Using Ordinal Logistic Regression to Predict EPL Match Outcome Probabilities

I just wrapped up a three week break from making statistics related posts.  While I was not posting on the blog, I certainly wasn't sitting idle.  I treated the break much like a professor might treat a sabbatical - as a chance to explore things the daily routine does not allow, all in the pursuit of improving a core skill set or level of understanding of a topic.  I used the break as a chance to begin compiling new statistics databases as well as understand new statistical analysis techniques.

One of those statistical techniques will be featured heavily in the coming weeks, especially when it comes to Premier League match analysis.  In the past I have used binary logistic regression (BLR) to look at how match statistics impact the likelihood of a team winning or not winning a match.  A BLR can only predict one of two outcomes, which provides a bit of a limitation when soccer matches can end in one of three outcomes - loss, tie, or win.  I was challenged by several commenters to explore other statistical models that would allow the prediction of probabilities for all three match outcomes.

Such a modeling environment is called ordinal logistic regression (OLR) (see this example for a  more mathematical, but readable, treatment beyon what Wikipedia provides).  As the name suggests, this type of regression model uses the order of the outcomes (low/medium/high, loss/tie/win, etc.) to build the model based upon the factors' impacts on the likelihood of falling in to one of the outcome "bins".  The assumptions that must be satisfied and the math behind the model are a bit more complex than a BLR, but the insights an OLR can provide are far more powerful.  When applied to the EPL match data that I have courtesy of DogFace, a model showing the probability of losing, tying, or winning a match can be predicted based upon how a team performed relative to the opposition in that match.

An example of such analysis can be found in the two plots below.  These plots utilize data from the 2005/06 through 2009/10 seasons for all clubs in the EPL, and set the values for shot, shots-on-goal, corner, and foul differentials to their averages by venue (home vs. away).  A sweep from the minimum to maximum values for red and yellow card fantasy points is then performed.  The result is the two graphs below that show the effects on the probability of losing, tying, or winning a match based upon card differential (home on top, away on bottom).  Click on either to enlarge.

These two graphs give us a much clearer picture of what goes on in matches home and away.  In home matches, the crossover point where the odds of losing actually exceeds the odds of winning doesn't happen until a differential of about 8 fantasy points (the equivalent of nearly three yellow cards or a yellow and a red card).  For away matches it happens a lot earlier, and in fact on the exact opposite side of the neutral line at -8.  Clearly, venue plays a large roll in determining the odds of winning.

Even more important than the OLR itself is the subsequent calculations that can come from it.  If we know the odds of all three outcomes an expected point total can be calculated from the following equation.

Expected Points = 3*P(win) + 1*P(tie) +0*P(loss)

This now means match statistics can be boiled down to a language with which we're all comfortable: match points.  This is much more intuitive than odds of losing, tying, or winning and provides a very direct comparison between teams, referees, or other factors of interest.

Applying the above equation to the graphs for home and away performance generates a much simpler graph - what was two graphs with three lines each now becomes a single graph with two lines.  Regression equations for the nearly linear relationship between fantasy points and expected math points are also shown.

The regression equations now provide a direct relationship between cards and points.  For every yellow card (3 fantasy points) a team's expected match points are lowered by 0.1, and for every red card (6) fantasy points) a team's expected match points are lowered by 0.2.  The percentage reduction in points will vary based upon the current fantasy point differential, but let's look at the example of a team playing to a neutral fantasy point differential.  Playing at home they would expect 1.7 points while away they would expect 1.1 points.  This means that for a home team playing to that level, an additional yellow card represents a 6% reduction in expected points while a red card lowers expected points by 12%.  For away teams, the impact is even bigger.  An incremental yellow card reduces their expected points by 9% and each red card reduces the expected points by 18%.

Keep in mind that this data does not include the most recent EPL season.  DogFace has been gracious enough to provide me with such data, so I will be updating my database for each club's OLR terms.  Over the coming weeks of the off season I will make several posts exploring the impacts such match statistics have on a number of team's match outcome odds, as well as update my referee analysis to reflect the new data and the new approach I have outlined here.

Stay tuned...

IT majors Infosys, Wipro and TCS spawning new breed of entrepreneurs

When the angel investor mentoring a raw start-up is the former chief technology officer of IT bellwether Infosys Technologies , the probability of success for the fledgling company rises exponentially, as technology product start-up Customer XPs Software is discovering.

The Bangalore-based start-up, founded by a team that was earlier part of the products division at Infosys, has built a software product based on artificial intelligence. It is now live on the portals of ICICI Bank and is expected to rake in a slew of new customers across telecom, retail, insurance, healthcare and airline industries.

"The long experience with Infosys apart from general techniques, marketing and my contacts with other banks helped me to bring value to the company," says Sharad Hegde, who led the development of Finacle, Infosys' core banking solution, during his two decade stint with the IT service major. He was the first non-founder employee of the firm.

As entrepreneurship gains pace across the country, supported by greater risk capital and a new class of angel investors , more employees of technology majors are leaving their cushy jobs to launch their own ventures. "We are observing an increase in number of IT employees launching their own ventures," says Nasscom vice-president Sangeeta Gupta. "There are some 1600 tech start-ups in the country and about 80% of them are being launched by experienced IT employees, working in India and overseas." India Emerging profiles a bunch of start-ups spawned from the high-tech crucible within some of the country's most exciting technology firms.

Customer XPs

"Customer relationship management software is mainly built on transactions. Ours is based on intelligence that works based on our likes and dislikes," says Rivi Varghese, founder-CEO of CustomerXPs, whose team spent 6-9 months reading up on Class-12 mathematics and books on psychology to build the product. Along the way, the team sought counsel from the couple who formed part of the iconic early team of employees at Infosys. Clearly, it was a connection that worked for both mentors and founders.

"Customer XPs is founded by a mature set of people. Coming from Infosys, we have the same kind of value system -trust, mutual respect and passion," says Hegde. He and his wife Anuradha Hegde are now the primary mentors of the start-up, besides having put in angel investment of about `3 crore.

"This product that Customer XPs is building will pull out information from credit cards and loans," says Anuradha Hegde, who spends about two days a week with Sharad Hegde at the Customer XPs office mentoring the team. "It pulls out the essence of your relationship with the bank." The founders gave up salaries for three years, relying on the hard scrabble ways learnt at Infosys where they went tight on cash but pushed the envelope on quality of the product.

