Football: Indian National Team news ...

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Re: Football: Indian National Team news ...

Post by arjun2761 »

But your guess is not correct on time of possession. All reports from these matches have been that India has clearly had much better time of possession and that we were in control
Jay, I am not sure this is accurate. Here is an ESPN report on our match with Kyrgystan which seems to clearly indicate that we hardly dominated in our own home and this K-stan is a pretty lowly rated team.
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Re: Football: Indian National Team news ...

Post by prasen9 »

I can buy that Jay. If you are saying that India has improved in the last 1.5 years and ELO does not have the evidence yet to update, I am fine with that logic. I also think what you say is partially correct in that the Asian teams playing against each other and the European/South American teams playing against each other means that the points in the Asian region are exchanged amongst Asian teams and the points among the E/SA teams are exchanged among these teams. If you consider these two graphs (an edge exists between two teams that played), there will be some links between the Asian graph and the E/SA graph. There has to be some flow of points into and out of these two networks. Note that if the E/SA teams will play against an Iran or Japan or China or Qatar in some matches, there is ample chance for these teams to do well to get some flow into the Asian component of the network. If these pipes are not broad enough, then the flow may be restricted and take some time. That is valid. I am not sure that the flow is that restricted though. But, maybe it is.

Remember the ELO system is not straight ELO, it also rewards the teams for high-goal-difference wins. India has few of them against the minnows. I think if a team gets truly much better than the minnows, it will thrash the minnows by higher margins.

So, maybe what you are saying is correct and I cannot say that you are wrong especially if you argue that the team is different in the last 1.5 years. I guess the matches at the next level of the Asian competition will let us know if true progress has been made.
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Re: Football: Indian National Team news ...

Post by Sin Hombre »

Jay is quite right here.

ELO's stickiness and exaggerating differences can be seen quite well in the ongoing chess world cup.

2730+ players deliberately avoid playing 2700 and lower ranked players but the 128-player fully seeded format of the chess world cup has meant that they have all played lower ranked players in the first 2 rounds.

And the result

Image

Everyone in the top 25 who is playing (bar Carlsen and Svidler) is dropping points, and some of them including both Indians, quite heavily at that.

ELO and choice of matchups creates a fake distance between a 2750 and 2700 player.
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Re: Football: Indian National Team news ...

Post by jayakris »

arjun2761 wrote: Thu Sep 07, 2017 10:29 pm
But your guess is not correct on time of possession. All reports from these matches have been that India has clearly had much better time of possession and that we were in control
Jay, I am not sure this is accurate. Here is an ESPN report on our match with Kyrgystan which seems to clearly indicate that we hardly dominated in our own home and this K-stan is a pretty lowly rated team.
I don't think the article indicates that. It only says that KGZ had more possession the opening period (by which they actually mean the first 15 minutes, because they say that India got into it "in the next quarter hour"). We created a lot more chances. We are still poor in finishing, because this match could have been 4-0 or 3-2 easily, based on the reports and highlights. Here is the goal.com report and here is the Indian Express commentary. They called it a "stunning result", which is a bit of exaggeration -- probably they were looking at KGZ being ranked #132 (now #128) on FIFA. But KGZ has been in the 110-130 range on FIFA for the last two years, regardless of what ELO says. By the way, the highlights show both teams playing fairly mistake-prone football (but watch the whole length run, one pass and then the finish by Chhettri on our goal, after the 7 min mark. Wow!). And see all those misses we had at the end of the highlights. Sunil Chhettri is so skilled with the ball, and he scores so much despite being a poor finisher (in my opinion. He just misses wide open goals so often but creates so many chances!). We had quite a bit more of chances and could have won 4-0. But again, but for our goalie, we could have lost 1-2 as well. That is how it goes.
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Re: Football: Indian National Team news ...

