something Or did they really just not know that?
00:39:57
uh, I think it was One it was an aesthetic thing and it was sort of viewed as like the underdog like lesser Strategy
00:40:04
to try to rely on throw-ins like that while teams not real soccer Yeah, we have all these possession players we're just going
00:40:11
to do a short throw-in and restart it but brentford were so good at it the team's like basically Like you play brentford
00:40:18
enough times. You're kind of like why why would I not do this? um, and then with corners arsenal the Won
00:40:25
the premier league because they scored the most goals on corner kicks that a team ever
00:40:28
has they had a historically low Open play goal scoring for a winner and everyone copied
00:40:33
them. You can literally see like mid-season west ham and liverpool They were playing no balls
00:40:38
into the six-yard box on corners and that changed mid-season so you can it's
00:40:42
really interesting I mean it's making the sport worse to watch but you can see like
00:40:47
these arsenal being the best team in the league with corners and then Brentford just being
00:40:52
successful for long enough teams were Like had no choice essentially to adopt what they were
00:40:57
doing Super interesting we talk about how these things proliferate. Um Propagate in different sports that happens differently.
00:41:04
This is quick. This is interesting Last question tying these things together. Do you think there are any coaching staffs
00:41:10
or teams? Is there much variation in the international teams on their willingness to deploy these tactics?
00:41:16
So that some otherwise good teams might be disadvantaged or some otherwise medium teams might be
00:41:21
advantaged by saying hell We're going to go full-on brentford on this thing yeah, so
00:41:26
the u.s. Has a Set piece coach who used to work for brentford. He's Uh, kind of one of the progenitors
00:41:33
of this movement, but they're terrible at set pieces It doesn't seem like mauricio pochettino cares
00:41:37
about set pieces at all That's the one issue of hiring hiring an elite coach who's
00:41:41
has the sort of snobbish attitude toward them um, and then I think the netherlands also
00:41:46
have been very critical of their coach ronald koeman has been critical of England because england
00:41:51
is essentially going to try to copy what arsenal was doing Even though the netherlands have
00:41:55
a bunch of gigantic players So those are the two teams that stand out and I think will uh, I think england are like
00:42:01
very much in on set plays, so Uh, okay. They're the ones to watch out for in
00:42:07
terms of the big teams that are like fully into it Okay, cool. We kept you too long.
00:42:11
Ryan. Thanks, man Hugely helpful wish you the best with the next few weeks Enjoy it and
00:42:16
good luck to you with everything out there in syracuse Appreciate it guys. Absolutely ryan o'handlin staff writer at espn
00:42:22
author of net gains inside the beautiful games revolution Fantastic book on soccer and soccer analytics
00:42:28
long time friend of the show, man Oh, man, I could not have asked for a better primer on the world cup I mean
00:42:33
literally you give me 45 minutes and like already I went from scratch to ready to
00:42:37
go Even that like set piece business. Yeah All got led me to believe that the u.s is going all the way
00:42:51
One of the things that I thought was so interesting was a discussion about How it
00:42:56
just got picked up and in some ways it's kind of a high speed version of the three-point revolution in basketball And I
00:43:03
always ask like why defensive shifts is like defensive shifts I think that happened within one
00:43:07
season essentially that was for like defensive shifts that happened very quickly but you know, it's
00:43:12
it's like how do you miss these things and one of the answers is Culture, it's
00:43:16
just not what we do And and we don't like a tipping point where it's once
00:43:21
it becomes acceptable all of a sudden then everybody goes Somewhat fast. I mean like defensive and this went fast
00:43:26
three points took a while Those are two different cultures you're talking baseball versus basketball And
00:43:32
also, I mean, you know both the defensive shifting as well as these set pieces are
00:43:37
like kind of strategic Plays pause kind of You know things you can easily implement Changing
00:43:45
yourself into a three-point shooting team. There's like a multi-season like you got
00:43:51
to find the talent, you know, like, you know All this type of thing, you know well I tried to research this and the
00:43:55
answer that kept coming up was Players just weren't taught or they weren't raised to do
00:43:59
that And if you're not growing up, I mean remember becoming an elite level athlete It's
00:44:04
not something you just fall upon at age 18 or 19 or 25. It's something you've been basically preparing your whole
00:44:11
life for and if you're not Doing it. You don't just can't change that.
