Something geeky: A statisticians' view of the league table

Could not help trying this idea: Submitting the league table for a straight forward analysis of it's means and "confidence intervals".

More randomness is involved in relegation than in winning?

A graphical look at points only. Green line is mean (45), black lines mark confidence interval boundaries. Championships do not come by chance very often.

Guess I'm exploiting the extremes of my inspiration here? Or?

Placed 2nd with three matches to go things are getting tricky

A picture is worth a thousand words...

X-axis is final standing points of the top three teams, Y-axis are probabilities. Many combinations are mutually exclusive, of course. The graph is based on this Google Spreadsheet.

It's about 47 hours 'till the "final":

• 17-05-2009 17:30 FC København - Brøndby

However, FC Midtjylland placed 4th will play both Brøndby and OB plus OB will have to play Sønderjyske and Horsens who are fighting to avoid relegation. Nothing has been settled.

UEFA goal of the week by Aílton Almeida

Picking the ball up just inside the Horsens half, Aílton effortlessly slips past a defender before tumbling as he attempts to round the goalkeeper. Having almost run the ball out of play near the corner of the area, he somehow keeps it in, chips it over the custodian as he springs past him, and then finishes with the outside of his boot from a seemingly impossible angle to clinch a 2-0 win which took FCK two points clear of Brøndby IF at the top of the Danish Superligaen.

Waiting for Thursday by...

...uploading graphics and stuff!

A scene from last Saturday's friendly vs Norwegian Stabæk as seen through the fence.

Of course I went to see the home friendly. And of course my inside intelligence - which could completely revolutionize your expectations for Thursday's UEFA Cup clash with Manchester City - is staggering I guarantee you. But I won't bother sharing :-)

Here's another weird thingie for you:

The league standings as I see it through my little helper script. Top teams in green box, bottom in red. Gaps marked by green strokes. (Key: 0 is points now / minimum, X is most likely / finish tendency and 3 is maximum finishing points.)

Before hacking the already messy script for my new ideas I draw them. Such as these boxes that attempt to define the top and bottom. I'm not so sure I'll program this one though.

According to my not-so award winning probability assessment script the chance of a Copenhagen victory is 31%, the probability of a draw 28% and the risk of a loss 41%. Perhaps that is realistic.

Unofficial list of injuries: Manchester City: Shaun Wright-Phillips, Daniel Sturridge, Richard Dunne, Dietmar Hamann, Benjani Mwaruwari, Martin Petrov, Michael Johnson, Valeri Bojinov; FC København: Cesar Santin.

That will be as much copy/pasting I'll bother for this time. In the good old days I'd have dropped the story about Ståle dissing City's buying of many players you see above anyway. And I would have written something nearly artistic. Not so much anymore, folks. I have to admit I'm having fun with other projects.

A youth team match vs Lyngby

Had some business in town this morning and figured I'd drop by the training grounds on my way. But I was late and missed it. Noticed a youth team match nearby and stuck around for about half an hour. Why not it wasn't raining that much!

It was a visit from Lyngby. True to the prejudice of Lyngby style of play, they had the ball and attacked. The guests's no. 12, "Yousuff" judging from the shouts - a tall kid with curly black hair, did well in an offensive midfielder role. The Copenhagen defense deterred most efforts though and the rest missed the goal. One of the defenders were called "Højer" which should ring a bell.

"Yousuff" opening for a pass on their right wing.


But not getting past the defense anyway.

The part of the match I watched was a 2-0 win because the lone striker, a stocky black kid, scored on the two chances he got (not entirely sure he did the actual finishing as it was in the far end of the field, but almost sure). Quality performance judging from the very little I saw; he didn't lose the ball a single time he got it. Think his name was "Dan" or something like that.

A lonely striker.

Man I miss the Super league season...

Moved on only to find the shop I was going to had closed. Well at least I got some fresh air... and rain on this Saturday morning.

Happy New Year - and a look at 2009

Welcome to 2009.

First change is I will no longer update the Google Calendar previously found below these posts and through iCal. Because someone has awaken to the present and an official calendar is now available at FCK.dk: use fck.dk/ics/. Subscribe in your preferred calendar software.

I'm still not delivering the obnoxious stream of transfer rumors. But the signing of 23 years old Senegalese offensive player Dame N'Doye [Wikipedia, Transfermarkt] appears to be practically finished. We know him a bit too well because he scored when his former club, Panathinaikos FC, beat us November 2007 [match stats at bold.dk]:



A look at our next UEFA Cup opponent could be in place but right now it's simply too much work for a lazy blogger as Manchester City could upgrade half their team. Last rumor I saw was they are talking to the Italian coach Mancini. I'm looking forward to see Robinho in Copenhagen, though.

On a final note a team of youth players were eliminated in the group stage of the indoor Danish championship today. Good performances by Danni Jensen and Kevin Bechmann Timm.