Post by prasen9 »

Sin Hombre, I am not saying that ELO ratings does not have problems. As I indicated in my last post, points tend to stick to these "connected components" of the network. But, as opposed to chess, football has many more tournaments where teams pretty much have to play (qualifying tournaments, continental tournaments) whereas in chess people choose not to play in tournaments if they don't want to. The problem is that these qualifying tournaments and continental tournaments are few and far between. On the other hand, one could argue that those tournaments are the only ones that should really matter because many times teams do not get all their top players for the friendlies.

I don't really know what you are claiming from the table. When top players play lower ranked players, the top players are bound to lose points per the ELO ratings. That is almost by definition. Because by random chance some % of lower-ranked players will win against the top players and the movement of points will take place. So, what you showed in the table is not surprising. That is bound to happen by definition. The question is whether the rankings have changed. We were not talking about the absolute points for the Indian football team but the rankings.
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Re: Football: Indian National Team news ...

Post by jayakris »

prasen9 wrote: Fri Sep 08, 2017 2:02 amI can buy that Jay. If you are saying that India has improved in the last 1.5 years and ELO does not have the evidence yet to update, I am fine with that logic.
Actually I am not 100% sure that this is the case. Just that there is no counter-evidence for that. It seems possible, looking at the changes in the mid field and defense. If it was the same team as 2 years ago, I couldn't have said that. At least there are some changes. A better show against Palestine (if we play them next month) and at Kyrgystan next March would say something more. Looking at some of the match highlights that I had not seen earlier, we look better at times, but also look like we will have trouble against disciplined teams who play to a plan, and if our men get marked properly. And we still do not have another super midfielder/forward of Sunil Chhettri's quality. If he isn't there, we are probably #160. But even with him, we were probably #160 earlier. Jeje is an addition for the last several years, but not enough.

Also, India u-23 teams have not done anything significant at all in the last decadeor so, for us to say that we have been bringing up some top young talent or anything. The current u23 team could not get out of their group (which included host QAT to whom we lost 0-1) could not get out of the group and make the Asian final-16. We had a very tough group with Syria (lost 0-2) and Turkmenistan (won 3-1) ... That was just this July and the team had several of the talented players like Manveer Singh, Allen Deora, Anirudh Thapa, Nikhil Pujary, Jerry Lalrinzuala, Daniel Lalhlimpuia etc, most of whom have recently been taken as subs by Constantine. Not to make the Asian top-16 at that level shows we are still not bringing up top talent just yet.

But as a counter to my counter argument, I see quite a few of our u23 and u21 players already in the ISL rosters and getting to play. Seeing the professional way these teams are run, I wonder why they would use these guys if they are not good. Maybe some of them are better than how shown by the performance of our u23 teams. Again, let us wait and watch. At least I am not feeling like I did 3 years ago when I was basically like, "we are NEVER going to be good. Our grounds have all gone to cricket. It is too late". Maybe it is too late only for Kerala talent. The u23 team of 22 has no Kerala player at all, if you can believe that. No Bengali player either though. So that takes out two of the old football meccas which have disappeared. Several other areas where cricket has not killed the grounds seem to be producing the current players. Are they any better? I don't know.
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Re: Football: Indian National Team news ...

Post by arjun2761 »

jayakris wrote: Fri Sep 08, 2017 4:01 am
arjun2761 wrote: Thu Sep 07, 2017 10:29 pm
But your guess is not correct on time of possession. All reports from these matches have been that India has clearly had much better time of possession and that we were in control
Jay, I am not sure this is accurate. Here is an ESPN report on our match with Kyrgystan which seems to clearly indicate that we hardly dominated in our own home and this K-stan is a pretty lowly rated team.
I don't think the article indicates that. It only says that KGZ had more possession the opening period (by which they actually mean the first 15 minutes, because they say that India got into it "in the next quarter hour"). We created a lot more chances. We are still poor in finishing, because this match could have been 4-0 or 3-2 easily, based on the reports and highlights. Here is the goal.com report an.
Wow, this is quite an example of how one can read the same information differently. The ESPN report describes the visitors having more dangerous possession than India overall and not just the first 15 minutes. The goal.com article that you cited shows describes the match in almost exact same way other than perhaps using more Indian names in their description as they are a home report. At best, this was an even match in possession and dangerous moves per these two descriptions. Of course, if someone has possession stats and actual shots (and shots on goal) then that would probably paint a truer picture. Absent that, I'm not sure these descriptions show Indian domination in this match.

