Football economics

The best thing about football I think is that you can allow yourself to be just unreasonably stupid for 2x45 minutes. Without even thinking, you are an expert, you are convinced, you are true, you have the best sets of eyes and ears on the planet. -And, you always know what he should have done. Empirical evidence against any theory that you might have about the game just lacks importance since it can not measure up to the intuitive insightfulness of your genius. Look at the English for example. It is a bit depressing for me to study econometrics/statistics in this country which infallibly believes it will win the next world cup even though any statistical approach to historical data should reveal the obvious conclusion that they will not.

Since their is no game going on right now, let me seize the opportunity to dwell a bit on a few other, to an economist at least, absorbing aspects of the game:

Corners kicks: Why doesn’t the offensive team ALWAYS have two players out by the corner? The typical set-up of a corner kick is that the defending team draws back all its players except one into their own penalty box to defend. The offensive team leaves four players (including goalie) for defence, one player takes the corner and the rest are in the box. So they are outnumbered 10 to 6 in the box. If they move one player out towards the corner, the defending team should, and always does, follow with two players not to be outnumbered out there if there is a short corner pass. So the offensive team gains the possibility of a short corner and they improve their situation in the box to 8 against 5. Is this not an example of a dominant strategy that is best no matter what the other team does? So why don’t they use it?

Counting goals: During a league game, the team that scores the most goals wins three points and the other team zero points. If the score is even, they get one point each. So the rules are fair, teams are even-handed. Imagine you are offered to change the rules so that you get to play at home for the rest of the season, but you would lose if the score is even in a game. Would you accept? –No, you probably wouldn’t. So why are teams often happy about drawing 0-0 in the away games in Champions league which sets them in this position for the home game? I don’t know!

Football money 1: A friend of mine had the dubious pleasure of writing a masters thesis in Finance a couple of years ago. But he did it in an interesting way: He found that a winning result in the Sunday league game for a team that was listed on the stock exchange, on average made the team’s stock price rise on Monday. By systematically following the odds at the bookmakers, the results, and thereby the movement of the stock, could be predicted. This is the most interesting economics paper I have ever seen: You can actually make money by following football. Set up a mutual fund anyone?

Football money 2: Just a piece of advice to all the “loyal” footballers who claim publicly that they would not want to represent another club. Don’t say that until you have signed the last contract of your career! You don’t need a PhD in negotiation skills to understand that saying so will not be very helpful in wage talks. “Oh, so if we lower your wage you want to stay anyway just to be able to wear that old t-shirt a while longer?!”

P.S. My thought was actually to write about mixed strategy equilibria in penalty shoot-outs, but last time I spoke about it someone convinced me that most people did not find the topic as intriguing as I do. (See articles here and here.)

P.P.S. Watching yesterday's game between Real Madrid and Barcelona was something else. I think FIFA should impose a new rule that prohibits Iniesta and Messi to play on the same team. It is just unfair to have two extraterrestrials out there at the same time. Have you seen those two move the ball together? They make those video games retrospectively realistic. What used to be possible only in the world of computers is now available at a stadium near you. Most notably at Stamford Bridge on Tuesday. I can't wait!