Your logic was tautological as you said it was absurd to say what I was saying, thus it was absurd. Re-read your post.

It would be wrong for US and Germany to not play soccer, as that is what the game is. Mixing in political science and philosophy is just intellectual masturbation. This is a game, games have arbitrary rules and that is what makes them games. I can claim that I win every hand in poker on account of being me, but then I am no longer playing poker as I have left the rules of the game behind.

It is okay that you do not want to debate, and I don't think you have either.

That doesn't make much sense. The rational thing to do is for the US to play a strong defense with an opportunistic offense and capitalize on their capacity for work. Germany on the other hand should use their superiority in possession and seek to dominate and win, if they don't I suspect they will actually stand a greater chance of loss as they will be playing into the strengths of the US team.

If this is the type of analysis that qualifies in your mind as a rational analysis, then it's no wonder you're not making any sense.

Germany gains nothing by winning compared to getting a draw except for some outside chances of knocking out the US from the tournament and letting Ghana in. I will treat US and Ghana as being close to equal and call that a wash for Germany. So Germany really doesn't gain anything by winning.

But playing to win increases the chances of two negatives. First, playing to win increases the chances of losing because it creates scoring opportunities for the opposition. Losing to the US means playing a tougher first round, and that's not good for Germany. Second, playing to win increases the chances of an injury, which hurts the long term prospects of getting deeper into the tournament.

Since there's nothing to gain from winning, and lots to lose from playing to win, Germany does not benefit from playing to win.

soccer is horrible... wake me when FIFA is eviscerated, and a governing body with some semblance of moral fiber fills the void.

Now you know what i was talking about.

"Greece agrees to a win"

It is wrong to not have the heart of a champion.

0.8% it is and dynamical probability listens...

I dont agree with what tame_deuces argues in other points but in how Germany should play he is right.

Germany can lose a lot by not playing to win. They can lose the first position and a better opponent. Not only that but if by some miracle someone else's heart of a champion wakes up in the other match and some unreal score-fest begins and one of the two wins with 4-0 or whatever then suddenly Germany can find itself in the astronomically low probability to be eliminated with a US win. They must make that event as unlikely as possible because they control it.

Germany cannot play for a tie because precisely they have nearly nothing to lose by playing a solid open game to win which further establishes the fit form of their team. See Colombia today didnt have to win over Japan and still did 4-1. This is the kind of team you salute. The US can play for a tie but can advance even with a loss. The same is true for both but they have a lot to win by the victory.

They have both close to 90-95% to make it regardless of the way they play as long as the score is still 0-0. After that or after some 0-2 type thing i can see a change sure. But Because a miracle is needed in the other game for one of them to win they can afford to play free of stress. In doing so they realize the true purpose of the victory that is the determination of who wins first position. That may affect the overall tournament probability by as much as a factor of 1.5 even or more. Why? Because the draw is made to favor the top teams in each group so i doubt they have less probability to defeat a second team than a first. For Germany the thing may be the difference between 65% and 50% on the next round win probability. For US it may be between 50% and 35%. It is a massive equity drop to not go for it when you are already 90% in to begin with.


No bs gentlemen's agreement can be made silently because in the end the result is near the end of the game unstable allowing the US to defect and go for the win with a higher probability than if they had both played for real from the start. This is a risk Germany doesnt have to accept at all. Precisely because it is so absolutely ultra difficult for them to be eliminated no matter how they play if they play a decent game to win (either conservative or aggressive but with win in mind). Difficult but it is not 0. So why give up on the knockout phase draw probability and open the door for a miracle to happen in the other game?

We cannot be serious here that a team like Germany should ever accept any offer of draw and the US has in fact even larger incentive in equity boosting.

Does Germany want to play with Belgium or Algeria (or smaller chance Russian-S Korea). The difference is substantial given Belgium's performance so far.
Rules;


1 Points in all group matches, with three points awarded for a win, one point for a draw and none for a loss.
2 Goal difference in all group matches
3 Goals scored in all group matches
4 Points in matches between tied teams
5 Goal difference in matches between tied teams
6 Goals scored in matches between tied teams
7 Drawing of lots

Germany 2 1 1 0 6 2 +4 4
United States 2 1 1 0 4 3 +1 4
Ghana 2 0 1 1 3 4 −1 1
Portugal 2 0 1 1 2 6 −4 1


Ghana needs to win by 3 goals vs US (win plus loss scores differentials) to top them.