Here is the Goal.com summary:
Dangerous possesion by INDIA:
Just over twenty minutes in, the hosts had a chance to take the lead when a cross-field pass released Jackichand Singh on the right whose first instinct was to play Jeje through. When that was foiled, and the ball came back to him, he tried to cut in and shoot, but produced a wasteful shot, blazing over. [One attempt on goal]

Minutes later, Chhetri sliced through the visitors' midfield and fed Jackichand before making a darting run into the box. Singh managed to find a good return ball, but Chhetri could control it only well enough to set up Narzary for a shot, sadly straight at Pavel. [One attempt on goal]

Chhetri launched in a quick throw for Jeje to run at the goalkeeper one versus one. Jeje aimed for the bottom corner but the keeper was up for it.[One shot on goal]

Immediately afterwards, Chhetri went in to meet substitute Holicharan Narzary's cross and from three yards away from the goal, he blazed high and wide. [Shot at goal]

Nine minutes later, India had the lead thanks to some sublime work by Sunil Chhetri. The skipper darted past the whole Kyrgyzstan side as if they weren't there and found Jeje. The Mizo lad lobbed it over the defense and Chhetri struck it into the bottom corner first time, for his 54th India goal, and third in four appearances against these opponents. [India goal]

[Am discounting the one or two chances that India had in stoppage time as in most soccer matches, the leading team in close matches has breakaway opportunities (and goals) in the last couple of minutes when the other team pushes everyone forward to get an equalizer]

Dangerous possession by KGZ
The visitors started the game on the front foot and were having a good chunk of possession, but they failed to make it count as India were able to stem their tide of attacks. [15 mins or so of possession domination]

At the brink of half-time, the Falcons should have had the lead as poor judging of the ball released Murzaev whose pass to Lux set him up for a shot that should have seen the net bulge! Luckily for India, Jhingan dove in to clear it and the teams went back into the tunnel. [One shot on goal]

On the hour-mark, it took some miraculous last-ditch goal-line defending from Anas and Jhingan to keep the scores level as Gurpreet was stranded after making a save from Murzaev, and Lux took a sharp volley goalwards. [One or two shots on goal]

The second half started out brightly and the visitors had a golden chance to take the lead just minutes in. Murzaev and Lux held the ball up well and set up Israilov with a chance, but he missed the chance with a goal begging. [Golden chance missed]
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Re: Football: Indian National Team news ...

Post by Atithee »

Granted I haven't read the reports for this match, but I think Jay's original point, which even he seems to have forgotten, was about possession over all of these 12-15 matches, not just this one. Maybe I'm recalling incorrectly.
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Re: Football: Indian National Team news ...

Post by arjun2761 »

I don't doubt that we probably had possession advantage over the likes of Nepal or St Kitts which are really lowly soccer nations (more like 150+ or much worse level teams).

However, I'm not sure we dominate possession against the 100-150 group (Kyrgyztan, Myanmar, Turkmenistan for example). Conversely, I believe we were comprehensively dominated by Iran even if lost "only" by 0-4 or 0-3 to them. The point here is that our quality of play isn't befitting a 90+ FIFA ranked team but that we have gotten there by consistently beating relatively low quality teams. It's a little like someone being ranked in the top 100 of tennis but getting there exclusively by squeezing out narrow wins at the challenger level.
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Re: Football: Indian National Team news ...