00:44:16
It has to be something that is I think that's that's that's the That's the obvious
00:44:21
narrative that actually doesn't explain things very much I think well I mean, it's it's like
00:44:26
in the the analog here is you don't have to retrain soccer players to just kick
00:44:31
it towards the net And get more penalties. That's like, you know, I actually i'm going
00:44:36
to press kate on what do you mean? This is what I hear. I have no idea. You don't think the three-point shooting I
00:44:41
don't think the three-point shooting was I think people have studied it I think I
00:44:45
could have this wrong. Somebody let me know if i've got this wrong. I don't think the It's not like performance
00:44:50
at three-point shooting got better and that led no it hasn't it hasn't it hasn't
00:44:55
exactly So it wasn't about a player growing up shooting a bunch of threes and getting
00:44:59
better at it. It was about culture Adapt accepting it and the game adapting to a different way of
00:45:06
playing because it was so slow. I mean like Shockingly slow. I mean decades slow Um guys, let's let's
00:45:13
let's hit some other sports in the short window. We have here in the second half of
00:45:16
the show Basketball where you get he's like, come on. We got a new york team.
00:45:20
What are you doing here? You know, i've waited my entire life for the knicks to get to where they are
00:45:25
And you know, I feel bad about it because I feel like i've completely abandoned them
00:45:28
all these years Because they've been abandonable abandonable Is that the right word dreadful ownership?
00:45:35
I mean come on dreadful ownership and i've essentially, you know Started to follow the sixers
00:45:38
so much as I follow professional basketball, but i'm excited, you know And apparently new york
00:45:44
is manhattan. I mean the city is going bonkers, right? And it's uh, it's it's certainly exciting.
00:45:50
They did they did lose at home, but an ultra close game Um, but so i've been i've been i'm not being able to
00:45:56
watch it live. They happen overnight Um, but I can get up in the morning I get to get
00:46:00
to watch what happened um, you know what you should look at how to just You should if you if you haven't done it,
00:46:04
I just want a quick advertisement for our our sometime guest nate duncan Who calls games
00:46:10
and it's a dunk dunked on prime you can you can you can you can listen to him call games on youtube and then
00:46:16
the next day You can get like clutch calls from him. And for for me, there's nobody i'd rather
00:46:23
listen call a game than nate for me, it's like It's like he's packing.
00:46:29
He's like his whole objective is to pack more information per syllable Than anybody else in
00:46:35
announcing basketball, it's like informative everything's informative and
00:46:38
he's willing to call bullshit Like he's doing play by play, but he'll call bullshit.
00:46:42
He'll say that's a bad decision That was why did he do that? Like at the same time he's but he's
00:46:46
also telling you what's happening and why he's happening and it's just wildly more informative especially
00:46:50
to someone who Despite having played basketball and watched basketball all my life Feels more than
00:46:56
ever like I don't really understand what's going on at a basketball court So I just
00:46:59
I mean i'm encouraging you to chase down nick nate's Dunked on prime stuff on youtube
00:47:06
as a great way to consume this stuff. Shane Audie's on basketball. What do you have to say about?
00:47:11
Yeah, i'm hockey. Come on I'm morally required to ignore at least New york team's doing well, so I
00:47:18
have not been paying attention uh To basketball as well. No hockey's got me occupied.
00:47:24
Certainly. Obviously, I think it's been yet another uh classic edition of nhl playoffs where we had
00:47:31
all these like Absolutely historically great teams going in and then Hit walls and everything like
00:47:37
that. So, you know, I mean, uh Avalanche coming off their regular season, uh, you know, not
00:47:42
even making it to the finals The hurricane's looking absolutely dominant going into the finals, but
00:47:47
you know down to one now to the to vegas So, uh, yeah, I guess it's sort of i've been enjoying especially with the
00:47:53
oilers not involved I've been enjoying kind of the randomness Of the playoffs and hockey yet
00:47:58
again this year but shane this year Right now being in the middle of the final series the bigger story seems to me The
00:48:04
drunkenness of these games. I mean have we ever I would like to capture something about how ridiculous these three
00:48:10
games have been And I would put them up against any first three games of any stanley cup final.
