More Fine Editing from The Guardian

This is actually a really good article from Sachin Nakrani which makes this small blunder stick out all the more:

"The 32-year-old has plundered 41 in 61 starts for Madrid and is showing no signs of slowing down - he scored again in their 4-2 Super Cup victory over Valencia in the Super Cup on Sunday."

Nakrani went on to say that "Real Madrid's Ruud van Nistelrooy has played outstandingly for Real Madrid in all of Real Madrid's games during this Real Madrid 2008-2009 season.  Real Madrid."

Grammar Lessons for No One in Particular

What's that you say? This isn't a grammar blog with a soccer theme? You wouldn't know it from the content of this post:

"While he has no complaints with the new manager at Stamford Bridge, Luiz Felipe Scolari, relations with Kenyon appear to have broken down, leaving the midfielder with three options: sign a pre-contract agreement with Inter to join under the Bosman ruling next summer, or relax his stance and sign the four-year deal on offer at Stamford Bridge. The third path - to leave under the Webster ruling - would be the most complicated, and most inflammatory in terms of his relationship with the club's supporters."

Dear Guardian writers, why not just write "...sign a pre-contract with Inter, relax his stance and sign the four-year deal at Stamford Bridge, or leave under the Webster Ruling. Without a doubt, the third path would be the most complicated...". If you're going to precede your list with a clause which includes three options, you should provide each one of the options within the parameters of that sentence. Otherwise, I say to myself, "Shit, the Guardian totally left out one of Lampard's options" until I read the next sentence and realize you're all idiots.

File this one under pedantry.

I Refuse to Let This Stand

How can the New York freaking Times vouch for this:

"Even so UEFA, the governing body of European soccer, has gone statistic mad at Euro 2008. Part of it is that UEFA makes more money from Euro 2008 than it really knows what to do with and part of it is advances in technology and computing software which allow these statistics to be gathered and organized and, lets be honest, give it some neat toys to play with. Large swathes of the competition’s official Web site, have simply been handed over to the nerds."

First of all, you're talking about UEFA's website, Mr. Peter Berlin. Frankly, who gives a shit. There are much more important things to talk about during this championship--the resurgence of the Croatians despite a rough opening game and the loss of their top striker Eduardo, the overwhelming attacking play of the Netherlands and Spain, the futures of two key members of the Portugese team, Big Phil Scolari and Mr. Ronaldo--than the technology deployed by UEFA, not at the games, not on television but on a website that you can visit voluntarily. And one which really contains no information of actual importance; certianly there are hundreds of websites like the Guardian which are much closer to required reading than UEFA.com is.

But, technology and having more money than you know what to do with. That's what you're complaining about. Cool. I've got a perfect example for you. ESPN has that new stupid ESPN View or ESPN Angle or whatever the fuck they call it where they can go 360 degrees. That is like porn to them. It's not really that useful, it's technology that they pioneered like 4 years ago in golf (and I think I've seen it on MNF too). But, cut to Tommy Smyth and Derrick Rae doing a 360 degree view of two men going up for a header with Tommy saying, "Close your eyes cause here it comes!"--talk about a technology fetish.

But you're going to talk about stats on a peripheral website? Alright man, go with God.

Your many salient points include:

1. "Some flashy graphic invention is dedicated to telling us that Eric Abidal, the French left back, passes the ball often to the player just ahead of him, the left midfielder, Florent Malouda. Surprise!"
2. "Cristiano Ronaldo, who takes Portugal’s free kicks, likes to shoot a lot. Big surprise!"
3. "The player page allows you to search for individuals not only by name, position or country, but also by height and age. Why would you do that?"
4. "Sweden’s average age is 29.15 (or 29 and two months) and Russia’s 26.15. The average ages of the 16 squads are separated by just 3 years. And, if conventional wisdom is right and a player’s prime is between 26 and 30, then all the squads fall broadly in that range."
5. "TV producers have caught the stats bug. They are particularly enamored of the technology that allows UEFA to measure how far any player has run in a game."

Alright, so those are five things that make you angry enough to write an indignant anti-stats article for the Times Goal Blog. And your editor was like, "Right on man! Stick it to them. Couldn't agree with those five absolutely right-the-fuck-on points more. Publish that shit!" Let's see where you might be wrong.

