Soccer-Mad Boffins Autumn Games!

 

The National Football Museum currently has an excellent exhibition 'Batteries Not included' on the glory days of soccer themed board and computer games on its top floor. Our visit to the exhibition, which launched in July and finishes on 25th February 2024, was a blast of nostalgia and we had a lot of fun trying everything out.  First up was an exhibit from a Victorian fairground game from Blackpool pier.  This was one of the largest exhibits and was not interactive for visitors, but we did get a good photo!

Photo taken at the National Football Museum

In our groundbreaking book Foundations of Managing Sporting Events we talked about some of the merchandising that the FA came up with for the event based around their lion character, World Cup Willie.  One of these things was a game, Willie Soccer, which is featured here along with some other board games which attempted to portray aspects of soccer, including couple of attempts at management games.

 

Photo taken at the National Football Museum

Of course, no exhibition about football games would be complete without the iconic Subbuteo, and we took the opportunity to 'flick to kick' in our stride!

Subbuteo was nicely set up on a baseboard

Created by Peter Adolph in 1946, by the 1960's Subbuteo evolved from paper to plastic and was a huge hit in post-war Britain, with 'Continental edition' sets introduced to reflect the 'new' floodlit European competitions.  When we got on board with it in the 1980s and 1990s the figures were lighter, and even more associated products to keep up with trends in the game, such as Astroturf (tm) pitches.  

Alex as a Subbuteo player!

Of course, the digital age created further opportunities to tap into the pocket money of football mad kids, and computer games are also covered in the NFMs exhibition.  We played as England v Scotland in the 8-bit C64 classic Emlyn Hughes International Soccer! Other classics such as Championship Manager, Sensible Soccer, Football Director and even the cult classic goalkeeping sim Peter Shilton’s Handball Maradona were on display (but sadly not to play) in their original tape and disc versions.

The exhibition is an excellent collection of games which have attempted to represent football in different ways, some more successfully than others and runs at the NFM until 25 February 2024!

But even this exhibition couldn't cover everything and here at Soccer Mad Boffins we also have fun with other football games such as 'Striker League Champions' which integrates elements of the board game classic Monopoly, with a 'live action' penalty shootout in which players take turns to operate a plastic goalkeeper and a plastic striker whose leg kicks a plastic ball wen his head is pushed.  

Photo from Dr Alex G. Gillett private collection

Managing your team involves buying and selling players using banknotes, to upgrade your team's rating and thus the number of shots you can take against your opponent in a match/shootout.

Photo from Dr Alex G. Gillett private collection

Of course, such a board game requires time and space and sometimes all you need is something more basic and convenient. We recommend the card based 'Top of the League Football Trivia Set' for car journeys and sophisticated after-dinner entertainment!

Photo from Dr Alex G. Gillett private collection

A special thanks to Dr Alexander Jackson and the National Football Museum in Manchester, England, for producing such an excellent exhibition.

Predicting the Lionesses

Well done England in the FIFA Womens World Cup Finals. So close!

Our previous blog post compared our predictions for the tournament. Now that you have had chance to digest all of that (and if you didn't yet see it, just scroll to the previous post...) we thought it time to dive deeper and see who was the best at predicting England's performance.

Unlike in the overall report/analysis we were able to make things a bit more exciting - no scoreline exceeded 6 goals for either side (the limit of the dice) so every score at the end of normal time was include But the extra twist was that instead of using the outcome (win, lose, draw) at the end of normal ti,e we used the outcome at the very end of the game including after extra time or penalty shoot outs - thereby ensuring all players picked up points for the R16 game v Nigeria, meaning a more exciting measurement %!

	Actual Score	AG	KT	Dice
England v Haiti	1v0	5v0	4v0	2v1
England v Denmark	1v0	3v1	0v0	0v3
China v England	1v6	1v2	1v1	3v0
R16 England v Nigeria	0v0 (4v2 pens)	3v0	2v0	2v1
QF England v Columbia	2v1	2v0	2v0	0v0 (0V0AET), (1V2 Pens)
SF Australia v England	1v3	2v3	1v1	2v1
Final Spain v England	1v0	0v3	1v2 aet	0v1
Outcome overall (3 pts)	21	18	9	6
Goals Home (1 pt)	8	2	4	0
Goals Away (1 pt)	8	2	2	0
Total Points	37 (100%)	22 (59.46%)	15 (40.54%)	6 (16.22%)

Alex won this one with nealy 60%

Kevin was second place

But the dice had no faith in England and will be jailed for treason!