00:48:15
I mean, yeah, no, it's been crazy I go to bed at a four four nothing game late second And then before I turn
00:48:22
off the lights I see the scores four four, yeah, like what the hell where no and I Much less than the final it
00:48:29
has been nice Like, you know I kind of feel like the hurricanes versus canadian series
00:48:33
as much as I was kind of a little bit prone for the canadians That was a that was kind of on ice, you
00:48:37
know I mean Every one of those games is the hurricane score like shooting about two
00:48:42
or three times as much as the canadians And you were just kind of waiting for the puss on Realizations to catch up on
00:48:49
to the puss on that's exactly right. That's exactly right Which this one is much
00:48:53
more back and forth and and and I do kind of think you know It's it's a more even match.
00:48:57
I really do kind of you know, I think you know um, I thought I think mccurdy's got uh, I think vegas at 62
00:49:04
percent or something like that now maybe a little bit higher. Um, But I mean they're a game ahead.
00:49:10
So I I think you know at this point game by game. It's basically a point. Yeah once one Random stat that I saw
00:49:17
coming out of game. Was it game three game three where mitch marner? Has a natural hat trick in one period
00:49:24
plus an assist So he had four points in a single period the second period this is game three when they went out for
00:49:30
nothing before before being died Um, so marner scores four points in the second period in
00:49:37
a final in a single cup final it had been since some player for the seattle metropolitans in 1919 since somebody had scored four
00:49:46
points in a stanley cup final period Um, that's a anytime. This is like a good heuristic for how
00:49:52
impressive a record breaking moment is how long has the record stood just a real simple
00:49:57
heuristic How long has the record been there if gretzky couldn't break it? What are you doing breaking it?
00:50:02
Exactly. Well, you're saying four goals in one period four points in one period four points three
00:50:07
goals and assists of four points Okay, so what is it is it is it was specifically in the finals or in the playoffs
00:50:14
or it's not overall No, it was in the finals in a period of the finals is my understanding What it would be the
00:50:20
expected number of points in a in a period for any one player Just to show how many standard deviations out we're talking about
00:50:30
Well, how many we might like the baseline goal a goal per team per period a goal per team per period maybe?
00:50:37
I mean gretzky and his playoff crew is probably scoring like a goal per game or something like that Just to kind of norm
00:50:42
it a little bit Where so you're looking quite honestly, you're looking at something like a
00:50:47
six standard deviation event for a single player Yes, probably Four yeah Hundreds of players and
00:50:59
and they play many many games and there are many many periods and that does add up but This is super unlikely That's unlikely
00:51:06
it's unlikely. Um, it was it was good fun. He's a fun player. We've talked about him before He's a fun
00:51:11
player to watch He can't he's one of those players He's like a player the martians
00:51:14
like and i'm one of marshall you come in and you don't have to know a lot about hockey To see that he's different
00:51:19
from everyone liberated from that cursed franchise in toronto. That's right Once he got off of the
00:51:24
leafs, it's all better now um I want to I want to I want to say one thing about college sports the the men's
00:51:31
college world series back to baseball guys Back to baseball. This is closer to your loves the field
00:51:36
is set. That's the elite eight, of course so now they'll play Double elimination on both sides of
00:51:41
the bracket to figure out the two finalists and then the two finalists will play best
00:51:44
Two out of three. Um, I think there's five five of the eight are sec teams and then a couple
00:51:51
of it. Um, Acc teams and then troy and in ken massey's power rankings, you know All these
00:51:57
teams are like one four five eight in the country and then choice 53 Which is a little hard to believe but choice not
00:52:04
like the others I will just add a gloss on this which is that historically Isn't
00:52:11
much interest nationally in the college, uh world series In men's in baseball if oh basically
00:52:19
because the best players in baseball typically went to the draft And they were playing major
00:52:24
leagues, but now with nil money You can lure to college probably the majority of the
00:52:30
top players With big big salaries interestingly You said lure because you're not talking about just
00:52:36
about retention to keep them in college You're saying getting them to go to college when
00:52:40
they get drafted out of high school They have a choice and you're saying losing the
00:52:43
college with nil. That's interesting And what means that in a relatively short time once this thing kind of
00:52:49
shakes out and a lot more money will go to baseball um I think that we're going to be seeing the college world series
00:52:57
Nationally as a much bigger draw because you're looking at the the world's best american talent
00:53:02
um, even national international talent playing essentially at that stage, which is one of the reasons
00:53:08
why I think Potentially one of the reasons why college football has always been so much
00:53:13
more interesting interesting You're really looking at next year's professionals and you're going to be playing
00:53:18
for Does that does that have effects like does that does that how what does that
00:53:23
do to like the single a And double a market baseball teams because now you know,
00:53:28
yeah, that's right. I was going to say like you're just basically Reconstituting the college kind of farm system
00:53:34
for like the that the nfl has and that the nba has well This is already are you saying this hasn't fully flowered yet?
