Back to fussball

It's been a packed summer of sports, with the European Football Championship (Poland/Ukraine) and Summer Olympics (London).  Now it's back to basics as the Budesliga fussball season gets underway.

In that spirit, you need to see this video of German soccer fans after a World Cup game in 2010, "cheering" on a woman as she tries to park her car.  It's OK to laugh at this, right?

Essential Football (Soccer) Training

While we're on the subject of sports, here's an old favorite commercial from the 2004 European Cup days. The "secret video" of an Italian national team training session (not real, of course).

Though Italy dives with more style, this could be almost any team these days!

German Lesson: Fußball Fieber

Herr J and I have definitely caught the football fever that sweeps Germany 3 out of every 4 years (World Cup, Women's World Cup, European Cup, then a sad, sad summer with no football). 

So we thought we'd put together some of the more important German terms that you need to know to follow football (men's or women's), along with some of our photos from Sweden-North Korea, Sweden-Australia, and Sweden-Japan games in Augsburg and Frankfurt. (No, it isn't that we are huge Sweden fans...the Quarterfinal  (Viertelfinale) and Semi-final (Halbfinale) matches just ended up that way).

Also known collectively as the Ampelkarte (Stoplight Cards):

Formally known as the Schiedsrichter(in), the Referee is commonly referred to as the Schiri. As unfortunately seems to happen more and more, when the refs make a questionable call you'll hear whistling by the crowd to show their displeasure or you'll hear the announcers on TV refer to the echt Wahnsinn (true madness).

Elfmeter = Penalty Kick. Though the obvious example would be some of Hope Solo's great work in the victory over Brazil, we'll go instead with Clint Dempsey's attempt earlier this year in a Fulham vs Chelsea game. Though his shot is blocked by goalie Petr Cech, we're pretty proud to have an American playing in the Premier League.

Why Elfmeter? Literally translated at 11 Meters, it's the distance (12 yards) from goal.

After the Verlängerung (Overtime), we have the Elfmeterschießen (Penalty Shootout) which brings the Goalie center stage:  

However, you definitely do NOT want to score an Eigentor, or Own Goal!

Traumtor = Dream Goal. There are a variety of examples to illustrate this one, but I'll go with something recent and something patriotic: Heather O'Reilly's goal against Colombia in the Group Stage. Also a great example of a Distanzschuss (Distance Shot):

And what is this whole thing called?? In Germany, you'll usually just hear "WM" (pronounced "vey-em", of course!). This also applies to any world championships....alpine skiing, rugby, etc.

 

Also known informally as "die Elf," ("the Eleven"), we have the teams themselves:

And Germany's beloved Jogi...one of the best in the world, but he often forgets about the cameras

 

Though we can play football anywhere with a flat surface and a ball, the big games are played in a Stadion (Stadium), like Frankfurt's Commerzbank Arena here. (In German, Stadium is a completely different word). A stadium full of Zuschauer (Fans/Spectators).

Schauspieler(in) des Jahres - Actor(actress) of the Year - This one we'll dedicate to Erika of Brazil, who puts even Cristiano Ronaldo and the Italian national team to shame:

In a game with so many Verletzungen (Injuries) - be they fake or real - we'll end up with a few minutes of Nachspielzeit (Extra Time / Injury Time).  It's in this extra time that both the US 2010 and 2011 National Teams made their fabled die pefekte Come-Back Gesichte (the perfect Comeback Story).

A Foul (Foul) often can lead to a free kick, against which the most common defensive strategy is mauern (to build a wall):

 

On the more technical side we have one that sounds almost the same but is spelled quite differently...

Not to be confused with Abschlag, where the goalie uses his/her hands to throw, punt, or drop-kick the ball (and must do so within 6 seconds), North Korea's goalie shows us her skills:

 

Despite rooting for Japan against Sweden last week, we'll be cheering for Team USA tonight.  Will American tenacity take us through to victory, or will Japan complete its fairy tale march to a first world championship?

Crazy Penalty Kicks

There were some strange penalty kicks in the USA vs Brazil quarterfinal match of the Women's World Cup.  Twice a penalty was taken and saved by the keeper, only to have the referee say it must be retaken.  Each time, the second kick was successful (although in Brazil's case, by a different player!).

In the first one, a USA player was called for "encroachment" (entering into the penalty box before the Brazilian player strikes the ball).  Technically illegal, but it is usually never called!  Here is the moment of infamy:

Christiane, who took the first penalty, was replaced by Marta who made the second.