Post by jayakris »

Atithee wrote: Fri Sep 08, 2017 6:54 pmGranted I haven't read the reports for this match, but I think Jay's original point, which even he seems to have forgotten, was about possession over all of these 12-15 matches, not just this one. Maybe I'm recalling incorrectly.
Yes, I was talking in general about time of possession in the matches in the current unbeaten streak (meaning I don't remember seeing reports that we struggled against Myanmar, Nepal, Macau or Mauritius and were somehow getting lucky)... But I too did not think that we would have "dominated" the possession against Kyrgyztan, which would have surprised me. At the same time, my impression was that we played them quite even at least. And I still do not see how Arjun feels from the reports that THEY dominated us, except for the first 15 minutes, which all reports say was controlled by KGZ. Then I have given the 10 minutes high-lights video. Take a look. I think we created more chances than they did and could have easily scored 2 or 3 more if we could finish. By the same token, they missed a couple of sitters too.

But Kyrgyzstan is a team around 130, and they have been there for a couple of years. I have not felt that we are much higher than 130. May be 120 or 125, that is all have been saying. Definitely not 160. This match against KGZ, based on the highlight video, reports and commentary clearly does not give any counter-evidence (which would be if we got "dominated" by KGZ. None of the reports say that, however hard Arjun may try to read it that way :) ) ... That was not how we would have played them, if we were truly 30-40 spots below them.

And I have agreed with arjun that we are over-ranked at 97 or 100 by FIFA. We may have shown an improvement from FIFA 165 to around 120 or 125. That or a little below is where we may end up by this time next year, unless we play Palestine and beat them in October, which would give us a boost, and if we beat KGZ at their crib. If we do all that, then we will have some proof that we may just be a 120 level team or even a few spots above. Right now I am not seeing any evidence that we are NOT a FIFA 125 caliber team.

I guess I am a "Glass is half full, and a bit more" guy and arjun is a "glass is half empty and a bit less" guy :)
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Re: Football: Indian National Team news ...

Post by Sin Hombre »

prasen9 wrote: Fri Sep 08, 2017 12:46 pm I don't really know what you are claiming from the table. When top players play lower ranked players, the top players are bound to lose points per the ELO ratings. That is almost by definition. Because by random chance some % of lower-ranked players will win against the top players and the movement of points will take place. So, what you showed in the table is not surprising. That is bound to happen by definition. The question is whether the rankings have changed. We were not talking about the absolute points for the Indian football team but the rankings.
That's not the definition.

I think you are assuming that a higher ranked player does not gain points by beating lower ranked players; they do. See how Carlsen has gained 7 points by beating players who are rated 200-300 ELO points below him.

The idea is that ELO ratings should be a fair reflection of the probability of a higher rated player beating a lower rated one over a large enough sample.

The key point about the Elo rating is that it is related to the log-odds of players winning games.

It assumes that there is a relationship across players, so that (ignoring the possibility of draws) if Player B is 1010 times as likely to beat Player A as Player A is to be beat Player BB, and Player C is 1010 times as likely to beat Player B as Player B is to beat Player C, then Player C is 100100 times as likely to beat Player A as Player A is to beat Player C.
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Re: Football: Indian National Team news ...

Post by prasen9 »

Sin Hombre wrote: Sat Sep 09, 2017 1:04 am That's not the definition.

I think you are assuming that a higher ranked player does not gain points by beating lower ranked players; they do. See how Carlsen has gained 7 points by beating players who are rated 200-300 ELO points below him.
How many points would he have lost if he lost to one of them?
The key point about the Elo rating is that it is related to the log-odds of players winning games.

It assumes that there is a relationship across players, so that (ignoring the possibility of draws) if Player B is 1010 times as likely to beat Player A as Player A is to be beat Player BB, and Player C is 1010 times as likely to beat Player B as Player B is to beat Player C, then Player C is 100100 times as likely to beat Player A as Player A is to beat Player C.
I am assuming you meant player B instead of player BB above. I was confused why you used 1010 and not something simpler or a variable. In case someone else is confused, here the formula is explained: ELO Ratings
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Re: Football: Indian National Team news ...