1. That is actually really cool and if you don't see that, you are stupid/don't like soccer. It is absolutely awesome that we're finally going to get some quantifiable information on player tendencies. Sure, it's stupid in the case of Abidal and Malouda but how cool would it be to see to whom Cesc Fabregas makes his passes in an Arsenal match? I'd love to understand how he builds an attack, know how many passes forward and backward, left and right he makes. How much better could I understand my favorite team if I had that information? (It turns out that the passing stats setup is not very user friendly and is not super useful and perhaps this is what Berlin is talking about. If so, cool. But I don't think that's what he's doing--I think he's saying "WHY WOULD I WANT THAT INFO" which is super-dumb.)
2. Of course Ronaldo shoots a lot. You're doing that stupid cherry picking thing like you did with Abidal and Malouda. Hey--here's a thought. I'm pretty sure it doesn't just tell you that he shoots a lot; in fact, it probably tells you how often he shoots on target, how often he scores, how often he passes up shots and passes for assists. In fact, after looking at the website, I now know that Ronaldo leads the tournament with 7 shots on target and in total shots with 13. From that, I can discern that he was probably trying a little bit too hard but he did have a goal and an assist last game so he's likely settling in. THANKS UEFA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
3. Those are hardly even stats. And I might like to know if I was having an argument with a friend over who is taller: Martin Harnik of Austria or Eren Derdiyok of Switzerland (I'll let you guys check out the website and figure it out for yourselves). Or if I wanted to make an informed argument about who's going to have an advantage in the air in a given game. You know, whatevs.
4. That's kind of dumb--it's probably more important to have good players than young ones. But I do think that younger sides like the Netherlands and France have an advantage over a team of grandfathers like Italy.
5. He argues ostensibly that what you do matters more than how you do it--i.e. smarter players make big plays without running much. But how that's an argument against TV producers (mind you, we're talking about a website so what TV producers are doing in the article, I don't know) catching the stat bug, I don't know.

If he was arguing that teams shouldn't be picked (exclusively) by these (sometimes) arbitrary stats, maybe he'd be on to something. Or if we was arguing about some mainstream media outlet, maybe I could get on board. But, he's criticizing a random smattering of stats (and some non-stats) on a third rate website.

I guess my conclusion is: what is the point of this article?

A Euro 2008 Preview

Guardian Columnist and friend of the blog (NOTE: that may not actually be true) Harry Pearson wrote today that choosing which teams to pull against provided a much more compelling reason for Brits (and, by extension, everyone not involved in Euros) to watch the tournament with great interest than choosing a team to pull for. He says:

"There are so many reasons to detest other teams: because they lured away your star striker, dived outrageously, wore an obnoxious kit, provide the only gap in your 1994-95 season sticker collection, or once featured Andreas Möller in their line-up. Some reasons have historical weight, while others are more trivial. Some people unsupport England because they cannot forgive the Empire, others unsupport us because they cannot forgive David Seaman's ponytail."

I, on the other hand, unsupport England because of Gordon Brown failed to hold a referendum on the EU's Treaty of Lisbon. Seriously, what a douche.

Harry got me thinking--as an American, as someone who has never before watched the European championship with much vested interest, as someone who has no real European allegiances outside of club football, who can I present compelling (or completely inconsequential but equally steadfast) arguments against? What follows is my best attempt at Harry's exercise: it is The Frustrated Striker's first annual Euro 2008 preview.

***Since I'm trying to figure out who I'm unsupporting, cons will precede pros. Deal with it.***

Group A

1. Czech Republic:
Cons: Throttled the USA 3-0 at the World Cup in Germany. Also failed to qualify for the knockout rounds so took those three points for nothing. Prague Spring was totally gay and didn't accomplish anything. Slovakia is much cooler.
Pros: I once scored seven goals against fellow blogger, thedoctor2246, in FIFA 2006: Road to the World Cup with Milan Baros.
Verdict: Pros vastly outweigh the cons. Go Czechs!
2. Portugal:
Cons: Star player is Manchester United winger and collossal wanker Cristiano Ronaldo.
Pros: Star player is soon-to-be Real Madrid winger and all around awesome dude Cristiano Ronaldo.
Verdict: Too close to call. Too much depends on the hopelessly inept Ramon Calderon.
3. Turkey:
Cons: Fenerbahce currently employs Roberto Carlos which everyone should've stopped doing around 2004.
Pros: In Turkey, Colin Kazim-Richards becomes "Kazim-Kazim." Which sounds twice as cool as that awesome Shaq movie.
Verdict: This is literally the longest I've ever thought about Turkish football.
4. Switzerland:
Cons: Phillipe Senderos sucks. According to Wikipedia, they're also know as the "Schweizer Nati" which sounds like a mix of German beer and Natty Light. Gross.
Pros: Geneva's pretty nice, even though it's kind of expensive. They have a cool free bike program.
Verdict: International neutrality doesn't mean that I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. I've got my eye on you, Switzerland.