Then in the penalty shootout -- the very first kick -- Shannon Boxx's effort is denied but the referee cited the Brazilian keeper for coming off the line before the ball was struck.  A keeper may move along the goal line before contact, but not towards the player.  Here is the snapshot in time:

 

These were strange, but YouTube is a wealth of more strangeness!  Let's look at a few.

PK #1:  This video comes from a Moroccan league.  The player hits a low, slow shot to the keeper's left.  It's so soft and low that it bounces just before the keeper hits it away.  Tennis players know that this creates backspin...

PK #2:  This is from one of the lower leagues (Italian, I think).  The player hits a hard shot high and middle, flying off the crossbar up into the air and outside the frame of camera.  It bounces back down, with backspin...

Strange, that in the comments there is an update that the goal was later disallowed and should have been called dead as soon as the ball hit the ground.  Hmmm.

PK #3:  Similar to #2, it's a hard shot off the crossbar, but this one doesn't waste any time getting back into the goal.

PK #4:  This is from a U19 (under 19 years old) game, Spain vs Italy.  Pretty tricky.  I'll let you see for yourself.

PK #5:  From a Swiss lower league game.  This is pure showing-off.  Pretty athletic though.  Watch the player, not the ball.

PK #6:  This is from a training session in the Italian top league ("Totti" played for Rome).  Anything you can do, I can do backwards...

PK #7:  Before you ask - yes, this is legal.  In a penalty kick during the game (but not a shootout, of course) the other players may enter the box as soon as the kicker hits the ball.  Could go badly with a great goalie, though.

PK #8:  This is not pro, semi-pro, or interesting in any other way than schadenfreude.  Keep your eye on the ball, goalie.  (but that doesn't mean to NOT put your hands up)

Soccer and Technology

Frau A and I went to our second Women's World Cup game in Augsburg, this one a quarterfinal matchup between Sweden and Australia (Sweden won, 3-1).  On the train back to Munich, mobile phones kept us up-to-date on the first half of USA vs Brazil.  We rushed home to catch the second half on television (and extra time, and penalty shots...).

What a game.

Of course, I was starved for ways to re-live the experience, and found some interesting web sites with more than just video replays.

ESPN.com has "Gamecast", which provides real-time (and archived) commentary, statistics, and neat graphical depictions of what happened.  For example...

Their timeline shows key events in the game, such as goals, yellow/red cards, and substitutions:

 USA vs Brazil (First Half)

USA vs Brazil (Second Half)

USA vs Brazil (extra time)

It was a real fight -- three yellow cards in the last 8 minutes of extra time.  And I love seeing that US goal at the very end...

Gamecast also has a running feed of information throughout the game.  If you're stuck at work without a live video stream, this is the next best thing (you end up waiting impatiently for each refresh, not knowing what to expect):

Statistics for the team and individual players are also updated in real time:

USA vs Brazil - team statistics

It's interesting that even being down to 10 players for the last 56 minutes of the game, the US still managed 51% possession.  Other than the US advantage in corner kicks, things look pretty even.

Here are the player stats...

USA vs Brazil - individual statistics

Wow - Carli Lloyd is a magnet for fouls, with 5 drawn and 5 committed!  Wambach gets hammered (5 fouls against vs 1 committed) whereas Boxx must be our 'enforcer' (just the opposite).

Gamecast gets even better when you click on "Shots" and it shows a map of the location of every shot from the two teams.  The US clearly favored the right side (or just had more success getting open there) while Brazil mapped more strongly to their left:

USA vs Brazil - Gamecast shot map

Then, if you click on a shot (for example, the solid blue Abby Wambach goal on the left of course!) it will show you an animation of how that play develped!  This one goes from Ali Krieger taking the ball from the Brazillian attacker, pass to Carli Lloyd at midfield, pass to Megan Rapinoe on the left wing, then her cross to Abby Wambach, and the shot:

USA vs Brazil - development of game tying goal at 122'

In contrast, Marta's goal early in additional time was set up by 5 forward passes, 4 backward passes, and a cross, many in tight quarters:

USA vs Brazil - development of Marta goal at 92'

In addition to raw statistics, you can see the "average" position of the players for each team.  In this case, look how spread out the US defenders had to play (#6, #3, #19, and #11), whereas the Brazilian defenders stayed much more in the middle of the backfield (#3, #4, #5, and #13):

USA vs Brazil - average position USA

USA vs Brazil - average position Brazil

Gamecast also provides even more "where-they-were-most-active" detail info for individual players, called a "Heat Map".  We can compare Abby Wombach with Marta because they both play the Center Forward - Left position.  Wombach spends little time in the defensive end, whereas Marta ventures deeper (and obviously more often) into her own end.  And look at how disciplined/consistent Abby seems to be lining up above the box - definitely not the organic Brazilian style!