Prakat Solutions

After co-founding the software testing services group at Infosys, India's second-largest software services firm, and growing it to 8,000 people and $300 million in revenues over eight years, Anuradha Biswas quit her job in December 2009 to launch her own venture, Prakat Solutions, which offers software testing services. The Bangalore-based start-up is building a network of qualified testers to perform independent testing over the cloud and aims to have 10,000 testers in the coming years.

This crowd-sourcing model includes students, housewives, retired professionals and people on sabbatical, who can remotely access, process and store information on computers 'in the clouds' or data centers. "For example, if the nature of work is in the area of energy, we will outsource the work to some professor who has expertise in that area," says Biswas, chief executive of Prakat.

"I decided to go on my own as tier-I companies concentrate only on bigger customers and I was interested to tap small and medium enterprises, which is a huge opportunity," says Biswas.

tablet revolution is unfolding new competition and height

n little over a year, tablets have redefined the tech business and is threatening to pip laptops and PCs as the must-have computing gadget. Sleek, user-friendly and smart, the iPad carved out a market in April 2010. Now Samsung , BlackBerry, etc want a slice of the pie. Excerpts from a Jefferies report on how the tablet revolution is unfolding.

1) Soaring Sales

Demand for tablets will zoom over the next two years. More companies enter the market. But no changes at the top. Apple's innovations seem to be unbeatable.

France will stop sales of heavy military equipment to Pakistan hoping to assuage Indian concerns.

France will stop sales of heavy military equipment to Pakistan hoping to assuage Indian concerns and prolong the recent success it has had in winning contracts from the Indian armed forces.

Gerard Longuet , the French defence minister, began his two-day visit to India by assuring the country that France does not want to be seen feeding Pakistan's military ambitions.

"Concerns did come up in my discussions with the defence minister about India's concerns. We supply Pakistan equipment that enables them to intercept terrorist communications. And we have decided to discourage any requests from Pakistan for heavy equipment, notably naval equipment," the defence minister said.

While Longuet did not expressly mention the Inter-Service Intelligence, he strongly alluded to the agency's suspected role in providing a safe haven to the 9/11 mastermind.

"After the death of Osama bin Laden, Pakistan should be given an opportunity to explain its position vis-a-vis terrorism," he said.

India, for long, has maintained that the sale of weapons by the West to Pakistan in the name of terrorism has instead been used by latter to build its own military arsenal rather than the actual purpose of the sale.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy during his state visit to India last year had called upon Pakistan to fight terrorism more determinedly.

There is a reason behind the hard line against Pakistan on the issue. French companies have had remarkable success in winning key defence contracts in India, including being short-listed for the $11-billion Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) tender, often described as the al-Yamamah - the famed arms race to supply the Saudi Kingdom in the 1980s - of the modern era.

Further, India's efforts to build up its submarine fleet, with Project 75 and 75I - to build six Scorpene submarines, will also see French defence companies playing an integral role.

The $2.4-billion Mirage-2000 upgrade is also expected to be announced shortly. Last week ET had reported that the Cabinet Committee on Security, the apex body which is responsible for large defence procurements, had already given its approval for the contract. French defence giants Dassault Aviation, Thales and MBDA will be the lead contractors on the project.

"The France-Pakistan relationship is largely based on geo-political terms. France, which is one of the most multi-cultural societies in Europe, has to take into consideration global terrorism issues. But there has been major reorientation in its foreign policy towards Pakistan," Deba Ranjan Mohanty, senior fellow with the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation, said.

Paris has been keen to establish closer defence and strategic ties with New Delhi, and by positioning itself as a more natural ally of India, it provides an interesting bulwark to the growing proximity between South Block and Pentagon .

"As most bilateral relationships, this is also a product of politics and economics. There is a massive commercial and strategic angle. India is not only a huge market, it is also seen as the only stable force in a very volatile region," Mohanty said.

Mr Longuet's visit comes also at a time when India is looking to finalise the lucrative $11-billion fighter jet deal for the Indian Air Force . French aerospace giant, Dassault Aviation is one of the contenders, through its offering, Rafale.

"We have one single speaking partner (Dassault) instead of four partners (European firms from Italy, Germany, Spain and UK). Mr Longuet said, taking an expected swipe at rival short-listed candidate, the pan-European consortium built, Eurofighter Typhoon.

The MMRCA tender is considered the most high-profile military aviation contracts in recent times, and had some of the world's largest defence vendors vying for it, including Lockheed Martin , Boeing and Saab .

The French minister also said that a decision on the IAF's $2.4-billion Mirage-2000 fleet upgrade was also eagerly awaited.

"We are in the final stages of the upgrade agreement. It is up to the Indian political establishment to take a decision. We are confident that it will happen soon," he said.

France's ambassador to India, Jerome Bonnafont also confirmed that price negotiations over the deal had been completed, and a decision was awaited.

Major IT firm announced hikes in the range of 12-20%

The brat pack is back this increment season. Information Technology sector employees, who lost their blue-eyed, deep pocket status to the rough recessionary years struck gold last month with increments offered this year ranging from a modest 10% to a princely 30%.

But it's not all celebrations as employers, particularly the small and medium-sized players, are worried about the loaded pay cheques eroding their operating margins.

If major IT players announced hikes in the range of 12-20%, the small and medium enterprises went up to offer 25% increments. "We have given even a 30% hike and that's not a recruit from the market but an employee,'' shrugs an employer, disbelieving the hike himself.

The benevolence is rooted in the recovery the sector has seen in the last one year and more importantly the crunch at the mid and senior levels. Employers say the increments were much needed to retain their in-house talent at these levels, albeit at the cost of their net profit margins, particularly in services companies.

"It is not just about retaining (employees). As an enterprise products company, we need people with domain knowledge," says C K Shastri, managing director, Intense Technologies . "The crunch is in terms of the domain knowledge, such as people working in CRM, retail or any other technical area such as mobile applications etc. Those with this domain knowledge are being grabbed by employers," says B Krishnamurthy, former global vice-president at Wipro and professor at Centre for Oraganisational Development.

The hikes have led to margins of SMEs shrink by 8-10%, as per industry estimates. "Employers don't have a choice since the attrition at the middle level has gone up after the market improved. Clients of IT firms don't want freshers and insist on experienced hands, who in turn demand a price. There is a huge employee aspiration," says Varda Pendse, director, Cerebrus Consultants.

