Sometimes football (or what some colonies insist on referring to as "soccer") is not so zero-sum: a draw on Thursday is a win-win situation for both the USA and Germany, which is reminiscent of the infamous 1982 World Cup match between West Germany and Austria.



Why should they not agree a draw? Why is it incumbent on them to play -EV in a tournament? It's not like Portugal have much compunction about diving and play-acting, anyway.

It is wrong for the spirit of the game and the fair play in terms of ancient principles where you want the individual to be judged on their own best performance and not the cooperation of others or the creation of adverse conditions targeting only few...

However in a world where the game is redefined as win with any means that are not illegal technically, collusion is possible outcome strategy. Same with poker final table small stack vs many big ones checking to the river etc.

Nevertheless here there is a further concern. The US can advance even with a loss often. They therefore do not mind risking to win because that way they open the door for the elimination of Germany if say Ghana wins over Portugal by enough goals. Eliminating Germany that may be in the top 5 teams of the current tournament is a plus EV result in future terms. Also finishing first may have a better draw next round.

So there is incentive for the US to finish first and defeat Germany in more ways than one. Instead of facing Germany then one more time, face it now that you can afford some risk and maybe remove the future one. And of course first position for Germany is also an incentive for them and they also can afford to lose due to big +4 vs +1 (US) current goal differential.

PS: Also you do not want to add millions of citizens from Portugal or Ghana in your terrorists watch list.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soccer#Etymology_and_names

I think its ok

Explaining why seems pointless. You should be able to do what you have to do to advance.

Yes, but this is outweighed by other factors. Optimal strategy for both teams is to play out a draw with the reserve players, and rest the main players for the knockout stages, no?

Along similar lines, should a new bowler (American bowling, not what the overthrown tyrants call the pitcher in "cricket") sandbag when establishing their handicap? When I started, I took some good-natured ribbing for stringing strikes and bowling a hundred pins above my true average at the time. It would have seemed strange not to do my best. I could have heaved the ball into the gutter every time to ensure we always won, so where do you draw the line? But truth be told, I cared more about trying to bowl a perfect game than I did about my team. As it turned out, it didn't make a difference as we still made it to the finals, though my scratch handicap killed us in the first part of the season.

If the next round that the first of group G plays second of group H and second of G plays first of H is a nontrivial difference ie the first you have 30% chance to defeat, the second 50%, then why would you want to be finishing second if you can avoid it and the risk is very small to be eliminated because you tried to win. Also i insist if the US has 20% chance to defeat Germany in a knockout match why not try to eliminate it here as first attempt if say Ghana starts winning 2-0 etc. Also even if you do not eliminate it because its hard due to goal differential, you may still inflict it damage by sending it to play on next round with a harder opponent than the second of group H (eg force Germany to play Belgium not say Algeria). That is also adding to the chance to not face them again or to eliminate at least in the next round 1 of 2 strong teams that way.

Also at this point resting or protecting players if you are an emerging power team is not a good approach. You want your players to get as much experience in hard competition conditions as possible for the team to obtain self confidence and a sense of destiny, unity and coherence. The team gets better and better as it is tested to its limits and there are plenty of days for rest anyway.

PS: Always think like a champion destined to win it all not like the little guy that tries to get a break.

There's no such thing as destiny.

I appreciate your objectivity, but I think it's ridiculous to suggest that if one side were in a position to offer the other a draw, and offered it, then the other should decline and risk being eliminated. There is too much to lose.

Not sure how much you follow MMA, but this video below features Jon Jones (the light heavyweight champion) and Chael Sonnen (the guy who thinks like a champion and that it's his destiny to win everything). Enjoy.

There is such thing as destiny. The mathematical inevitability of something. Ie life is destined to happen in this universe eventually somewhere. QM is destined to be reframed lol. That kind of thing. Here of course i mean it in the poetic sense that people imagine it, although it exists only in their dreams as such. Still if you treat it like destiny it may become a self fulfilling prophecy due to confidence.

Also i definitely see the logic in the cooperation idea but its illegal to agree to it of course so its only in secret or implied and i still think that one needs to do the math to see what i am talking about in terms of overall tournament win probability. It does affect that probability by a lot if you finish first or second.

Plus for US to not advance it needs to like say lose and Ghana to win in a net difference of goals of 3+. For Portugal its like 4+. Germany has it even better. So as they are, they both like have 90% already advanced. This then makes the other concern about later stages a valid argument. If Germany was offered the deal and there was a way to secure it to hold they have no benefit by not accepting it as they finish first this way. It is the US that has the incentive to risk it for a win. Do the math and you will see how it improves its overall tournament win probability to face the second and not the first of group H plus the toughness it forces on the road for Germany that is a very likely top 4 team anyway so the harder road it has the better for others.

On the other hand, I used to play 3-way euchre with my mom who was a pinochle and euchre champion. You get points for every round that you get the most tricks. First one to 10 points wins. So if she was about to get 10, I'd play in such a way as to give the 3rd player the tricks if I couldn't win a round and he could. Her response to that was to quit the game in a huff and refuse to play with me anymore. I thought her position was dumb. However, I have to admit that her quitting strategy was effective in neutralizing mine. I couldn't win if she wouldn't play, so I had to agree to not play that way.

