Dear soccer,
I know we haven't been seeing a lot of each other lately. I mean, I know you've been busy on international break, and I've had my schoolwork and a couple of Georgia Tech football games to keep me busy, but I think it's time we had a talk.
You see, soccer, I have a confession to make. I don't know how you're going to take this, but...I've been cheating on you. With tennis. It's sorta been going on for a while now, too. It started last summer, just for a little while...but then this summer, it came back and I just couldn't say no. Paris, London, New York...it was just so glamorous that I couldn't resist. And it wasn't just me. Over the summer, I had my sister, then when I left for college I had my roommate. And it was always on, for 12 hours at a time, and I just couldn't help myself. But I think it's over for now. At least for a while, you'll be my one and only love again, with the exception of my Yellow Jackets, until I get swept off my feet again to Australia. But I'll always come back to you, my one true love.
So soccer, I really hope you can forgive me. What we have is special, and we've had it for so long and been through so much together. I mean, sure, with tennis it always started out with love, but it almost never ended with it. With you, it'll always be love. And I know you've got a lot planned for us in the next few weeks, with Champions League and Europa League and then league play, then more Champions League...then another international break. I promise, soccer, I won't keep breaking our dates this time. I'll be there for you during international break, through thick and thin, for better or for worse, till death do us part. Please forgive me.
Love,
Rebecca
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
When soccer and nerdiness combine
So it's been a while since I've posted, school started back a couple weeks ago and I've been busy settling in to a new schedule. But things are starting to normalize and hopefully I'll be posting more, especially since I even less people to discuss soccer with now that I'm not living at home.
So as you're well aware, the Champions League draw was this past Thursday. What you may not be aware of is the number of possible groups that could have been formed. When I saw the four pots from which the groups are drawn from on Wednesday night, I became so curious that, after a quick Google search to make sure no one else had already done it, I decided to calculate it myself. I figured I had a decent knowledge of statistics and my engineering brain knew I could find a solution somehow, even if it took forever. But it was a Wednesday night, I was waiting for CONCACAF Champions League games to start, and this was far more interesting than the Physics 3 homework I had been working on before the idea struck me.
This task would have been a lot easier, of course, if teams from the same country were allowed to be in the same group. Then it would have been just 4(8!), or 161280. But of course UEFA has to make it more complicated than that. My calculation doesn't take into account teams being drawn already- that would have made it way too complicated. For my purposes, I assumed all 8 teams in each pot were available for group placement.
I started out listing all four pots on the white board, with team names as well as their country. I then put each team from pot 1 in their own group. Then I went through pot 2 and wrote down the number of possible teams each pot 1 team could play. I then went through pot 3 and summed up all the possibilities from say, Barca-Lyon, Barca-Inter, et al, then I did the same premise for pot 4 to get the final number. 3,196.
An hour and half's worth of work.
Looking back on it, the easiest way to have done this would have been to write up a big recursive function in MATLAB, since that's pretty much what I did by hand on the white board, but besides the fact that I'm not that great at coding from scratch, I also never installed MATLAB on my new laptop. And of course, I could have saved myself a lot of time by just skipping the steps for pots 1 and 2 and pots 1, 2, and 3, because the final step took both of those steps into account, but whatever. It was made easier by the fact that four of the groups started out with an English team, so the calculation for one of them was the same for all four. I used the same consideration for the two Spanish teams. So really in the end, I only had to make four calculations, but I'd say overall it was worth the work.
So as you're well aware, the Champions League draw was this past Thursday. What you may not be aware of is the number of possible groups that could have been formed. When I saw the four pots from which the groups are drawn from on Wednesday night, I became so curious that, after a quick Google search to make sure no one else had already done it, I decided to calculate it myself. I figured I had a decent knowledge of statistics and my engineering brain knew I could find a solution somehow, even if it took forever. But it was a Wednesday night, I was waiting for CONCACAF Champions League games to start, and this was far more interesting than the Physics 3 homework I had been working on before the idea struck me.