The major firms, however, appear better placed. The hikes in companies such as TCS and Wipro have reportedly been to the tune of 10-15%, with top performer employees (who bagged promotions) getting as much as a 20% increment, a significant jump from the single digit hikes last year. "Leading companies have offered a hike of 9-14% at the operational level and 12-16% at senior levels. This is because their billing rates have bounced back, with significant increase in growth and revenue margins post recession,' says E Balaji, managing director and CEO, Ma Foi Randstad.

Industry experts note that the various welfare schemes introduced by the government has worked in favour of many IT majors. Highly placed IT officials in the state government point out that the budget for e-initiatives across departments for the financial year 2010-11 was a neat Rs 2,000 crore. Add to that several government schemes such as NREGS or even the UID project that are flush with government funding. "The IT sector is being supported by the government indirectly. The revenues from government verticals are going up and has been one of the factors for the good hikes this year," says an employee of an IT firm currently implementing a big ticket government project.

The hikes are also being attributed to major players eyeing non-US markets for projects. So, apart from e-gov verticals, companies also have dedicated teams catering to emerging markets including Middle East, Africa and Asia- Pacific. Also, major players that once frowned upon smaller domestic players are now taking up their projects too to beef up revenues.

The decisive evidence of ISI's role in the Mumbai attacks.

I: Fresh disclosures made by David Coleman Headley during his testimony against co-accused Tahawwur Hussain Rana throw new light on the role of Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence handler Major Iqbal and other non-commissioned officers of ISI in training and conditioning the Pakistani-American for espionage ahead of the Mumbai terror strikes.

On the third day of the 26/11 trial underway in a Chicago court, Headley testified that after Major Iqbal was introduced to him as an ISI officer in 2006, he had received detailed training from him as well as other non-commissioned officers in the ISI in spotting and assessing people, recognising Indian military insignia and movements, dead drops and pick up points and clandestine photography.

Headley said that he was first connected to Major Iqbal through another Major Sameer Ali of the Khyber regimental center. Headley said although he had never seen Major Iqbal in military uniform, he came to meet him several times in a military jeep and his subordinates had military designations.

The decisive evidence of ISI's role in the Mumbai attacks that has come up during the Rana trial is being seen by the Indian security establishment as a vindication of their claims about the Pakistani state agencies' involvement in the 26/11 conspiracy. Underlining this, Indian ambassador to the US Meera Shankar -- who called on Union Home Minister P Chidambaram in the capital to discuss the agenda for his meeting with US Department of Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano on Friday -- said: "The Rana trial is going on and Headley is the key witness. The revelations coming out from the trial are shedding new light on the full details of the (26/11) conspiracy."

Incidentally, MHA is hoping that Napolitano will informally share the evidence and exhibits put up before the Chicago court, when she sits across the table with Chidambaram.

The two sides will discuss issues of mutual interest, including coastal security, mega city policing, countering illicit financing and trans-national crime, cyber security, accessing and sharing of data relating to terrorism , transfer of counter-terrorism and homeland security equipment to each other, capacity building and mutual assistance in investigations including in the Mumbai terror attacks. In Chicago, Headley, despite repeated questioning by defence attorney Charles Swift, said that he did not know the full name of Major Iqbal. He however said he was sure that Major Iqbal was from the ISI.

Defense attorney Swift asked Headley, "Did ISI provide you training," to which Headley replied in the affirmative. Headley said that Major Iqbal was not satisfied with the notes taken by him during his training by the Lashker-e-Taiba. Iqbal thought the notes were "not good enough," Headley told the jury.

"So Major Iqbal had me instructed. Iqbal did some of the instruction himself and some by non-commissioned officers (NCOs), Headley said adding that he received training from Major Iqbal in a two-storey safehouse in a residential area close to the Lahore airport.

Friday Night Links

I took the second week of my three week vacation very seriously and didn't post a Friday Night Links, so this week's post will be longer than normal as it covers two weeks worth of material. Let's get to it.

New Blogs, Magazines, and Books

This week I have two new things I am reading.

• Issue 1 of The Blizzard came out on Thursday. I snapped up a copy for myself and am eagerly awaiting its electronic delivery (unfortunately, the guys had a bit of trouble with their ordering system on launch day that they're resolving now). I grabbed Issue 0 when they first published it, and loved every one of its 187 pages. If you don't know about the Blizzard, head over to their website and check it out. I love it so much that I harbor a not-so-secret desire to have an article published in their wonderful quarterly magazine at some point. A boy can dream...
• Dan Kennett turned me on to Lewis Tong's Squeezing My Skull blog last week. The blog is new and only has a few posts so far, but it has covered topics near and dear to my heart - the econometrics of soccer. Check it out and give Lewis some feedback on his efforts.

Links of the Week

• Tim at 7AM Kickoff has been killing it the last couple of weeks. He's offered up some evidence as to why Arsenal can't compete with recent champions on goals scored and conceded, showed how Arsenal's points per game fell off at the business end of the season (and ManU's did not fall nearly as much), and ultimately proves why deadlines and the need for sensationalism in the newsroom don't lead to good statistical analysis.
• Chris at Soccer By The Numbers makes the case that soccer is a Big Four sport in the US if you look at how Americans write about sports.
• Brian Phillips at the Run Of Play blog suggests we watch this weekend's Champions League final as Barca's (and Spains) run of domination is likely coming to an end.  Appreciate it while you can, people!
• While relegated clubs are trying to figure out how they're going to manage their businesses next season, Ian at TwoHundredPercent writes about the opposite problem: recently-promoted Queens Park Rangers have raised ticket prices 40% in the hopes of competing with the rich clubs of the Premier League.
• Speaking of club financials, The Swiss Ramble does a great job profiling the improving fortunes and continued challenges of Liverpool.
• In case you missed the news, here's how much each of the Premier Clubs made last year based upon global TV rights. How big of a slice did your favorite club get of the £1B pie?
• EPL Talk argues that Manchester City didn't buy their FA Cup trophy. There's some spirited discussion in the comments field, and even I got in on the act. Predictably, I came down on the side of those who argued the cup was bought.
• TwoHundredPercent has a great story about the playoff between Luton Town and Wimbledon AFC for promotion into the Football League. Wimbledon won the match, meaning they will be playing league football less than a decade after their founding. It's a testament to their supporters, players, and staff who have created something from nothing more than passion for a club that was stollen from them. Sadly, this is nothing we could experience here in the US with our single-entity, monopolized, franchised pro sports model.
• On Football has some great graphs showing the correlation between EPL club finances and their table position.
• The NY Times' Goal blog has a great recounting of Porto's magical, undefeated season.
• The Overlapping Run provides great links to an analysis suggesting the lessor known DP's are providing good bang for the buck, while a link to a SoccerLens article argues that it's time to reform soccer's rules to recognize the prowess of today's players.