Predicting the 2023 FIFA Womens World Cup

 

1.0      INTRODUCTION

This analysis is based on predictions for the knockout stages of the FIFA Womens 2023 World Cup Finals, which took place between 20 July  - 20 Aug 2023. The objective of this report was to have a bit of fun and to see how accurately we could predict the tournament.  Two academics (Dr Alex Gillett and Dr Kevin D Tennent, both editors of Soccermadboffins website) recorded their predictions at each stage (Group, Round of 16, Quarter-Final, Semi-Final and then Final as well as third place play-off) just prior to each stage, once the competing teams were known.

As a contrast with ‘chance’ a third set of predictions was undertaken at the same time by rolling 2x6 sided dice. A roll of 1-3 meant that was how many goals were scored, 4-5 = nil, whilst a roll of 6 meant roll again and whatever number 1-6 is the total number of goals (this was to allow for the possibility of particularly high scoring games). The idea of the third set of predictions by rolling two dice was for comparison, to see if we could perform better than random(ish) chance. We acknowledge that the six-sided dice and our own parametres somewhat limits the ‘random’ score but it gives an approximation, and it is the same method we have used for previous tournaments so it allows comparison.

We thus followed the ‘Analysis Z’ method of our previous tournament production reports, which predicted results and goals based only on actual fixtures.

Results Kevin was the best performer but Alex a very close second place, although both were less than 50% accurate, so this was not a particularly easy tournament for them to predict.

This exercise was undertaken for fun, please do not attempt to use it as informative for gambling practise!

 

2.0      FINDINGS

Firstly, we predicted the group stage, the first phase of the tournament comprising eight (8) groups, A-H. 

The groups each contained four teams and the top two finishers in each group (50%) automatically progressed to the next stage, the ‘Quarter Final’, whilst the two lowest ranked from each group (also 50%) were eliminated from the tournament.

Thereafter, knockout Stages involved teams that qualified from the Group Stages:

• Round of 16 (16 teams)
• Quarter Finals (8 teams)
• Semi-Finals (4 teams)
• Third-place playoff (2 teams)
• The Final (2 teams)

 

2.1      Group Stage

Here’s how we calculated the points, a maximum of 5 points per game were up for grabs (or 180 points overall in this stage)

·       Correct outcome: 3 points (overall)

·       Home goals: 1 pt ( overall)

·       Away goals; 1 pt ( overall)

As our dice could only roll a maximum of ‘6’ we excluded Netherlands 7 goals for vs Vietnam from the ‘away goals’ total.

According to the analysis in the table, Kevin had best overall accuracy (44%) for predicting outcome + goals.

 

Fixture	Actual Score	Alex	Kevin	Dice
New Zealand v Norway	1 - 0	1-2	1-2	2-0
Philippines v Switzerland	0 - 2	0-4	0-4	0-1
New Zealand v Philippines	0-1	3-1	1-0	0-0
Switzerland v Norway	0-0	1-2	0-2	1-1
Switzerland v New Zealand	0-0	0-1	1-1	3-1
Norway v Philippines	6-0	5-0	2-0	0-4
Australia v Ireland	1-0	3-0	2-0	6-3
Nigeria v Canada	0-0	0-2	1-3	0-3
Australia v Nigeria	2-3	2-0	1-0	0-1
Canada v Ireland	2-1	1-1	3-1	6-3
Canada v Australia	0-4	2-2	2-1	0-2
Ireland v Nigeria	0-0	2-0	1-1	2-2
Spain v Costa Rica	3-0	2-0	2-0	0-0
Zambia v Japan	0-5	0-3	0-1	0-0
Spain v Zambia	5-0	4-0	5 -0	0-0
Japan v Costa Rica	2-0	4-0	2-0	3-3
Japan v Spain	4-0	2-2	2-2	1-2
Costa Rica v Zambia	1-3	0-1	1-1	6-1
England v Haiti	1-0	5-0	4-0	2-1
Denmark v China	1-0	1-2	2-3	0-0
England v Denmark	1-0	3-1	0-0	0-3
China v Haiti	1-0	3-0	4-1	2-1
China v England	1-6	1-2	1-1	3-0
Haiti  v Denmark	0-2	0-3	0-1	1-1
USA v Vietnam	3-0	8-0	6-0	1-3
Netherlands v Portugal	1-0	2-2	2-1	0-0
USA v Netherlands	1-1	3-1	2-2	2-2
Portugal v Vietnam	2-0	4-1	3-0	2-3
Portugal v USA	0-0	0-4	1-3	0-1
Vietnam v Netherlands	0-7*	0-3	0-2	6-1
France v Jamaica	0-0	2-1	3-1	3-6
Brazil v Panama	4-0	5-0	3-0	3-0
France v Brazil	2-1	1-3	1-2	2-0
Panama v Jamaica	0-1	0-2	2-1	0-2
Panama v France	3-6	0-3	0-3	1-1
Jamaica v Brazil	0-0	0-3	1-4	3-2
Sweden v South Africa	2-1	2-0	3-0	0-2
Italy v Argentina	1-0	1-2	2-2	0-2
Sweden v Italy	5-0	2-1	4-2	2-4
Argentina v South Africa	2-2	2-0	2-0	0-3
Argentina v Sweden	0-2	2-1	0-3	2-2
South Africa v Italy	3-2	0-3	1-1	0-6
Germany v Morocco	6-0	3-0	2-0	1-5
Colombia v South Korea	2-0	2-2	3-2	5-1
Germany  v Colombia	1-2	2-1	4-2	0-1
South Korea v Morocco	0-1	2-0	2-0	1-2
South Korea v Germany	1-1	2-1	1-1	6-1
Morocco v Colombia	1-0	1-2	0-2	3-0
Outcome	144	66	78	54
Home Goals	48	18	13	9
Away Goals	47	15	15	9
Total Points	239	99 (41%)	106 (44%)	72 (30%)