This task would have been a lot easier, of course, if teams from the same country were allowed to be in the same group. Then it would have been just 4(8!), or 161280. But of course UEFA has to make it more complicated than that. My calculation doesn't take into account teams being drawn already- that would have made it way too complicated. For my purposes, I assumed all 8 teams in each pot were available for group placement.
I started out listing all four pots on the white board, with team names as well as their country. I then put each team from pot 1 in their own group. Then I went through pot 2 and wrote down the number of possible teams each pot 1 team could play. I then went through pot 3 and summed up all the possibilities from say, Barca-Lyon, Barca-Inter, et al, then I did the same premise for pot 4 to get the final number. 3,196.
Looking back on it, the easiest way to have done this would have been to write up a big recursive function in MATLAB, since that's pretty much what I did by hand on the white board, but besides the fact that I'm not that great at coding from scratch, I also never installed MATLAB on my new laptop. And of course, I could have saved myself a lot of time by just skipping the steps for pots 1 and 2 and pots 1, 2, and 3, because the final step took both of those steps into account, but whatever. It was made easier by the fact that four of the groups started out with an English team, so the calculation for one of them was the same for all four. I used the same consideration for the two Spanish teams. So really in the end, I only had to make four calculations, but I'd say overall it was worth the work.
Jersey Count- August
So last year was my first year of college, and I noticed a ton of people wearing jerseys for various teams. Sometimes it would be the same people over and over again, I think, but it was still fascinating to me to see so many people wearing jerseys since the only people who wore them at my high school were me and this Italian-American kid who cycled through 3 or 4 different jerseys. It's even more exciting when I saw someone wearing a jersey from a team that wouldn't be considered a big club in the US (i.e. I saw a guy wearing a Marseille jersey going to lunch one day and got far more excited than I should have).
So two weeks ago, I started my second year, and in my first class I noticed a guy in the front row wearing a David Villa Valencia jersey. And that was when I had my brilliant idea.
I've been keeping a list of every jersey I see people wearing so I can see which teams are the most popular and/or just keep track of all the cool jerseys I see. I always have my I-touch with me so I just started a note on there and update it every time I see someone in a jersey. If I notice it has a name on the back, I write that down as well so I can see which players are more popular on their teams. I'm posting this here just a way for me to keep up with my count on a monthly basis, in case anyone else out there thinks this is as cool as I think it is.
Valencia 1 (David Villa 1)
Real Madrid 1
Chelsea 2
AC Milan 2 (Gatusso 1)
England 5 (Rooney 3)
Liverpool 3 (Torres 2, Gerrard 1)
USA 3 (Bradley 1) (all me)
Galatasaray
Netherlands 2 (Van der Vaart 1)
Marseille 1
Argentina 1 (Messi 1)
Brazil 1
Aston Villa 1 (Laursen 1)
Japan 1 (Nakamura 1)
Inter Milan 1
Barcelona 1
Arsenal 1 (Nasri 1)
Manchester United 1
So two weeks ago, I started my second year, and in my first class I noticed a guy in the front row wearing a David Villa Valencia jersey. And that was when I had my brilliant idea.
I've been keeping a list of every jersey I see people wearing so I can see which teams are the most popular and/or just keep track of all the cool jerseys I see. I always have my I-touch with me so I just started a note on there and update it every time I see someone in a jersey. If I notice it has a name on the back, I write that down as well so I can see which players are more popular on their teams. I'm posting this here just a way for me to keep up with my count on a monthly basis, in case anyone else out there thinks this is as cool as I think it is.
Valencia 1 (David Villa 1)
Real Madrid 1
Chelsea 2
AC Milan 2 (Gatusso 1)
England 5 (Rooney 3)
Liverpool 3 (Torres 2, Gerrard 1)
USA 3 (Bradley 1) (all me)
Galatasaray
Netherlands 2 (Van der Vaart 1)
Marseille 1
Argentina 1 (Messi 1)
Brazil 1
Aston Villa 1 (Laursen 1)
Japan 1 (Nakamura 1)
Inter Milan 1
Barcelona 1
Arsenal 1 (Nasri 1)
Manchester United 1
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