It's a long weekend here in the US, which serves as our unofficial start of summer. I will enjoy the conclusion to the European soccer season like everyone else on Saturday, and then pivot to focus on the US game over the next several months. We have the middle third of our domestic league season to contend with before Europe returns to play in August, as well as the Gold Cup and a slew of friendlies featuring European clubs. It's going to be a good summer.

Next week I also return to regular posts of original statistical analysis. I'll use next week to give you some previews of what I am working on, and ease back into regular posts over that week. I've got a slate of posts planned throughout the summer, so even though the EPL is on break I will not be. Thanks for sticking around and waiting out my much needed three week break. I am convinced it will make my posts over the next several months all the better. Have a great weekend, and I will see you guys on the back side.

http://choosethinking.com/enterin.html

Google Translate of Blog Now Available

I just added the Google Translate widget in the column to the right of the blog posts.  I hope that it assists my readers enjoy the blog in their native language if English is not their first choice.  Enjoy!

Pakistani militant group leT mumbai attack , ISI coordinated: Headley

The government’s key witness in the trial of a Chicago businessman accused of helping coordinate the 2008 Mumbai attacks described on Monday how he made multiple scouting trips to India before the rampage and gave frequent updates about his progress to his two Pakistani handlers -- one from a militant group and the other from the country’s main intelligence agency.

The federal terrorism trial of businessman Tahawwur Rana is being closely watched around the world for what the attack’s scout -- Rana’s long-time friend David Coleman Headley -- might reveal about possible links between the anti-India militant group, LeT, and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency, known as the ISI.

Headley already has pleaded guilty to laying the groundwork for the Mumbai attacks, and he agreed to testify against Rana to avoid the death penalty, making him one of the most valuable U.S. government counterterrorism witnesses.

What Headley says during the trial has the potential to inflame tensions between Pakistan and India and place more pressure on the already frayed U.S. and Pakistani relations. His testimony also could add to the questions about Pakistan’s commitment to catch terrorists and the ISI’s connections to Pakistan-based terror groups, especially after Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces in a military garrison town outside Islamabad earlier this month.

The Pakistani government has denied that the ISI orchestrated three-day siege in Mumbai that left more than 160 people dead, including six Americans. Pakistani intelligence officials have not commented on the trial.

“Headley’s testimony is a nail in the coffin of U.S.-Pakistani strategic cooperation,” said Bruce Riedel, a former White House adviser on Middle Eastern and South Asian issues. “Until now his commentary has gotten very little attention outside India, now it will finally get the attention it deserves here.”

After opening statements Monday, the government called Headley, a Pakistani-American, to the witness stand where he spent hours detailing the formulation of the attacks and Rana’s alleged help in providing cover for his surveillance activities in India.

Headley, clean-shaven and balding, wore a light blue golf shirt with a dark windbreaker during testimony at the federal courthouse in Chicago. Speaking so softly at times that attorneys had to remind him to speak louder, Headley said he has been involved with LeT for more than a decade, but he wasn’t working with someone in the ISI until years later after he was arrested by tribal police near Afghanistan. It was then he said he met a major in the ISI and told him what he and Lashkar were planning.

This ISI major, Headley said, was “very pleased” with what he heard and asked if Headley would work with one of his ISI associates. Headley agreed and said he was released from custody. Headley soon received a call from a man he referred to during his testimony as “Major Iqbal,” which the U.S. government says is an alias. Headley said he then met Iqbal in a safe house in Lahore, Pakistan and described his plans with Lashkar and his assignment to take videos of Mumbai in preparation of an operation.

Headley said ISI provided financial and military assistance to Lashkar, and he assumed they worked under the same umbrella. He said Iqbal and his Lashkar handler,Sajid Mir, were in communication, but he would meet with them separately in Pakistan. Headley said when he would take videos of sights in Mumbai, he would first share them with Iqbal and then with Mir.

“They coordinated with each other and ISI provided assistance to Lashkar,” Headley told jurors.

Before moving to Mumbai in late 2006, Headley said he first came to Chicago, met with Rana and explained the plot in hopes of persuading Rana to let him open a branch of his immigration services business as a cover.

“I knew my friend had an office and I could persuade him to help us out,” Headley told jurors.

With Rana’s help, Headley said he set up an immigration consulting business in Mumbai and secured work visas to travel in and out of India. Headley described conversations he had with Rana while he was visiting in Chicago, and the prosecution showed emails between the two men discussing the immigration business and Mumbai operation through coded words.

Headley said he first told Rana about his involvement with Lashkar in In August 2005. Headley said his friend was surprised to learn this, but did not say he disapproved.

Earlier Monday, attorneys painted opposing portraits of Rana, a Pakistani-born Canadian who has lived in Chicago for years.

“The defendant knew all too well that when Headley travels to a foreign country, people may die,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah Streicker told jurors.

But defense attorney Charles Swift described Headley as a man who had been manipulating people for years, including Rana, a Pakistani-born Canadian who has lived in Chicago for years. Swift said Headley has a history of cooperating with the government in order to get out of trouble and spoke of Headley’s work with the Drug Enforcement Administration in the 1990s. At one point, Swift said, Headley was working for the DEA, Lashkar and Pakistani intelligence at the same time.

Rana, 50, has pleaded not guilty in the case. His name is the seventh one on the federal indictment, and the only defendant in custody. Among the six others charged in absentia is Mir and Iqbal.

Headley’s testimony is expected to resume Tuesday morning.

Keywords: Mumbai terror, 26/11 attacks, David Headley, Rana, Pakistan militant group, ISI

A Week Of Great Soccer in the Pacific Northwest

I have made it through the second week of a break from statistical analysis on this blog.  While my Gunners have limped their way to a 4th place finish in the league and face yet another off season of insufficient spending, I have been able to enjoy two great weekends of live soccer here in the Northwest via my Seattle Sounders.  Below are my highlights from the two matches.

