Category: newsletter (Page 6 of 10)

Perhaps we should all just go and re-read the Black Swan.

Leicester City’s Premier League triumph and Donald Trump’s road to the GOP nomination may seem like strange things to compare, but they are probably the two most unlikely major things that have happened this year.

These were not simply one-off unlikely single events. They are long-run wins, persistently written off by the media until they were a near certainty. Now both events are seen as game-changing: Trump has “already changed US and world politics… Themes and ideas that were on the fringes have now entered the political mainstream, and they will not disappear if and when Mr Trump loses”, according to the FT’s Gideon Rachman. Leicester have shown how “every club in the league now has the financial capacity to compete” according to the Telegraph.

The odds were both ridiculous for a limited field. There are 20 Premier League teams: for one to be 5000-1 to win the title is extreme, as was Trump’s 2 per cent chance given by FiveThirtyEight.

What comes next? Here the contrast is stark. Most neutrals hope that Leicester can have a decent-to-good run next season, while hoping that Trump’s campaign at best stalls, or preferably implodes. The tragic outcome would be the reverse.

And so to the matters of the week. Continue reading

A shorter newsletter this week because, you know.

You might be rather full of how-amazing-greatest-sporting-upset-ever-what-were-the-odds-5000-to-1 Leicester by now, but it still is a brilliant thing.

A few parting thoughts.

The Premier League is set up to keep the rich clubs on top. In the US the big main sports have three levellers: the draft, salary caps, and a knock-out playoff format which makes the winner more of a lottery. In the UK, a 38-game league format plus performance-related cash means the whole system is stacked to maintain the status quo. Previously, only oligarch money has broken the stranglehold at the top.

So do Leicester represent something new? Perhaps: Tottenham look good for another title run, and teams such as Southampton showed in the last few years that it is possible to challenge – for a while. West Ham look promising too.

The counter is that it is a fluke, a one-off, and nothing like it will happen again. Either way, this is a season to savour.

LEICESTER LEICESTER LEICESTER

There have been sooooo many articles, it’s hard to choose. First, there’s the deep dive: the Guardian has the inside story of an extraordinary season. It’s a good read. What convinced Leicester to appoint Claudio Ranieri? Why are injured players pitchside at training on exercise bikes? And what have been the keys to a remarkable Premier League success?

Next, let’s go econ. Gavyn Davies does a great job on the odds and economics of football.

Lastly, the Economist on sporting upsets.

That should do it. Continue reading

Justice – at last.

Let’s get on with the sports stories of the week

YOU CAN’T PROVE A NEGATIVE

Although Rafa Nadal is damn well trying. I’ve heard Nadal drugs rumours for years, but he’s going all out to show his innocence. The problem is that, as ever, you can’t prove you haven’t ever taken something. The doubters will never be convinced. So we end up in game theory – would someone go so far releasing documents etc if they were guilty of drug taking? Or is that the double-bluff they want you to believe? (FWIW, I’m a believer in Nadal.) Continue reading

Here’s a quick quiz, which will tell you everything you need to know about stats and context. And the long ball.

Q1: Which English football club is top of the Premier League right now?
Q2: Which club is 18th in the League and facing possible relegation?
Q3: Which two clubs play the long ball most often in the League?

If you answered ‘Leicester’ and ‘Sunderland’ to Q1 and Q2 respectively, you would be right. If you answered ‘Leicester and Sunderland’ to Q3, you would also be right.

According to the CIES Football Observatory, Leicester play 6.9 per cent of passes long, and Sunderland 6.7 per cent, the two highest-ranked Premier League teams, and 3rd and 4th in Europe’s big five leagues. For comparison, Tottenham in second place play 3.1 per cent long ball, and Newcastle, just behind Sunderland in the League, play 5.4 per cent.

Clearly long balls can be effective, or useless. Or maybe nothing comes from them whether you hit them 7 per cent of the time or 3 per cent. In other words: statistics can be revealing, or they can confuse, or they can be simply the starting point for more digging. Something to bear in mind.

And so to the week’s matters arising. Go on, treat yourself. Continue reading

What to make of sport this week? There’s been no major scandal, no offices raided, no drug busts of note. Instead, it’s back to the drama. Spieth’s collapse and Willett’s win; Leicester dreaming of the most unlikely title since [insert witty historical reference here].