Table A showing group stage results and points according to AnalysIs Z

*excludes Netherlands goals for vs Vietnam

 

 

2.2      Knockout Stages

We then predicted scores and outcomes for the Round-of-Sixteen, Quarter-Final, Semi-Final and the Final.

The scores used for purpose of this exercise are those before penalties (90 minutes + stoppage + extra time) although we included penalties too for fun, where we thought that they would happen.

Alex did best in the Round of 16 but only with a mediocre 40%, whilst Kevin could only match the random dice.

Round-of-Sixteen

	Actual Result	AG	KT	Dice
Switzerland v Spain	1-5	2v0	1v1 (4-5pens)	2v5
Japan v Norway	3-1	3v1	2v2 (4v5 pens)	4v3
Netherlands v South Africa	2-0	2v0	4v0	3v2
Sweden v USA	0-0 (5-4 pens)	2v0	2v1	3v2
England v Nigeria	0-0 (4-2 pens)	3v0	2v0	2v1
Australia v Denmark	2-0	2v1	1v3	1v3
Colombia v Jamaica	1-0	0v1	2v0	0v2
France v Morocco	4-0	2v3	1v1 (4-5pens)	1v3
Outcome (before pens)	24	9	6	9
Goals Home	8	3	1	0
Goals Away	8	4	3	1
TOTAL POINTS	40 (100%)	16 (40%)	10 (25%)	10 (25%)

Table B showing results and predictions for the Round-of-Sixteen

 

Quarter Final

Alex again proved okay with a ‘break-even’ 50%.

	Actual Result	AG	KT	Dice
Spain v Netherlands	2v1	0v2	1v4	0v0 (2v0 AET)
Japan v Sweden	1v2	1v2	2v3	1v3
Australia v France	0v0 (7v6)	0v2	1v2	1v0
England v Columbia	2v1	2v0	2v0	0v0 (0V0AET), (1V2 Pens)
Outcome	12 (100%)	6	6	3
Goals Home	4 (100%)	3	1	1
Goals Away	4 (100%)	1	0	1
TOTAL POINTS	20 (100%)	10 (50%)	7(35%)	5 (25%)

Table C showing results and predictions for the Quarter Final

 

Semi-Final

An awful round for Kevin as Alex continued to catch up with him.

	Actual	AG	KT	Dice
Spain v Sweden	2v1	0v2	1v3	3v2
Australia v England	1v3	2v3	1v1	2v1
Outcome	6 (100%)	3	0	3
Goals Home	2 (100%)	0	1	0
Goals Away	2 (100%)	1	0	0
TOTAL POINTS	10 (100%)	4 (40%)	1 (0%)	3 (30%)

Table D showing results and predictions for the Semi Final

 

 

 Third Place Play-off

 

Alex blew his chances here with a paltry 0%, whereas Kevin romped to a 100% victory. The dice did surprisingly well.

 

	Actual Result	AG	KT	Dice
Sweden v Australia	2v0	1v2	2v0	3v0
Outcome	3 (100%)	0	3	3
Goals Home	1 (100%)	0	1	0
Goals Away	1 (100%)	0	1	1
TOTAL POINTS	5 (100%)	0 (0%)	5 (100%)	4 (80%)

Table E showing results and predictions for the Round-of-Sixteen

 

Final

With all three players backing England, current champions of Europe, it was a surprise when another European team beat them.

