Champions League 2010

Very nice Champions League campaign including these three Copenhagen memories:

København - Rubin 1-0

København - Barcelona 1-1

København - Panathinaikos 3-1

#    Clubs            W    D    L    F    A   +/-   Pts
1    FC Barcelona     4    2    0   14    3   11    14
2    FC København     3    1    2    7    5    2    10
3    FC Rubin Kazan   1    3    2    2    4   -2     6
4    Panathinaikos    0    2    4    2   13  -11     2


Ludicrous dominance in Danish league with 19 points lead to #2. Lost count of the number of records broken:

Danish league: round 8 status, round 9 preview

Eight rounds and 48 games of 33 rounds and 198 matches have been played. Or almost a quarter of the season which might be as good a time to sum up as any. Plus: tomorrow, Sunday 19 September 2010, 18:00 CET, FC Copenhagen plays Brøndby IF in the so called "New Firm"; the match that Danish fans used to put up with the rest of the shoddy season for.

Round 8 status

FC Copenhagen (København / FCK) have taken the lead alone: Unbeaten. 6 wins. 20 points. Numbers that speak for themselves? Not yet, really.

Round 9 preview

19-09-2010 18:00 FC København-Brøndby: IF 0.47 0.30 0.23; always unpredictable but logic says 2-1 or something similar.

Read the full article with status on the whole league and previews of the entire 9th round at Footbo.

Sibusisu Zuma, yours truly, Bayern vs Inter at McGrath's and the World Cup

It's Sibusiso Zuma to the left ;-)

We both happened to enjoy a beer and this season's Champions League final, Bayern vs Inter, at McGrath's, "The South African Bar", at Østerbrogade close to Parken Stadium in Copenhagen. Friendly guy talking to many people and happy to recollect the good old days of beating Brøndby.

McGrath's has multiple big screens, is regularly packed for Champions League games - and has "BAFANA BAFANA" painted across the wall. Probably a nice place to watch South Africa's World Cup games! Sells several brands of beer, both bottled and from keg. Half a liter of draft Guiness was about € 6.5, bottled Danish Carlsberg about € 3.5.

Speaking of the World Cup neither Zuma nor I will go. But from FC København three players will: Jesper Grønkjær, Jesper Christiansen (as one of three reserve goalies) and William Kvist. Plus three former FC København players: Lars Jacobsen, Christian Poulsen and Michael Silberbauer.

Danish Superliga 2009/2010, final standings analysis

(33 rounds) W D L F A P CS NG 1 FC København 21 *** 5 * 7 * 61 *** 22 ** 68 ** 17 *** 8 2 OB 17 8 8 46 34 59 10 6 ** 3 Brøndby IF 15 7 11 57 * 50 52 5 * 6 ** 4 Esbjerg fB 13 11 *** 9 48 43 50 10 10 5 AaB 13 9 11 36 30 48 14 * 10 6 FC Midtjylland 14 5 * 14 45 48 47 9 11 7 FC Nordsjælland 12 7 14 40 41 43 10 12 8 Silkeborg 12 7 14 47 51 43 7 9 9 SønderjyskE 11 8 14 32 37 41 11 11 10 Randers FC 10 10 * 13 37 43 40 8 11 11 AGF 10 8 15 36 47 38 9 13 * 12 HB Køge 4 *** 7 22 **** 30 * 69 *** 19 *** 5 * 8 Cards Y R TC W Won AGF 66 3 69 *** D Draws Silkeborg 53 1 54 L Lost HB Køge 49 3 52 F Goals For

OB 47 3 50 A Goals Against AaB 46 1 47 P Points FC Midtjylland 43 2 45 CS Clean Sheets FC Nordsjælland 42 2 44 NG No Goals Randers FC 37 3 40 Y Yellow Cards Esbjerg fB 34 3 37 R Red Cards Brøndby IF 37 0 37 TC Total Cards SønderjyskE 35 1 36 FC København 21 1 22 *** * Outside 80%; P<0.2 ** Outside 90%; P<0.1 *** Outside 95%; P<0.05 **** Outside 98%; P<0.02

Just another championship

Last Sunday was the night of the "New Firm" - one of the at least three annual matches vs. former Danish flagship, Brøndby IF. FC København won 0-2 away. The championship was practically secured.

Being a Danish football fan, FC Copenhagen season ticket holder and occasional blogger I should have been excited, right? And after the win I should be even more excited, right? Wrong.

Brøndby IF is not a force to be reckoned with in the top of Danish football any more. Years of mismanagement combined with entirely unrealistic ambitions have left them with the role of an unintentional entertainment factor. In different circumstances thee, maybe four, of their players would have a chance on the FC Copenhagen rooster. I didn't bother watching the hours of TV warm-up this time. I hadn't met up with a bunch of friends to shout at the screen - let alone traveled to the windy, suburban stadium, now a place enjoyable by hooligans alone. I opened a Carlsberg from my couch fully expecting the win and not even worrying too much about the consequences of the low risk of a draw or loss.