 USA vs Brazil - Heat Map for Abby Wombach

USA vs Brazil - Heat Map for MartaRapinoe spent her time almost exclusively on the left side, and because she took most of the corner kicks gets mapping there too: 

 USA vs Brazil - Heat Map for Megan Rapinoe

Even more interesting is the comparison of the goalies.  Clearly Hope Solo has a much more aggressive style, coming further out and mirrors the left-weighted shot map of Brazil.  (Obviously, the effectiveness of the Brazilian attack has a role in her positioning too):

USA vs Brazil - Heat Map for Hope Solo

USA vs Brazil - Heat Map for Andreia

Of course there are many other web sites with similar features.  Adidas Match Tracker looks very in-depth, probably designed for the hard-core fan:

VisualSport keeps and displays data over an entire season and league, so performance changes over time might be trackable but it looks a little cartoon-ish: 

Finally, of course, there are iPad and iPhone apps too!  TotalFootball looks sharp:

An iPad option is the World Cup Visualizer.  The engineer in me likes these things, because it allows you to look at the sport in a different way.  I think statistics will continue to get more use by soccer clubs themselves and perhaps have the same impact that sabremetrics has had on baseball in the U.S.. 

Women's World Cup

Back in February we attended an Alpine skiing World Cup event in Garmisch-Partenkirchen (Women's Downhill).  So yesterday, we went to Augsburg to watch Sweden take on North Korea in one of the Women's World Cup soccer matches.

Augsburg is just a 40-50 minute train ride from Munich - basically the same as going to the airport!  Quick & easy.  It's smaller than Munich (about 260,000 inhabitants vs 1.3 million) with a likewise smaller stadium.   The Impuls Arena seats 31,000 (vs. 65,000 in Munich's Allianz Arena) and this game drew over 23,000 - a good size crowd for the first round.  First round games of Germany or the U.S. are the most popular and sold out... 

There is a typical pre-game activity for all FIFA World Cup matches:  the teams march out in parallel; each player walks with a child, holding his/her hand.  The players line up, country flags are displayed, and the respective national anthems played. 

 

We were sitting in the third row of the southeast corner of the stadium -- so anything in our end was really close, but action on the far side of the field was not so easy to photograph (even with the big zoom lenses we brought along).  In the first half, Sweden defended the goal in front of us.  We did get one shot of the Swedish keeper with a Sony 3D ad making her look cool, but North Korea for the most part was not too dangerous and the ball didn't spend much time in our zone. 

The first half ended 0-0, and we hoped that Sweden would continue to create action... and that in the 2nd half it would be in front of us.  We were not disappointed!  In the sequence below, the Swede made a dangerous push right in front of the goalie box, but the keeper made the stop. 

A number of corner kicks were right in front of us -- in the photo below the set was handled right, but the header ended up off target (and probably not strong enough anyway).  But Sweden was creating the most chances and you got the feeling they would break through eventually. 

North Korea did keep it interesting with a few scares of their own.  The picture below was one of their best opportunities, but the Swedish goalie made the stop (with the help of some physical play by the defender). 

Still early in the second half, Sweden again went knocking on the door, but the North Korean goalie again closed the door... 

The North Korean style is ball-control, and most corner kicks and free kicks were NOT put into the air -- rather, passed to a neaby player.  (The height differential probably also dictates that style of play.)  In this case, however, we have a clear view to the other end where North Korea did try a set piece.  Not well executed though. 

Around the 60th minute came the game changer.  Sweden came quickly down the right side, right in front of us!  A smart, fast cross came to the striker who trapped it and placed a hard shot past the goalie who could not get back left-to-right in time.  1-0, Sweden. 

  

Yes, the ladies celebrate the same way as the men... 

And that's how it finished too.  In the end, the better team won but it was a fun game to watch.  In general, we've found that watching fussball in person give a much better feeling for the speed and precision of the game -- we prefer it to television.  We're going to see of some of the elimination round games are available!