	Actual Result	AG	KT	Dice
Spain v England	1v0	0v3	1v2 aet	0v1
Outcome	3 (100%)	0	0	0
Goals Home	1 (100%)	0	1	0
Goals Away	1 (100%)	0	0	0
TOTAL POINTS	5 (100%)	0 (0%)	1 (20%)	0 (0%)

Table F showing results and predictions for the Final

 

 

3.0      DISCUSSION & CONCLUSION

3.1 Summary of Predictions

Total number of games =	Alex	Kevin	Dice
Outcome (pts possible) 144 + 24 + 12 + 6 + 3 + 3 = 192	66 + 9 + 6 + 3 + 0 + 0 = 84 (44%)	78 + 6 + 6 + 0+ 3 + 0 =93 (48%)	54 + 9 + 3 + 3 +3 + 0 =72 (38%)
Goals Home (pts possible) 48 + 8 + 4 + 2 + 1 + 1 = 64	18 + 3 + 3 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 24 (38%)	13 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 18 (46%)	9 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 10 (16%)
Goals Away (pts possible) 47 + 8 + 4 + 2 + 1 + 1 = 63	15 + 4 + 1 + 1 + 0 + 0 = 21 (33%)	15 + 3 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 = 19 (30%)	9 + 1 + 1 + 0 + 1 + 0 = 12 ( 19%)
192+ 64 + 63 = 319 TOTAL POINTS (319 pts possible)	84 + 24 + 21 = 129 (40%)	93 + 18 + 19 = 130 (41%)	72 + 10 + 12 = 94 (29%)

Table E showing overall tournament prediction accuracy according to Analysis Z

 

From the table we see a very close gap between the two soccer mad boffins but that Kevin wins, with Alex in second place and the dice someway behind. No participant performed well (which we define as being above 50%), and the only true winner was football which proved as exciting and unpredictable as ever.

To cite this publication:

 

·       Gillett, A.G., Tennent, K.D. (2023) ‘Predicting the 2023 FIFA Womens World Cup: A report by the Soccer Mad Boffins’. 27th September 2023. Available online at: http://soccermadboffins.blogspot.com/2023/09/predicting-2023-fifa-womens-world-cup.html

Also in this series about predicting major international football tournament  scores:

 

·       Gillett, A.G., Tennent, K.D. (2023) ‘Predicting the 2022 FIFA World Cup: A report by the Soccer Mad Boffins’. 19th September 2023. Available online at: http://soccermadboffins.blogspot.com/2023/09/fifa-world-cup-2022-qatar-predictions.html

 

·       Gillett, A.G., Tennent, K.D. (2022) ‘Predicting the 2022 Women’s UEFA European Championship: A report by the Soccer Mad Boffins’. 21^st September 2022. Available online at:  http://soccermadboffins.blogspot.com/2022/09/predicting-2022-uefa-womens-european.html

 

·       Gillett, A.G., Tennent, K.D. (2021) ‘Predicting the 2020(21) UEFA European Championship: A report by the Soccer Mad Boffins’. 21^st July 2021. Available online at:  http://soccermadboffins.blogspot.com/2021/07/euro-20202021-predictions-how-did-we-do.html

 

·       Gillett, A.G., Tennent, K.D. and Fanning, J. (2019). ‘Predicting the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup Finals Part 2: Knockout Stages & Overall Analysis - A report by Soccer Mad Boffins’.  12th July 2019. Available online at: http://soccermadboffins.blogspot.com/2019/07/predicting-2019-fifa-womens-world-cup.html

 

·       Gillett, A.G., Tennent, K.D. and Fanning, J. (2019). ‘Predicting the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup Finals Group Stages: A report by Soccer Mad Boffins’.  21^st June 2019. Available online at: http:// http://soccermadboffins.blogspot.com/2019/06/the-womens-world-cup-group-stage-predictions.html

 

·       Gillett, A.G., and Tennent, K.D. (2018) ‘World cup predictions: human brain, advanced statistical modelling, or completely random?’. 2^nd July 2018. Available online at: http://soccermadboffins.blogspot.com/2018/07/world-cup-predictions-human-brain-or.html

 

·       Gillett, A.G., and Tennent, K.D. (2018). ‘World Cup Finals Group Stages are over...how were your predictions?’ 29^th June 2018. Available online at: http://soccermadboffins.blogspot.com/2018/06/world-cup-finals-group-stages-are.html

 

 

Blog:

·       http://soccermadboffins.blogspot.com/