In fact, I bet 5 Danish kroner (I don't bet a lot) on 0-2:
Spot on - but unfortunately combined with a 2-2 outcome of FC Nordsjælland vs Randers FC which ended 1-1.

I didn't bother watching yesterday's SønderjyskE vs OB which ended as a surprise 2-0 win for the relegation threatened south Jutland team over our pursuing OB. Because OB would need to practically win the rest of their games anyway and sooner or later that would slip for them, I didn't doubt. It did happen a bit soon, though. Now OB need to win their last three games to get to the 62 points we're at already. That happening combined with us losing our three games and OB overcoming a +25 goal score difference... well, it's not happening. (My model says ~0.0186% before taking the goal difference into account.)

The real entertainment these days is in watching Brøndby fans and players babble on TV and reading the Brøndby IF inclined journalists rant on and on about how Brøndby was the better team for parts of the game, how a bronze medal is still possible despite their unlucky start of the season, how the club emanates a unique team spirit and has supporters of supernatural abilities. And in trying to get into some European clashes, of course.

A highly unpredictable league is drawing to an end. I'm considering a look at the mildly entertaining and very wrong prophesies made by journalists and experts at season start and half-time one of these days. But for now, I'll just dump some tendencies for the remaining games:

05-05-2010
Randers FC-AaB 0.311 0.289 0.4
FC Midtjylland-Brøndby IF 0.427 0.191 0.382
FC København-HB Køge 0.678 0.178 0.144
06-05-2010
Esbjerg fB-Silkeborg 0.404 0.281 0.3145
AGF-SønderjyskE 0.356 0.311 0.333
OB-FC Nordsjælland 0.456 0.222 0.322
09-05-2010
Brøndby IF-AaB 0.352 0.264 0.385
HB Køge-FC Midtjylland 0.278 0.178 0.544
Silkeborg-FC København 0.289 0.2 0.511
SønderjyskE-Esbjerg fB 0.308 0.286 0.407
FC Nordsjælland-AGF 0.422 0.222 0.356
OB-Randers FC 0.456 0.311 0.233
16-05-2010
Randers FC-Brøndby IF 0.326 0.258 0.416
AGF-OB 0.267 0.289 0.444
FC Midtjylland-Silkeborg 0.433 0.211 0.356
AaB-HB Køge 0.578 0.233 0.189
Esbjerg fB-FC Nordsjælland 0.416 0.247 0.337
FC København-SønderjyskE 0.544 0.233 0.222

Magic league table at 3/4 of season

Just ran my little helper script again. Since I also developed another tool, I'm looking at the results and wondering how to integrate the statistical clairvoyance some time in the future (probably after TH!NK3).


Click image for larger view.

It's basically a color code made from significant deviations in wins-draws-losses that makes an alternative differentiation across the distribution of possible final points for each team. Red at minimum and maximum, green in the middle but with some variation. Should probably just do the whole thing over in a genius way but until then...

Feeling more and more secure of another championship. FC København is now at 16 wins and just 4 lost in 25 games, a comfortable score of 45 for to 13 against and an impressive 14 clean sheets. Sure, OB is just 6 points behind but certainly looking less impressive.

The bronze medal is going to Silkeborg, Esbjerg fB, FC Midtjylland, AaB or even Brøndby IF. Or OB if one of these snatches the silver.

HB Køge is relegating. And Randers looks doomed too - except they recently sprinted closer and closer to Sønderjyske.

I may or may not do more of these tables at my Twitter, footracle.

Pre-spring season 2010 status

The table drawn as crude probablility distributions for final standings (see earlier explanations if not obvious):



Championship chances as inferred from bookmakers are: FC Kobenhavn 49%, OB Odense 41%, Esbjerg F.B. 5.2%, Brondby I.F. 2.4%, Silkeborg IF, AGF Aarhus, Aab Aalborg, FC Midtjylland and others less than 1%.

What people are talking about: New signing Bryan Oviedo, 19 year old Costa Rican national (Presentaron a Bryan Oviedo con el F.C. Copenhaguen de Dinamarca, FCK to sign Costa Rican), and Kenneth Zohore, 15 year old youth team striker.



...none of which are likely to get us past Olympique de Marseille, currently 6th in Ligue 1 and looking like this recently:

Arfa - Brandão or Niang - Kone

Cheyrou - Mbia or Cisse - Abriel

Bonnart - Hilton - Diawara - Kabore

Mandanda

Hard to predict though since manager Didier Deschamps shuffles his cards often.