Seattle Sounders FC vs. Portland Timbers

I have to admit - I was hopping for the full three points in this derby.  Our back line and goal keeper fell asleep on one free kick, and that cost us the win.

No matter the result, the atmosphere was awesome and I can't wait to see this match on an annual basis.  The crowd was jacked from the get go, with the major supporters groups stoking the flames throughout the match.  Below are a few images and videos that do the best job of capturing the feeling, although nothing is quite like being there.

My hope is that MLS continues to grow and that teams genuinely create rivalries.  I don't know how successful they will be at this given the geographic size of the US and the lack of history many clubs have. I just feel very lucky to be a supporter of a team who has such a storied history with a rival that we don't need to create the derby atmosphere - it existed long before MLS awarded our two cities our franchises.

Here's some tifo from the north end of the field.  The upper right hand corner is the tifo from the 550 away supporters from the Timbers Army.  There were many other Timbers supporters spread out throughout the stadium, a group of which were above us and routinely solicited "PORTLAND SUCKS!" chants from our end of the field.

Here's what the tifo on the south end of the field looked like.  Truly epic!  Grant Wahl referred to it as a "half acre" of tifo.  Four Sounders legends plus Freddy Montero are in the lower bowl, "Decades of Dominance" with a sounder fist crushing a Timbers logo in the upper bowl, and the smiling face in the bottom left is Portland nemesis Roger Levesque.  Tifo that is five sections wide and two bowls high - try and top that!

Here's a video of what the tifo looked like as it came out.  It's too bad the video has some Bach music in the background - far more impressive was the "Welcome to the Jungle" that was played while those banners were flying.  It may be a 25 year-old cliche sporting event song, but it added so much to the mood in the stadium.

More importantly, the videos below capture the scoring action.  The scene after the Fernandez goal was simply electric.

While I was not happy about the equalizer from Portland, the video does a great job capturing 500+ supporters that made the trip up to Seattle and were packed in to the Northeast corner of the stadium.

In all, it was a wonderful derby weekend here in the Northwest, and I am sure we set a new standard for MLS rivalries.  I just wanted those two extra points!

Seattle Sounders FC vs. Sporting Kansas City

In some way you have to feel for the players of Sporting KC.  They've been on one heck of a road trip to begin this season, playing nearly three months on the road while their new stadium is completed in time for the June 9th inaugural match.  The team is certainly investing for the long-run, but it may be doing so at the expense of the near term with a 1-6-1 record and four points to show for it.  MySportsStats.com is showing they have a less than 20% chance of making the playoffs after last night's loss, although my Sounders had even lower chances at a much later stage of last season and still rallied to make the playoffs.  Sporting KC will need something similar this season, and it's not impossible given the benefits of a second half schedule heavy on home matches.

More important to me than the three points was that this was the first Sounders match my older daughter has attended.  She's been watching a number of the matches on TV for nearly a year, so I bought tickets to the match against the Union in July.  This week that match was moved to October to accommodate the Union's friendly against Real Madrid, and I was none too pleased.  I lucked out as I had a friend who had to get rid of tickets to this weekend's match, so I picked them up and my older daughter and I went to it.  The pictures and videos below serve as highlights of a fun evening that I think maybe, just maybe, hooked my older daughter on the live experience.

Below are the two US Open Cups the Sounders have won since moving up to MLS.  It's a bit blurry since the older daughter took it, but it was an awesome experience.

Below is my daughter enjoying the music from Sound Wave, our team's band that plays at every match.

Here's the stoppage time goal from Jeff Parke, who hadn't scored in seven years.  It was an amazing experience - my daughter was picked up off her seat and went for a ride with me as we jumped up and down, high-fived a few people, and generally reveled in an additional two points earned by our boys.

These kinds of endings seem to be par for the course when Kansas City comes to town - they lost last year's match due to a Mike Fucito stoppage time goal.

Post-match, my daughter and I had a fun time leaving the stadium.  On the way out the door we ran in to a guy who had a giant green foam Z for our fallen winger, Steve Zakuani.  The Spirit of #11 lives as he rehabs from that horrific leg injury he has suffered.

At the end of the walk, we ran in to Sound Wave who was celebrating the win with a rendition of Muse's Knights of Cydonia.  The guy with the giant Z makes another appearance here as well.

My daughter loved every minute of it.  Of course, the match not ending in a nil-nil tie nor the drenched state of the Portland match were definitely plusses.  She's a bit disappointed that she must wait until October for her next one, but I'm sure she'll get over it.  It's all I could ask for with a seven year old - not absolute rejection, and a good interest in going to another match.

New Sports Illustrated Column: Burning Questions from Eighth Circuit's Ruling Tonight in Favor of NFL

A three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has extended its stay of Judge Susan Nelson's order to enjoin the NFL lockout.  The stay will continue into June, when the panel will decide the matter on the merits.  I have a new column for SI on the ruling and what it means.  Here's an excerpt:

7. Will the players stay unified during the lockout?
If the players lose before the Eighth Circuit next month, the unified players' front may splinter into factions. Here's why:

The major advantage for players to decertify was that it empowered them to bring a very threatening antitrust case against the league. Decertification meant that the NFLPA no longer represented NFL players in negotiations with the NFL over employment conditions. As a result, the federal labor exemption, which immunizes collectively bargained rules from antitrust scrutiny, was taken off the table, thus exposing core parts of NFL football -- the draft, the salary cap, restricted free agency, etc. -- to antitrust review. The NFL is very vulnerable to losing an antitrust case, and a loss would command that the owners pay treble damages, likely in the billions of dollars.

The decertification strategy seemed successful on April 25, when Judge Nelson issued a preliminary injunction against the NFL lockout. The injunction meant the lockout was lifted, the league had to figure out new employment rules which would prove compatible with federal antitrust law and players were positioned to eventually win their antitrust litigation. The players, in other words, had all the leverage.

Everything changed April 29, when the Eighth Circuit granted the temporary stay of the preliminary injunction. If the Eighth Circuit rules in favor of the league next month, and assuming neither the Eighth Circuit grants an en banc rehearing nor the Supreme Court favorably intervenes on behalf of players, the antitrust litigation path would essentially be punted to 2012 or beyond, when a trial on Brady v. NFL might happen. By that time, some current players will be too old to play; others might fail to stay in top condition and not be able to get it back.