00:53:42
Because we've only had nil for a few years and it takes you know Four for a guy to go from a senior in
00:53:47
high school to a senior in college that hasn't really fully flowered yet That's interesting.
00:53:50
Um oddy we see this with the frozen four in college hockey this year You watch the frozen four and as they're calling the
00:53:59
play they'll say you know, there's the number two pick the penguins first round pick and
00:54:04
there's the red wings first round pick and like all these Recent draft picks on the
00:54:09
ice in these college games and it definitely elevates the interest in the whole thing No
00:54:13
question and that's 100 because of the well, that's because they changed the rules and allowed
00:54:18
They allowed these guys to bounce That real quickly just to be clear because I was
00:54:23
mistaken. That's not an nil thing. They used to you couldn't You couldn't play
00:54:27
college hockey if you'd been Drafted or if you'd ever received money or whatever and they'd
00:54:31
loosen that up and now you can do that. Sorry oddy jump in No, I mean that's
00:54:35
that's that's in hockey But I think what you're seeing what's so exciting say about watching
00:54:39
college football is, you know Those quarterbacks are going to be next year's quarterbacks in the
00:54:44
nfl Or uh, not, you know, the four or five of them are going to do that If not next year the year after
00:54:49
it's so exciting to watch that Knowing and the running backs and the wide receivers and
00:54:53
the offensive linemen and and the pass rushers They're just important players in your future and
00:54:58
you can see that and you care about it What's going to happen in baseball is
00:55:02
you're going to be starting to see The starting pitchers for the yankees for playing for
00:55:06
texas and you're like I need to watch that guy This makes me this makes me want to go and and like we should
00:55:11
have a list of the highest rated Prospects in the world series this year. Like who are the top rated prospects across
00:55:18
all eight teams? And you know, so that that's fun. That's a fun wrinkle We should add over
00:55:22
the next but if you think historically college world series just didn't have that many top
00:55:26
talent because yeah They were to be in college and and play those few years. Remember an 18 year old isn't going to
00:55:32
be great at all typically Um, so in your so you're 21, you're you're you're not
00:55:37
a top player. I mean Mostly not a top player, right? But I have to say I I actually
00:55:42
cut my teeth when I when I started my phd I would sit and i've talked about in the show.
00:55:47
I would sit in the sunken diamond at stanford And watch the ball players and paul
00:55:53
carrey was their superstar hitter He had broken all records for home runs in uh in
00:55:58
the pac-10 or whatever it is or college, uh baseball Nowhere didn't get got drafted
00:56:04
went nowhere. He was so far down the line Um to you can't appreciate and stanford was the
00:56:10
national champion They were led by one of the greatest pitchers of all time in college
00:56:14
in college baseball mike messina But he but at that time you were like who is this guy?
00:56:19
I mean, yeah, no idea where you're coming to because I do remember watching the 2007
00:56:24
world series. No, it was maybe 2004 And the matchup was jason marquee was pitching for the cardinals
00:56:31
Against jason veritech for the boston red sox and I remember them in the telecast making
00:56:36
a huge deal about the fact that they had played each other In the college world series.