Group B

1. Croatia:
Cons: Stupid uniforms. History of political instability as a Balkan state. Luka Modric signed for Spurs.
Pros: Sympathy vote for Eduardo da Silva and his new KFC two-piece leg meal. (Get it?) Knocked Ingerland out of the Euros giving me weeks of enjoyable reading on the Guardian and lots of jokes to tell my English friends.
Verdict: They're pretty fun to watch and Nico Kranjcar has taken over Pedro Mendes' title as "Portsmouth Player who will shoot from literally anywhere." Croatia, I support you.
2. Germany:
Cons: The Bundesliga is literally unwatchable. Miroslav Klose might be a Nazi. Bastian Schweinsteiger is a player that fellow blogger Rob is "sentimentally attached to" which is strange.
Pros: Torsten Frings is an awesome name. Herr Ballack is in the best form of recent memory and is a Blue.
Verdict: I subversively support them. I support them only so I can see them go out in the semis after three unbelievable Jens Lehmann howlers. Seriously, that guy is a nut.
3. Poland:
Cons: Their three best players (and the only three of their players who I've ever heard of) are keepers. Also, homeland of current "Wait? He plays for Real Madrid?" award winner Jerzy Dudek.
Pros: Coolest badge in Euro 2008. Sympathy vote for that whole holocaust thing.
Verdict: Poland, I nothing you.
4. Austria:
Cons: Red Bull Salzberg were dicks to Red Bull NY when they visited and you don't fuck with America. I knew a kid who went abroad to Vienna and he was a total cock. I'm just going to assume the whole country is filled with losers.
Pros: Hosting the tournament so...thanks for that, Austria. I guess. On second thought, they don't seem that excited about it. I just decided that's a con.
Verdict: Hey, Austria, fuck you.

Group C

1. France:
Cons: I could throw out some sterotypical crap about how they surrender in every war or how their women don't shave their pits and it would be HILARIOUS. But, honestly, I can't think of a con except for the fact that Zidane didn't magically come out of retirement for my personal enjoyment.
Pros: They have extremely exciting talent in Ben Arfa, Benzema, Toulalan (the obvious successor to Makelele in the coveted "guy with repeated l-vowel combinations in his name" category) and Nasri. Plus, a victory lap for the very last of the 1998 World Cup winners like Thuram, Viera and Henry. Their match with Italy is going to be an absolute cracker because you have to feel like they have a score to settle.
Verdict: Yes. On board.
2. Holland:
Cons: Arjen Robben will probably prove me wrong and play really well in this tournament, thereby disproving the notion that he's a total sham and making Chelsea look foolish for selling him. I hate hearing Johan Cryuff prattle on about total football. You guys were awesome--we get it.
Pros: Van Basten seems to know how to play to their strengths which is stick as many guys in front of your shambolic defense and hit out at pace on the counter (which is why Cryuff is so interminable). I don't care what anyone says--I like Ruud van Nistelrooy. Mario Melchiot once pulled off the rare self pass in a Wigan game I watched.
Verdict: I'll watch with muted interest. Watching the whole Dutch team is like watching Robin van Persie--you're excited but you don't want to be surprised or too emotionally involved when it goes down with an injury.
3. Romania:
Cons:
Pros:
Verdict: They play soccer in Romania?
4. Italy:
Cons: Divers. Marco Materazzi. Smug. Every imaginable Italian coach has turned down Chelsea. Ugly jerseys. Ugly players. Gennaro Gattuso. Match fixers. Peroni is nasty crap. Ugh.
Pros: Literally the only reason I can imagine cheering for them is Pipo Inzaghi. And he's not in the squad.
Verdict: Thinking about them turns my stomach. I think they are the definition of the nation I'd like to unsupport.

Group D

1. Greece:
Cons: The 20 or so Euros I paid to go the Acropolis was a total waste. Also, they're like rebuilding the stuff up there. I don't want to know what the Parthenon would look like if it was built half in the 5th century BC and half built in 2008, you Grecian assholes.
Pros: Pita bread is like the most delicious thing on Earth.
Verdict: Pita bread alone, no matter the cons, is enough to convince me to support them. Even if they do field shit footballers like Georgios Samaras.
2. Sweden:
Cons: Freddie Ljungberg plays for West Ham (by choice!) and is kind of a whiner. Henrik Larsson is still on the team despite being 173 years old (estimated).
Pros: Zlatan Ibrahimovich is pretty awesome and if you don't believe me, you should check this out. I went through a whole Swedish band phase and I guess Peter Bjorn and John, I'm from Barcelona and The Hellacopters are pretty cool.
Verdict: Why not? If only to see how awesome Ibra is, I'm in.
3. Spain:
Cons: Might as well call this the LiverRealCelona team. And, of those teams, I love approximately none of them. Luis Aragones also called Thierry Henry a "black shit" so that's pretty fucked up, right? Also, Franco.
Pros: Cesc Fabregas is awesome (although he's stifled in their system by all accounts...so half a pro). So is Fernando Torres.
Verdict: I want to like them. I won't cheer against them all the way until they go out disappointingly in the quarters.
4. Russia:
Cons: Vodka shots make me almost puke every time.
Pros: Fabergé eggs.
Verdict: The Motherland falls to the bottom of the group at the bottom of this tired exercise almost by default. There is nothing cool about this team, not even Guus Hiddink (who was awesome in Australia) . But, seeing as they are at the bottom of the group, I must now root vehemently against them.

Of course, none of this has any bearing on who I think is going to win the championships. Or how. In fact, I don't even really know what games are this weekend. All I know is put down your money now--Wayne Rooney for Euro 2008 top scorer!