Such a situation could cause the players to rethink the decertification strategy and possibly contemplate recertification.

One leading reason to remain decertified is that recertification would support the NFL's argument that decertification was a sham. The NFL has filed an unfair labor practices charge with the NLRB on such a ground; the NLRB will likely decide on the charge by early next year. If NFL players recertify soon after their antitrust strategy failed, it would imply that decertification was only pursued to bring an antitrust case. That would play right into the owners' wheelhouse for the NLRB charge.

But there are downsides to remaining decertified. Foremost, players have abandoned the collective bargaining framework and are essentially acting on their own or, if they so choose, as factions of players. There is already discussion of players abandoning the NFLPA/Brady litigation and pursuing their own strategies, with their own attorneys and advisors. Expect that discussion to only amplify should the Eighth Circuit rule against the players in June. The NFLPA cannot prevent any players from negotiating with teams or the league; recertification would be required to do so. The NFL could take advantage of that situation by reaching a deal with one group of players and those players then convincing others to recertify, but perhaps with different NFLPA leadership in place.

This situation is unique and could place the NFLPA in a difficult position. Normally when there are splinter groups of employees, the employer takes a major risk by speaking with them, because Section 9(a) of the National Labor Relations Act commands that the employer speak to the duly-elected union representatives. Here, however, the NFLPA maintains that it has disclaimed interest in representing NFL players. In fact, if the NFLPA now tries to deny a splinter group a seat at the table, the NFL could argue this supports its position that the NFLPA's disclaimer was a sham.

Then again, the NFL may be wary of meeting with the splinter group. If the league does so, it could signal that the NFL acknowledges that the NFLPA has disclaimed interest in representing NFL players. Such a signal would undercut the league's argument to the NLRB that the decertification was a sham and that the NFLPA only decertified for purposes of bringing an antitrust case.

In short, if the players lose before the Eighth Circuit next month, the players and the league will have to think long and hard, not only about what to offer in a negotiation, but with whom to negotiate.

To read the rest, click here.

New Sports Law Institute at Vermont Law School

Brian Porto and I are excited to announce the creation of the Sports Law Institute at Vermont Law School.  It's an exciting venture that will focus on the intersection between sports, law and business and on getting students jobs and internships in the industry.

The Institute's website can be seen at this link.  Here is the news release:

VLS’s New Sports Law Institute Gives Students Opportunities in Sports, Law and Business

SOUTH ROYALTON, VT -- Vermont Law School has established a Sports Law Institute (SLI) to prepare students for the growing opportunities at the intersection of sports, law and business.

The SLI is headed by Professor Michael McCann, one of the nation's foremost experts on sports law. He is a legal analyst for Sports Illustrated and editor-in-chief and publisher of the award-winning Sports Law Blog. The SLI's deputy director is Associate Professor Brian Porto, who has written about legal issues in sports for more than two decades.

The SLI's launching further broadens the curriculum and experiential learning opportunities at VLS, whose environmental law, international law, dispute resolution and other public-service oriented programs are nationally recognized for excellence.

The SLI serves as an educational, research and professional vehicle for exploring connections between law and sports. The institute engages in original research, promotes experiential learning and employment opportunities for VLS students and alumni and connects the VLS community with academic and professional sports law activities. The SLI also provides cutting-edge commentary on some of the biggest controversies in sports law.

"Sports law has an emerging role in legal education and will continue to gain importance," McCann said. "It encompasses a wide range of legal topics, including antitrust law, labor law, intellectual property/licensing, contracts, commercial law, business law, immigration law, property, torts and criminal law. That breadth makes sports law an excellent device for studying the law. Sports law is also a valuable learning tool because it presents complex legal issues in fact-patterns that students generally find approachable and understandable. Our focus ranges from the ski and snowboard slopes in Vermont to the parks, courts, rinks and fields found in the big leagues and minor leagues all over the country."

More information is available at: www.vermontlaw.edu/sportslaw

CONTACT: John Cramer, Associate Director of Media Relations Office:          802.831.1106, cell: 540.798.7099, jcramer@vermontlaw.edu

REAL MADRID HAS A "MASTER PLAN" FOR UEFA PLUS THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE ?

Spanish Sports (Football) Barcelona based press, “Don Balon”, via its online edition has published an interesting article that one can interpret as strategically cunning or dangerous in its message with a “Machiavellian” design & intention. Thought appropriate to post seeing today is a "quiet" day in the Spanish League.


The crux of their story is that REAL MADRID, & more importantly its

Slotting for MLB Draft?

Good piece by Jeff Passan on slotting for the MLB draft being a divisive issue for a new MLB CBA.  We've discussed slotting for the MLB draft a number of times on the blog.

The Resumption of the Cascadia Derby

It may not have the history of the Merseyside Derby or the level of hatred of the Old Firm, but today marks the resumption of American soccer's penultimate derby - the Cascadia Derby.  Tonight I will be at Qwest Field when the two loci of the US soccer universe meet for the first time in MLS history.  My Seattle Sounders FC will host our neighbors from 174 miles (280 km) to the south, the Portland Timbers, in front of 36,000 supporters and a nationwide TV audience.

I enjoy visiting the city of Portland, often taking a weekend every six months to travel there with my wife.  I've found that our cities are much like siblings - similar enough to get on each other's nerves, yet different enough to greatly dislike each other.  It starts at the city level, and just gets all the more intense when it comes to the soccer teams that represent them.

For those unfamiliar with this weekend's game I offer you three takes on it.

1. The serious.
2. The cliched.
3. The tongue-in-cheek.

I will be there tonight, just outside the south end where the Emerald City Supporters will be their loudest.  I'll have no voice at the end of the night, and I hope we come away with a full three points.  If the 11 PM EST kick isn't past your bed time, I would suggest checking the match out.  You will witness where every MLS fan hopes the rest of the league can get to in terms of attendance, vocal support, and intense rivalries.

FC BARCELONA TRANSFER GOSSIP | VILLAREAL FORWARD GIUSEPPE ROSSI ON AGENDA

FC BARCELONA are also thinking & planning next season 2011 - 2012 with signing rumours appearing in the local Spanish Sports newspapers. According to "As", ALEX SANCHEZ is very muched liked at "Camp Barça" but the 40M€ price tag that Manchester City has placed on the players out of its orbit. 