00:56:42
Oh, that's amazing. Okay, and I think veritech was a shortstop at the time I don't I think they
00:56:46
were both Players or something like that at a time or certainly veritech was um, and
00:56:53
so yeah, I I mean that's obviously the exception But I I think it is an incredibly rare thing for that to happen Guys,
00:56:59
let me give you one more detail on this and this is a term a tournament design a tournament design Issue and this is
00:57:05
really subtle one. Okay, so this is about as in the weeds as i'm ever going to go But
00:57:08
i'm asking i'm gonna get your quick reactions and uh men's college world series eight teams
00:57:15
two distinct brackets play Round a double elimination and then they play two of three So
00:57:20
there are four teams playing double elimination In the women's world series same setup eight teams
00:57:26
go to oklahoma city two brackets with four but instead of having complete double elimination tournaments
00:57:33
on each side The losers of the second round the winners of both of the games play each other and the losers of that
00:57:41
Get sent to the other sides So it's not a a pure double elimination still double
00:57:48
elimination Not not series by series That's right. Well, it's not it's not an enclosed it's
00:57:55
still double elimination And they still kind of have bracket sides But the losers of the
00:58:01
second round One loser in the second round between the games of the losers the first
00:58:06
round is eliminated But between the games of the first round winners that loser goes to
00:58:11
the other side Okay, i'll stop there Why would they do what's the implication and why
00:58:17
would they do such a thing and baseball? I don't know how long women have been
00:58:20
doing that. I think it's relatively new But men don't yeah yeah, I I I I'm, not sure
00:58:27
why I think there's a there's a intellectual reason for it. Maybe there's some entertainment reason to do it
00:58:32
Is it spread it around more? Yeah, I mean the reasons against doing it would be that you're hosting these things kind
00:58:38
of regionally and it would involve moving teams Like physically around a much more than like
00:58:43
you would otherwise. No, no, they're they're they're no No, they're
00:58:46
all based in the final eight are all yeah in omaha or in oklahoma city. So they're set in one place Okay, one
00:58:51
thing it does the obvious thing it does is it delays the potential for a rematch
00:58:56
and reduces the probability of a rematch Right because you're not going to see one of
00:59:00
the teams that already beats you once In the third or the fourth round now, you do have a chance of rematching in the
00:59:05
fifth But by that time the odds are pretty low. So that's I mean yeah, it's We we
00:59:11
typically in the playoffs we we we seize on the rematch as as more signal, right?
00:59:16
Or at least we hope you know, like the reason we don't do Best of one and do best of seven or something like
00:59:23
that is that we want to have rematches to make sure that you'd Actually the correct,
00:59:27
you know the the quote-unquote best team and that's interesting seven, you know You're not
00:59:31
going to necessarily like at baseball. You're not going to necessarily get that but
00:59:34
but you know The concept that you would avoid a rematch when a rematch just gives
00:59:38
you kind of to a certain extent more signal Well, does it actually that'd be a
00:59:42
good sim question because or does it give you more signal to put them against somebody
00:59:45
else? Because you still have a second loss. You're still doing double elimination But would it
00:59:50
be better when you're starting to separate out the series? I mean obviously at the series level where
00:59:54
you want to decide these two teams who goes on you kind of want rematches of That right.
01:00:00
I don't know. I don't I don't know if that's true I thought I think it one of the
01:00:03
things it does is it mutes the impact of who showed up on each side of the bracket to begin with So if there
01:00:09
happens to be one really strong bracket by chance and one weak bracket by chance Because
01:00:13
the brackets don't they don't get reshuffled they don't get re Um, what's the right word
01:00:18
in playoff? They don't get reseated So whatever happens at the regionals bubbles all the way up And
01:00:24
if there's no seated teams that happen to come from those eight regions And so you
01:00:28
might have a really strong bracket and a weak bracket and this would dilute the impact
01:00:32
of those differences Yeah, yeah, right. And so I think that might be a positive thing Okay, i'll stop there, but that's
01:00:38
like pretty subtle tournament design and an interesting difference between the men's And the women's game.
01:00:42
All right, guys, why don't we wrap the show there? um For the whole team here shane jensen
01:00:47
oddie weiner eric bradlow in absentia Jacob grodnik holding down the production board behind the scenes
01:00:54
d patel the boss lady and marissa reyna our producer Many thanks to you guys the
01:00:58
listeners come back and join us next time between now and then Oh, and thanks to
01:01:02
oddie for dialing in from israel late at night Thanks for you guys listening come back
01:01:07
and join us next time between now and then Enjoy your sports