The US must play to win or draw or lose by 1 goal at worse and pay attention to the other match as it is happening to adjust strategy as needed. They can do that by playing a defensive careful game with focus on sudden attacks because Germany is the best team and only with extra careful effort you can defeat them without opening the door to massive loss. Germany doesnt care how it ends 99% of the time or something like that but the placement matters. There can be no agreement. It serves only the US in reality assuming they play to advance and not to win everything. But this is not making the money in tournament poker. Nobody remembers you didnt win it. They do recall you tried for a while though and then that too is forgotten. The US can go ahead and be eliminated and it has my respect as it is anyway. But it will have a ton more respect if it makes a deep run like they mean business. That is the true objective. Only weak minded idiots will say nasty things about the US about losing the points at the 3rd minute of added time vs Portugal. Things like that happen because in the end of the day the other team has the top player of the planet (or second, third at worse) and the heart of the champion can shine even at the last minute. Respect to all of them that refuse to die.

You don't actually know anything about soccer, do you?

Soccer isn't a game that stands still, or it is what you call unstable. As such it is a dreadfully difficult game to agree to anything in. This is also why soccer corruption on-pitch is usually found in lesser divisions, training matches where there are less observant eyes and in smaller sidebets like "first throw-in before X minutes" etc.

Tactically speaking there is also the unfortunate fact that I doubt the teams actually possess the strengths the "game theory analysis" that plague this thread dictate. Then there is the cultural factor. I have no doubt the US is going to go for a win and fair play, and Germany's goalgetters is never going to let airy notions of "agreements" stand in their way of the net. Dedicated strikers and forwards don't get to be good by holding back anything.

My prediction is that it will be a very enjoyable and tense game with two teams dedicated to win.

If you are the better team and play to win you actually improve the chances to win. A big scoring open game is your friend. Its like asking a good student whether they want to be tested in 10 exams in math or just one. Hard tough exams or easier ones? Hahaha, bring it and let the weak students in the dust all the time is the right approach. Why make it easy. If you play a timid careful game the other weaker team improves its chances to win because they are not easily left behind in the score so they can score at any point and it will be enough. So do not allow it to be enough. Take your future in your own hands, secure first position and reduce the chance of a miracle to tiny levels by making sure if the miracle happens in the other match you are winning or tied or need only 1 goal in the end.

People arguing for a focus on tie need to redo the math. Only the US can play for a tie and an opportunistic win style because they shouldnt really risk it to create a 3 goal differential with say Ghana. Germany has to play to win and have a very open strong game because even if they are behind at some point they can recover with such kind of game. Imagine if they played instead a timid game and then 10 min before the end some freak happened like a penalty or a mistake or a self goal by a deflection, you name it. How do you recover then to capture first position? If the score is already 3-1 you recover just fine thank you!

That Greece result vindicates everything you have said so far, Masque.

I agree with this. I wouldn't necessarily use the word timid, but playing the result in 90 minutes is rarely done in soccer. It is something usually done if you lack offense or you have extreme capabilities defensively, like for example the 2006 Italy team. Neither is true of the 2014 Germany team.

Plus of course the funny thing here is that all is fluid. Agreements can fly off the window in record time when self interest skyrockets. If for example at the half the other match is 1-0 Portugal (they need like another 3 or something without receiving one ie gl) the US would be stupid to not go for the win with ferocity in second half (say its 0-0 or 1-1 there) like its a knock out match. Imagine if it is later 1-1 in the Ghana Portugal match and you are sitting defensively at 0-0 instead of trying to defeat Germany with immense effort and boost your tournament equity by 40-50% by playing Algeria or a miracle Russia/S Korea instead of a stronger Belgium.

I'm curious to see your estimate of Win/Lose/Draw probabilities if Germany plays to win compared to Germany playing to not lose.

Overtly breaking the rules knowing you will be punished because you've decided the benefits will outweigh the punishment is very different to trying to break a rule and get away with it. I would say that USA and Germany were doing nothing "wrong" if they went to FIFA and said 'we are going to agree to draw, we will accept the penalty', and I would also say that a player deliberately fouling in such a way to try to hide it from the Ref is cheating.