Villareal player ROSSI

However, there is a magnificent alternative that currently plays at VILLAREAL

Friday Night Links

Here are my favorite links from the last two weeks that were soccer...

• 7AM Kickoff has some excellent commentary on how Arsenal have done amongst the Big Six this year, as well as some observations about the upcoming transfer window.
• Sounder at Heart reviews the initial release of the MLS Castrol Index, and sees some major flaws.  So far I have been unimpressed with Opta's stats as they relate to MLS.  There was much hype going in to the season regarding unprecedented access to world-leading statistics, yet all we're getting is the highly processed output with minimal transparency from Opta that prevents any independent analysis.
• Sounder at Heart proposes a +/- scoring system for MLS players based upon the shots taken when the player is on the pitch.  My previous research on the EPL indicates that shot differential actually lowers the odds of winning and instead should focus on shots-on-goal differential, but Sounder at Heart's proposal is a good start.
• The NY Times' Goal blog dives into the 2011 MLS player salary data and identifies the eleven best deals to be had.
• TwoHundredPercent's review of Lord Sugar Tackles Football indicates that the program's examination of the Premier League left much to be desired.
• TwoHundredPercent explains the various levels of ecstasy associated with cup competitions, championships, and relegation battles and attempts to quantify which is the sweetest.  Unfortunately, we Americans have no first hand knowledge of the latter given the franchised monopolies of our pro sports leagues.
• Soccer By the Numbers continues to examine where goals come from.
• Soccermetrics is developing some very interesting methods for weighting goals to identify who scores the highest value goals.
• OnFooty uses regression models to identify which of the following is more important: clean sheets, corners, or cards.
• The Over Lapping Run details what looks to be an awesome summer of soccer friendlies here in the US.
• FootieBusiness considers what "success" should look like for MLS.
• The Swiss Ramble has a great analysis of what Norwich City's impending promotion to the Premier League will mean for their finances.
• Climbing the Ladder has an interesting alternative history to the last few Champions League competitions based upon an alternative rule: only the champions from each league are admitted to the competition.
• A bad sign for Arsenal supporters who attend live matches: ticket prices are going up.

REAL MADRID TRANSFER RUMOURS GOSSIP 2011 | KAKA, BENZEMA, COENTRAO ...

Lots of SPANISH FOOTBALL news today especially in the REAL MADRID transfers gossip area that I will run down in this post.


As informed Real Madrid has signed RCD Espanyol CALLEJON, Borrusia Dortmund midfielder SAHIN & almost has shut Bayern Munich player ANTILTOP who finishes contract. But there have been more movements in other palyer "business" fronts especially on possible exits.

Italian

First Amendment and the Bird

Yesterday, battery charges were dropped against a Kansas City Chiefs fan who in 2009 flipped off the surrounding fans at San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium then got into a scuffle with security who intervened. The trial court ruled that the fan, Jason Ensign, was exercising his free speech rights in flipping the bird, thus giving him the right to defend himself against the security guards who tackled him.

Deadspin is having some fun with this, but this seems like precisely the right result. Note, however, that it does not necessarily speak to the full question of fan speech at stadiums, but only of whether a fan can be arrested and charged criminally for speech at a stadium. It is not clear the result if, for example, security simply had removed Ensign from the stadium. And it does not speak to the continued validity of the league's fan-conduct policies (although I long have argued that most are constitutionally suspect).

Bartolo Colon's Stem Cell Surgery: Sports Medicine or Cheating?

37-year-old Bartolo Colon has been an excellent surprise this season for the Yankees.  Signed to a minor league contract in the off-season, Colon, who struggled in recent seasons with inconsistency and injuries, is 2-1 with a 3.86 ERA.  His strikeouts per 9 innings are up considerably from the previous few seasons - he's striking out a batter per inning, something he hasn't done in years.  Why are his Ks up?  One reason is that he's throwing the ball 95 miles per hour again.  And why is that?  Here's one strong explanation:

* * *

Major League Baseball is examining a procedure performed on Yankees right-hander Bartolo Colon last year that involved stem cells being injected into his painful shoulder and elbow, according to The New York Times.
 
Joseph R. Purita, an orthopedic surgeon in Boca Raton, Fla., told the newspaper he flew to Colon's native Dominican Republic and helped a team of doctors there with the treatment on the 2005 AL Cy Young Award winner. He said he has used Human Growth Hormone in the procedure before, but not in this case with Colon.
 
HGH is banned by Major League Baseball.

* * *

Purita told the Times he took fat and bone marrow stem cells from Colon and injected them back into his elbow and shoulder.
 
"This is the future of sports medicine, in particular," he said. "Here it is that I got a guy back playing baseball and throwing pitches at 95 miles an hour."

* * *

Let's assume that Colon did not receive HGH.  Is the stem cell surgery itself a source of concern? 

There is no question that stem cell surgery has done wonders for a lot of people with serious injuries or disabilities and holds great promise for medicine.  And like the innovation of Tommy John Surgery 35 years ago, stem cell surgery might allow pitchers and eventually batters to continue careers that would otherwise be shut down due to injuries, wear and tear or old age.  Maybe we'll see more guys playing at a high level into their late 30s and even 40s.  More Julio Francos wouldn't be a bad thing.  Fans would get to see their favorite players play longer.  And players, knowing that they could have 15 to 20 year careers, would likely take longer-term perspectives in how they view issues in collective bargaining.

Of course, steroids can also do wonders for people with various ailments.  The same is true of HGH, which helps people recover faster from injuries.  Steroids/HGH can also prolong big league careers that would have otherwise ended.  But that hasn't stopped Baseball from viewing them as means of cheating.

Does the authoritative moniker "surgery" for stem cell surgery make it more acceptable than injecting someone with a steroid?  Or are we okay with stem cell surgery because it takes cells from one part of the body and merely relocates them to another part (as opposed to a steroid which uses as an external substance to change the body chemistry)?  Are the lines between medicine and cheating really clear?

For a few related posts, see Bryce Brentz and Teams Requesting that Players Use Medical Devices for Abnormally Good Health (from July 20, 2010), Alan Milstein's Clip, Clip, Baby! (from May 30, 2010), Howard Wasserman's Why is Steroids Use Considered Cheating (Oct. 10, 2006) and Greg Skidmore's Performance-Enhancing Surgery and Sports (April 21, 2005).