But I don’t want you to be simply entertained. I want you to feel smarter. So here are 12 stories that you should know about, or think about reading when you have the time that clearly you won’t have unless you stop reading this long paragraph and get on with properly procrastinating with some top quality sports writing and I’ll stop there thank you very much.

GOLF

I actually fell asleep as Jordan Spieth went five shots clear at the Masters with the last 9 holes to go. But given that I had written a rather good analysis of the cliche that the back 9 at Augusta is where it is won or lost, I should have known better.  As the Cauldron points out, it’s the greatest theatre in sports.

The question now is: what happens to Spieth? Continue reading

After a couple of weeks out, the newsletter is back. Too much to summarise, so let’s get on with it.

Have you noticed the Huawei ads featuring Flo Jo as an inspirational figure? I say this is the worst sporting figure you could choose and the most cringeworthy campaign possible.

FOOTBALL

A few football pieces worth reading. As PSG and Man City face off in the Champions League, the Guardian has a great recap on how both teams were built by rival Gulf money. Meanwhile, Arsenal have been left behind. Once the stadium development was seen as crucial to the club’s future, but now it’s just a small part of club finance. Continue reading

There’s only one story in sport this week: Maria Sharapova.

While we should have no tolerance of drug cheats, there are lots of questions that don’t seem to me to  answered yet. Such as:

– surely Sharapova has a team of people (dietitians, trainers) – why did none of them stop this?
– why does Wada email these changes? Who clicks on links in emails about drugs?
– why was Sharapova taking a drug that is meant to be taken for 4 to 6 weeks for 10 years?

Forget the sponsors stuff for a minute – and the irony of VW (Porsche) dropping her given their interesting history with gaming the system. This should once and for all put to rest the ridiculous idea that tennis is too skilled a sport for drugs to make a difference.

Sharapova might be the biggest fish in the women’s game, but I suspect in time even bigger names will get caught, and for more clear-cut drug use. The match-fixing scandal will look like a minor blip in comparison.

Maria!

Andrew Hill in the FT: The deciding point for Sharapova could be that tennis and its backers can do without her.

Marina Hyde writes that Sharapova’s single error excuse is a suspension of disbelief too far: Maria Sharapova claims she made a huge mistake but it looks less like a misjudgment and more like a flaw that echoes other famous downfalls.

As the NYTimes points out, it is not as if tennis does not know how to march on without Maria Sharapova. She has missed extended periods of play because of major shoulder surgery and other ailments during the past nine years. Continue reading

Gianni Infantino clearly knows how to get some positive press.

His very first day in the Fifa top job – a job that belonged to yoda’s evil twin Sepp Blatter for the last 382 years – he somehow organises a match with a group of football legends, garnering barely a single critical word.

Evidence:
The independent: Gianni Infantino celebrates Fifa election success with legends football match
The Guardian: Fifa president Gianni Infantino wants to reignite ‘love of the game’

Ah, the love of the game. Friendly rich ex-pros laughing for the cameras. That’s what it’s all about. Putting the fun back into Fifa.

Wrong, wrong, WRONG.

When financier Guy Hands took over Odeon cinemas, he had to stop executives thinking they worked in Hollywood. He reminded everyone that they were in the popcorn business, not the movie business.

Infantino needs to realise he’s not in the football business. Not in the sense of running a club, building dreams, having them shattered and doing it all again next season. He’s in the business of organising events – World Cups, specifically. Who bids for them, how the TV money is distributed, and managing the reserve fund in the intervening years. Nothing else matters.

If he does his job well, no-one should recognise him, care about what he says, or pay him any attention. He needs to create a boring, transparent governing body that gets almost no news coverage. It is based in Switzerland, so that’s a good start. But he should forget the star-studded kickabouts, and get on with the job. (Related: read what’s wrong with sports officials by Simon Kuper)

Anyway, here are six recent stories that you should read: Continue reading

First – apologies to anyone who got last-week’s newsletter yesterday. I screwed up a Mailchimp setting. It won’t happen again (promise).

Now to the sport. Novak Djokovic’s win in Melbourne gives tennis an all-too familiar and predictable feel. Which is a shame, as he’s clearly doing everything right. The strange thing is, the storyline should get way more interesting at the French – yet it probably won’t. Were he to win, the criticism will be that he is too good, making the game boring, too dominant. Lose, and it’s 2015 all over again. Lose-lose. At some point in the not-too-distant future, we will miss him. We just can’t see it yet. Continue reading