The difference between the euchre situation and bowling is that purposely throwing the ball off line isn't in any way a test of bowling skill, so winning that way wouldn't mean anything. It's taking advantage of an unfortunate but necessary feature of the structure for people who are just playing for fun. The handicap feature is supposed to make it more fair, not less fair. But it still takes some card playing skill to surmise that it's better to let an opponent win, and take the chance of letting the player in the lead win when you might have been able to beat her. Plus these were money games where the stakes rose into the tens of cents. Drawing in soccer is in no way a test of soccer skill, so it's more like the bowling situation.

Yeah thanks, i dont follow MMA and i feel for the guys that suffered these injuries so fast implying very significant power strikes. Isnt it the first guy Jones that talks to himself though like a champion at the start of the video? What i mean is not to be arrogant and not in touch with reality. But to treat yourself like you respect your chances and you go for it not like please lets get lucky and catch a break kind of bs defeatism. I mean i look at US and i know its a worse team historically than say Greece in Fifa soccer rankings. And yet US plays like it believes in itself and Greece 2014 doesnt so far. Greece 2004 however when they won the European championship they behaved as if they were destined to win it , they took themselves seriously and it happened game after game with solid defense and out of the blue goals against the frustration of better opponents that were neutralized one after the other.

Its like Rocky style. Rocky (the film) however stupid the movies are , in this case signifies a personal victory for Stallone the way he created it. Like he believed in himself (script and everything) exactly like in the movie and it worked. I dont particularly admire Stallone or anything remotely close and i know how most of these guys will try everything in the early days to finally make it but he did it by not giving up. In a way Matt Damon did something similar too with Good will Hunting etc.

And in the end this is what i mean. To start small and through effort establish yourself as a champion. Greece in Basketball is like in the top 4-5 teams of the planet moreover its small population (10 mil) and has defeated or made it tough close for the US dream team in past tournaments. It wasnt always like that. It started as an outsider decades ago and eventually it established itself as a European power and now teams from Greece regularly win European championships. You may be small but if you respect yourself and try like you mean it good things happen. If you do not behave like a winner that believes in himself and goes for it without fear then who is going to stand for you and respect you.

I enjoyed how Croatia played against Brazil and how Australia played against Netherlands and even lead at some point. Who? Australia! Yes why not. This kind of effort is what i want, no matter how outsider you are to never see yourself as one even if you know you start as one.

What happened when your mother and you went bowling, Bruce?

We never bowled together. She used to watch when I was little. She'd never let me practice on my own outside of the 3 games a week summer league, so I could never get good. She said it would be like sending me to a bar to get a shot of whiskey. I thought this was silly.

This happens to me pretty often when playing games. I remember once I was playing the game "Authors" which is essentially "Go Fish" except for the following rules:

- Instead of asking just for a number (do you have a 7) you ask for a specific card (do you have the seven of diamonds)

- You can only ask for a specific card if you have a card of the same number in your hand (so for example you can't ask for the 7 if you don't have any 7s)


So you play in a big group, and the basic idea is, once someone asks for the seven of diamonds, you know they have a seven in their hand and then you can narrow down which one.

So while holding the 7, I ASKED for the 7, which made everyone assume I had a seven, but NOT 7, so everyone else with 7s revealed themselves as they tried to steal my card.

My ex got confused immediately, figured out what I was doing after I dominated the round, and flew into an embarrassed rage. We ended up getting divorced later, and even then, I think my "cheating" at the card game is still the maddest I've ever seen her.

I think that play is in Go Fish and Old Maid for Advanced Players by Sklansky and Malmuth.

Yes it is wrong. Games have arbitrary rules, those rules define them. Collusion is against the rules of soccer.

You might argue it is not wrong in some utilitarian or relativistic sense, but that is irrelevant as this would no longer be a soccer game.

There's a rule in soccer that says you have to try your best to win? Seems like an odd rule, and one that would be impossible to enforce. The Japanese think a draw is the best outcome because then nobody loses face. They deliberately play for draws in baseball. Would they be cheating if their soccer team did the same?

Yeah, well Klinsmann has ruled it out.

Although, given that according to some definitions, collusion is secretive, ruling it out is the only way it can possibly occur.

It's a fine line, anyway. Plenty of matches are defensive draws.

Bobby Fischer used to accuse the Russians of drawing with each other in chess so that they could hold a monopoly on the world championship. It's hard to tell because some people just choose to play conservative openings that are likely to end in draws, and you can hardly tell them to play a different opening. Bobby had a very high win percentage compared to them, and he eventually cleaned their clocks anyway.

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/f...=gallery&ino=7

Nobody has said this. The question posed is if it is wrong to agree to a draw, not if it is wrong to play for a draw.

That a rule might be hard to enforce is irrelevant to this discussion.

It's the same thing. If 2 teams play for a draw, then obviously they are agreeing to a draw.


No, a rule that can't be enforced is irrelevant. You're saying it's "wrong" doesn't mean anything.

For example, some things in basketball are against the rules. They are called "fouls". There are penalties for them. Fouling is often the proper strategy because the penalty is preferable to giving someone a chance to score. It would be irrelevant to say that fouling is "wrong" simply because it violates the rules. All that matters are the consequences. A rule that can't be enforced has no consequences. Therefore, the proper strategy of the game to break those rules whenever it is to your advantage to do so.