2011 MLS Salaries: Down from 2010, Up 60% Since 2006, and in Total Equal to the Torres Transfer Fee

So I am only a few days in to my vacation from the blog, and I already feel compelled to break my vow and make a post.  Who can resist analyzing the 2011 MLS player's salaries when such a treasure trove of information is so neatly presented by the MLS player's union?  The topic has been pretty well covered already, but I've covered this topic in the past, am integrating the data into a wider MLS database, and haven't seen too many neat graphs yet.  So why not make a quick post on the topic?

Rather than just focus on the change versus 2010 salaries, I've chosen to focus on all the publicly available data I have that goes back to 2006.  The trends and associated conclusions are interesting, and shed light on how MLS is attempting to manage its financial position within the US sport's landscape.

Player Salaries

MLS's player salaries are very non-normal, so using an average value to make comparisons is not appropriate.  Rather than use the average, the median is used from each season to make comparisons.  The graph below (click on it to enlarge) shows the median player salary by season, the per cent change versus the previous season, and the overall inflation per season versus 2011.

The annual rate of change from one year to the next peaked in 2009 at 33%, just prior to the latest CBA. The terms of the CBA and expansion since it was signed seem to have reversed the growth trend to the point the median salary has dropped by 13% in 2011 versus 2010.  While salaries are down 13% from last year, the median pay is up 60% since 2006.

Salaries aren't the only thing has changed since 2006 - the number of games in a season has also changed.  The 2006 season saw 32 games, 2007 through 2010 had 30 matches, and the 2011 season will have 34 matches.  While not a perfect predictor of the effort required in a season, the number of matches can serve as a proxy for how hard a player is working for their pay.  The graph below (click on it to enlarge) re-plots the data from the graph above, but normalizes it to a per match basis by season.

Given that the 2007 season saw a reduction of 2 matches versus 2006, the pay per match actually went up 7% while gross pay remained flat according to the first graph.  The next three seasons see pay changes identical to the gross numbers shown in the first graph as the number of matches does not change.  The final season (2011) saw a drop in per match pay even bigger than the gross data - 24% reduction versus 13%.

Jeremiah Oshan at SB Nation details some of the reasons why the median player salary has moved down, so I won't recount them here.  Whatever the reason, the median player is earning less than 2010 and working harder to earn it.

Team Payroll

So what is each team spending on payroll over the years?  The graph below (click to enlarge) shows team payroll from 2006 to 2011.  The numbers have been unadjusted for MLS median player salary (more on that later).

The graph shows a steady increase in the team payrolls from just under $2M in 2006 to over $3M in 2011.  Four teams exceeded $4M in 2011 payroll - Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and Toronto, although the move of Juan Pablo Angel from NY to LA and Dwayne De Rosario from Toronto to NY have lowered the peaks those four teams experienced in 2010.  Clearly, the addition of roster spots in 2011 has boosted the bottom line cost of fielding a squad in 2011 even if the median income of a player has gone down.

So what happens if we baseline everything in 2011 MLS dollars?  Similar to Pay As You Play, a player pay inflation factor (in this case based on wages and not transfer fees) is required.  The change in median player salary is used for such an inflation factor.  The inflation factor for each season shown in the first graph was applied to each player's salary in that season to provide what their equivalent 2011 salary would be.  Those salaries in 2011 MLS dollars were then totaled by team, and are presented in the graph below (click on graph to enlarge).

The inflated 2011 wages from 2006 onwards show two clear conclusions:

• MLS per team payroll has not increased significantly since 2006 (although the number of teams making such a payroll has).
• MLS per team payroll was declining from 2008 until this season.

What's also interesting is that the real time payroll differential of LA versus the rest of the league shrinks over time with each year of David Beckham's contract.  Adding Landon Donovan's $2.3M DP contract helped stem the rate of decline in 2010, but it still didn't stop NY from passing LA as the most expensive team in the league.  Of personal note to Sounders fans is the virtual erasure of any payroll cost differential they had the last two years.  They've gone from leading the pack of teams outside the Big Four spenders to falling in line with the rest of that pack.  Parity not only rules on the field, but it rules on the payroll as well.

League Wide Expenditures

So where does this leave the league overall?  The graphs below present two summaries of the same date for the league (click on either to enlarge).  The first looks at the sum of guaranteed contracts over time (unadjusted) and the total count of players with contracts, while the second looks at the rate of change of the total expenditure and number of contracts from one season to the next.

Since the last year of the last CBA (2009), overall league expenditures on pay have risen greatly - an increase of 58% to be exact.  Over the same time, the number of players in the league has increased 34%.  From 2010 to 2011, league pay expenditure increases could not keep pace with the addition of two teams and roster spots on every team meaning that overall pay increased by only 12.5% while the number of players increased by 26%.  This was the first time in the six years of recorded salary data that increases in total team payroll were outpaced by the growth in the total number of contracts.  This is likely a one-time event that we won't see again until another two-team expansion like we witnessed with Portland and Vancouver this year.

Conclusions

The above data confirms that MLS's single entity model provides for a very interesting balancing act - almost like a social democratic economic model.  On the one hand, they need to have some provisions to attract older, top talent from around the world as well as keep up-and-coming talent in the league.  This is their method for fueling league growth and exposure.  At the same time, they're clearly trying to grow the professional sport in the United States in a controlled manner to avoid an NASL-style meltdown.  In the last few years, they also seem to be taking the approach of improving the bottom end of the salary range by a modest amount, and are willing to keep wage growth in the median contracts to a minimum.  It's almost as if the league has taken a "reasonable income for the greatest number approach", as there is not doubt an increasing number of players are able to make a modest income in MLS by playing the game they love.

At the same time, the league wide payroll numbers indicate just how far the league has to go to be competitive on the world stage.  The 2011 league-wide payroll of $80.2M equates to the transfer fee Chelsea paid for Fernando Torres.  That's right - the rights to negotiate on a contract with one player in the EPL cost more than the entire wages of MLS for a season!  MLS has more than doubled what they can spend on wages since 2006 - a sign that both average pay and the size of the league have grown.  But they still have a long ways to go if they wish to compete for top talent on the world stage, and attract enough worldwide attention to be able to pay for such talent.