Ian On The Red Dot

A few days before World Cup 2010 started, I started noticing people calling out the results of upcoming games on Twitter.

I thought it would be interesting to run a game where fans make predictions using Twitter and a little application runs in the background to collect these tweets and tabulate success rates.

There are 3 prizes sponsored by Nike football thanks to a friend who helped obtained them.

Definitely not as profitable as betting on ladbrokes, but probably less of a hassle considering that it seems there isn’t an easy way for Singaporeans to deposit money into a ladbrokes account.

So, if you have a Twitter account, and love football, head down to football.onthereddot.com and participate by tweeting the results you expect.

Further notes:

Over the course of coding the site and the backend, I learned a few things about the Twitter API:

Going to update them over the course of the month as I tinker a little more with the scripts.

Back-end script to retrieve data from Twitter was written using python and:

1. The library tweepy as an interface to Twitter’s API.
2. SQLAlchemy to connect and deal with database stuff.

Front-end:

1. Built with Sinatra

My family has been living for about two years without a television. Life goes on as normal (with a little more reading) except when Manchester United has a game to play. Trying to find a place to watch the game has become even harder since moving to Sengkang. Thankfully there are online services like Justin.tv & USTREAM.tv where there are kind souls ( among a lot of spammers ) who stream the games.

But the quality is poor. Yesterday morning, because the video was so pixelated, I didn’t realize the ball had ended up hitting the back of the net until I saw the camera zoom in on Ronaldo’s muted celebration.

Besides the online streaming services, I also rely on Soccernet’s GameCast Live Commentary to follow a game. The guys who are responsible for covering the games are hilarious and more often than not you get gems like the line below.

Anyone know of any good places near Sengkang to watch those early in the morning matches?

After reading kottke’s post about some of the best moments in Olympic history, I got nostalgic and started searching for what I consider the BEST moment in Singapore’s sporting history – the double we did in 1994. I can’t remember the matches and the goals, everything has merged into one big blur but I cannot forget the emotions I experienced that year, the excitement, the sadness and the eventual unbridled joy when, arguably, Singapore’s favorite son Fandi Ahmad lifted the cup.

The Kalland Wave !!!!! We even had a conductor for that.

Good times.

Anyway, to feed the nostalgia, some videos on YouTube about the best moment in Singapore’s sporting history:

It would probably not be wrong to say that Ronaldo failed to shine at Euro 2008. If anything, with all the hype around him and his performance with Manchester United last season, this tournament was a dismal failure for him.

There is one reason why I think he didn’t perform as well as he did in Manchester United and why I think if Real Madrid wants to offer $100 million pounds for him, Manchester United should ask for more and then sell him.

Portugal and Real Madrid don’t have Rooney, Tevez and Park Ji Sung.

More specifically, they don’t have players who are willing to lose the limelight to Ronaldo, work for the team, take the attention of defenders away from Ronaldo and track back when Ronaldo forgets his defensive responsibilities.

Manchester United is a different team when Rooney doesn’t play.

My friend has a theory about this. There are players who are the base and there are players who are the multipliers. Ronaldo is a multiplier more than a base – he scores and create goals because of all the running by other players around him.

Rooney is a base.

Those who play DOTA would know what I mean. An item that does 1.5 times agility in damage would be near to useless if the hero is an intel hero. Rooney adds the agility. Ronaldo is the item.

One season doesn’t make a legend despite all the records that might have been broken. Ronaldo and his advisers would be remiss if they buy into the hype.

I didn’t realize I had to subscribe to a premium channel just for Euro 2008. On hindsight, this should have been obvious because recently it has been the case for past major soccer events. Anyway if I tried to keep up with all the matches, I would definitely not be able to work. So I’m extremely grateful for a site like Footytube.

Last night was the game between Singapore and Uzbekistan. I went to watch the match alone. When I reached there at 7.45pm, this was the sight that awaited me:

I was not to be discouraged and decided to join the queue.

There was great atmosphere among those of us queuing to watch the match. We knew there was little chance of us getting in before half time but we didn’t care. Some people were keeping track of the score by calling or messaging those in the stadium or those watching from home. We cheered when we heard Singapore equalized to make the score 2-2.

I had hope we could pull an upset. I also thought that the stadium must have been packed.

After 30 minutes of queuing, I finally got my ticket. Guess what..the tickets were being sold by young kids. I think that’s so wrong. I know they are earning their keep but somehow it just felt exploitative.

Anyway, when i was walking up to the seats, this was the queue that remained:

When I got in, two things greeted me which left me deeply disappointed. The first was that we were now down 4-2. What happened!!!! I called my Uncle and he told me we let in two soft goals. Then I saw us let in what was a really cheap goal from a corner kick. Sigh.

The second thing that greeted me was the half empty stadium.

Only one side was anywhere near full.

I know I’ve said it many times, but I’ll say it again – I miss the days of the Malaysian Cup and League.

What I don’t get is this. Why were we playing so many long balls that night. I mean, let’s face it, if we want to go to the World Cup Finals, then we must know we will be facing teams with individuals bigger and taller than us. Long balls doesn’t seem to be the optimal strategy against such opponents. Sure, we could hope our players get bigger or maybe, just maybe we could work on another style of play.

Anyway, last night, three English guys sat behind me and made disparaging remarks about the team’s fitness and skills. I felt like turning around to say, “Your England not so much better. They didn’t qualify for Euro”. But I didn’t. I realized why what they said hurt so much was because there was truth in what they said.

We weren’t on par with the players from Uzbekistan in terms of fitness and skill. We also didn’t have the gamemanship that those players had. I mean, come on lah ref, how kayu are you? Those guys can easily muscle any of our players off the ball, but when one of ours touch them a bit, those jokers fall to the ground in the kind of agony that is only warranted if they had been knocked down by a bus.

The performance didn’t even deserve a Golden Globe nomination. It was that bad.

Sigh.

This loss didn’t hurt as bad as the one against Malaysia. Maybe it was because there was a certain resignation that this team was way better. Or maybe I’ve lowered my expectations.

But I think last night, the team had a little bit of fight in them. Despite the soft goals, they did play with a certain amount of pride.

Anyway, I need some help here. Can anyone remember when the Singapore World Cup 2010 initiative was started?

So, early yesterday morning was the Champions League final. The penalty shootout was unbearable. I had a feeling Ronaldo would miss. Didn’t dare hope Terry would, but he did. But the thing I really want to comment on is the save made by Edwin van der Sar from Anelka’s kick.

Did anyone of you notice the interaction happening between the two players before Anelka kicked the ball?

As Anelka stepped up to the ball, Edwin van der Sar pointed to his left. It looked like Anelka wiped his face with his left sleeve but it also looked like Anelka kind of gave a subtle mocking acknowledgment by pointing to the goalkeeper’s left.

Anelka then proceeded to kick the ball to Edwin van der Sar’s right which was the direction the keeper dived.

The rest as they say is history. Edwin van der Sar saved the shot and Manchester United won the title. Yeah!

A good friend of mine believes that Edwin van der Sar saved the shot because he desired it more than Anelka wanted to score. Maybe. He said gamemanship was involved. Most definitely. But I couldn’t help wondering if players could be influenced to kick the ball a certain direction.

Could the goalkeeper help make up the mind of the shooter?

This article on the New York Times is an interesting one about the topic of Priming.

Psychologists say that “priming” people in this way is not some form of hypnotism, or even subliminal seduction; rather, it’s a demonstration of how everyday sights, smells and sounds can selectively activate goals or motives that people already have.

Oh, I don’t know why Sir Bobby Charlton refused the medal around his neck, but it just seemed damn classy.