Post by jayakris »

It seems India's math against Macau in Bengluru is postponed by a day to October 11th. The official reason is that the stadium is supposedly not available, but apparently the real reason is India's T20 match in Guwahati on that day and so the TV broadcaster wanted it postponed. It appears that AFC has accepted the postponement. The unreliable FIFA calendar hasn't been updated yet.

Also, as we still don't see the Palestine match to be cancelled, I expect we will be playing them on October 2nd, though I don't know why the match went off the FIFA calendar last month. AIFF still shows it on their schedule page.
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Re: Football: Indian National Team news ...

Post by Atithee »

If it's on October 2, that may get postponed due to some Gandhi jayanti event such as a Modi speech too :D
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Re: Football: Indian National Team news ...

Post by jayakris »

Haha, I sensed this a couple of weeks ahead, I guess. From the Tribune today - Fear of losing? AIFF cancels friendly against Palestine. Some more in Times of India - India may cancel Palestine friendly

I had said earlier that I would rather not play them. Nothing much to gain, and a bit to lose. It seems AIFF was precisely of the same thinking. They are trying their best to preserve the top12 ranking in Asia when AFC makes the draw next year after the qualifying is done in March for the Asian Cup in Jan 2019. There are 6 groups in the 24-team field and we need to be one of the seeded 2 teams in our group, without which, our chances of advancing to the final-16 becomes very poor. I am so glad that AIFF and Constantine have been doing things exactly how it should be done, if you want to find a way to get out of the below-150 rut, get somewhere and create some hoopla and interest in football in India.

I have been keeping India's point list for last 10 years. I don't think even AIFF had a full spreadsheet in 2007, and the analyst at FIFA had emailed me in 2007 that my list was correct (except for a couple of mistakes they had in the FIFA list!). Since then, at multiple points I had suggested that we needed not to play unnecessary matches but had to be prudent in scheduling to make a move in the FIFA rankings. This is the first time we are actually doing it correctly. But then again, it may only be now that there may be some sort of a minor improvement in quality (with I-league and ISL beginning to help a bit), so it didn't matter earlier whether we gamed the rankings or not. But now we need to. The time is right. We need some hoopla in India. The cricket league has brought in the concept of pro leagues to Indian sports fans' heart and some hoopla will really help in football too.

So, yeah, "fear of losing" is very clearly why we dropped the Palestine friendly. We are probably not at #93 Palestine's quality just yet. Let us beat Macau, Myanmar at home in October and November, and then see what we can do in the away game against Kyrgyz Rep at the end of next March. All three are big point matches. Stay near top-100 and try to be top-12 in Asia. As of now, if we win these three games, we will be ranked somewhere around #80 and in Asian top-10 by next April. Even if we lose one of those matches (for which there is some chance against Myanmar and a high chance at KGZ), we should still be around just above top-100 and in the top-12. If we drop even a little bit behind by a few spots, Iraq, Jordn or N.Korea who are breathing down on us from behind in the 102-110 range will overtake us for the 12th spot. A loss against Palestine can very much drop us by 4 or 5 spots, and a win hardly helps raise us (because the points for a friendly aren't much, but it adds one match to FIFA's point averaging divisor to reduce it). That is dangerous if we assume a more-probable loss at KGZ also. And one of those three teams behind us in Asia can go up and overtake us whatever we do. So, trying to go past Palestine, the current #11, by NOT playing them but by gaming the FIFA ranking system, is what we should do. Even if we don't go past them, we should try to stay right behind them at around #95 and not allow others to pip us at the post.

By the way, I think Palestine, which has won their last 5 matches and have gone up, are probably thinking the same as us too. They also may be happy to drop this, rather than come and risk a loss in India. So, we will both try to solidify our final spots in the Asian top-12 and prevent others from taking it. That is the calculation.

Once we are seeded in our pool, we have a chance to do something at the Asian Cup. It gives us 15 more months to see if any of the young strikers (there about 4 that we are keeping an eye on, under the age of 23 by then) can take a next step. We will also pray that Chettri who is 33 now will not have a huge drop in his level of play by then, because without him we are still nothing much.
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