In past years, a few football clubs have dominated the European Champions League. Whenever the semifinal stage is reached, only clubs from the big leagues of Germany, England, Spain, and Italy are left. Not too long ago, this was not so straightforward. Continue reading
Tag Archives: soccer
Why the U.S. men’s soccer team will challenge the world
A few weeks ago the Dutch soccer world was upset as one of its biggest talents announced that he would quit soccer. The 19-year-old indicated he would rather go to a university.
This example once again marks an important difference between European and American soccer academies. In the U.S. you can combine professional soccer with a college degree – you are even encouraged to do so. In Europe, you’ll have to choose. Continue reading
What football can learn from the tennis tiebreak
In 2012 Portugal lost to Spain after a penalty shoot-out in the semi-final of the European Cup. Did Portugal get a fair chance?
With the World Cup moving to the knockout stage in some days, a few teams are destined to be ‘knocked out’ because they lost a penalty series.
Statistical analysis based on historical shoot-outs has shown that the team taking the first penalty kick, thereby starting the series, historically won in ~60% of the times.
This statistic should not be underestimated – teams starting the penalty series have a ~50% bigger chance of winning!
Changing some Soccer Rules
Soccer is one of the oldest sports on earth still being played. Unfortunately, this is reflected by some of its rules, since they are horribly outdated. Let’s fix this by changing 4 of them.
Why American and European soccer players won’t play chess together
Firstly, a brief note on my absence, since tomorrow it would have been 7 months since my last blog post. In April this year I started working as a strategy consultant at Deloitte. Life’s been slightly different than it was a student, sadly leaving practically no time for writing here.
A while ago Sarah and I were on a trip to the U.S. Somewhere along the trip we watched the soccer game of the U.S. versus Mexico. After the game goalkeeper Tim Howard and offensive midfielder Clint Dempsey were interviewed. Something caught my attention, but at first I didn’t really know what it was. Then it hit me: these guys actually know what they are talking about.
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