Your statement that "it's wrong because it's against the rules" is absurd because if you apply it to basketball, then fouling would be wrong, and anyone who knows the first thing about basketball can see that is absurd. That's not a tautology; that's reductio ad absurdum.


No I haven't, because a debate would require rational discourse from you. This is more like giving you a sound spanking.

If fouling was not wrong, it would not be penalized. You are once again ignoring magnitude or "how wrong".

Let's assume that the fitting penalty for a foul is disqualification of the team and a potential two year ban for all involved players from all professional basketball, and the gain would mean two cheating teams advance in a tournament at the cost of two non-cheating teams.

Now you have an analogy that fits both in determining if it is a transgression and magnitude.

Incorrect. It is penalized because the rules say that if you foul, then a penalty will accrue. That doesn't make it wrong because it is often completely correct to foul. Wrong means that it's incorrect, improper, or morally reprehensible.


In that case, whether or not fouling was wrong would depend on whether the potential gains would be offset by the disqualification and ban and the probability of being caught. If the gains outweighed the consequences weighted by the probability, then it wouldn't be wrong.

Is it wrong in an MTT for 2 extremely large stacks to try and eliminate an extremely short stack to try and get HU with as little risk to each other as possible? I think this is the same thing. It's part of the strategy. You can say it's bad for the spirit of the game and both large stacks should go at each other as if they weren't aware of the short stack at all but I think if encouraging poor strategy for the sake of entertainment is what truly would violate the spirit of competition. Didn't read this whole thread so it might have been said already. Germany and USA are basically in situation where ICM is a HUGE factor and just because it is sports and not poker doesn't mean they should be completely unaware that risking a loss because they want to go for the win to preserve the spirit of the game is much worse EV than just agreeing to a tie and advancing.

See post 50

The form of collusion/cooperation potentially seen in poker that i also described is eventually often unstable and breaks down if one has a big hand (well at least in non super extreme mega stack situations just big/bigger stacks covering little guy situations). However its not unethical to have it as long as all can do it when they find themselves at this position. Even if they dont do it for who knows what reason the fact they know they can do it to improve equity is available to any good thinker so its part of the game. In the end even the collusion between 9 weaker players to eliminate the edge of the top one is a natural development of the broad game strategy. The real game you play is the search for the best strategy at each moment. You are excelling at this kind of game not some abstract fair play sense of no cooperation etc. A cooperation that arises naturally without an external agreement or communication with other equipment (ie cheating) is essential element of the game.

In real life of course collusion is usually close to corruption and it undermines the process because it is not symmetrically available to everyone the same identical way. Some respect a set of values and others a smaller set.


It would be as if one were to tell you that it is unethical for humans to cooperate to kill a woolly mammoth 15k years ago. They should instead try 1 to 1 hunting for fair play and risk death each time and a tiny win probability instead of typically survive and have food and clothes/tools/fat oil for weeks.

I suppose if a process in a game develops that is not appreciated or seen ugly the rules can change to correct that. Games evolve that way to cleaner, more disciplined more technical, safer forms. For example you wouldn't allow in boxing to try to hit your opponent any way you like (eg biting them or kicking their head with your legs or the genitals etc) or in ping pong to attack your opponent to break their hands so that they cannot score/defend anymore!

Games are defined by their arbitrary rules. If you want to apply an ethical discussion to a game without taking that into account, why even bother?

The wrongness of looking at two cards is meaningless without the game context. It is wrong to look at your opponent hands because it is cheating. Now, some people thing cheating is ok and a part of the game. The problem is that they are not actually playing the game. If everybody did like them, poker would not exist.

Willful fouling is probably more like angleshooting; betting out of turn with the intention to check later etc. On magnitude probably not as bad as marking cards, but it still wouldn't be poker if it was allright to do it all the time by anyone.

So, I return my initial point. It is wrong to agree to a draw in a soccer match, because once you do that you are not playing soccer.

sorry, good post. A satellite is an even better analogy than the one I gave.

No. Just... no.

There are named strategies revolving around using the defined rules for fouling in order to gain an advantage. This was implemented in a high profile way. The NBA looked into it, and decided that the strategy should remain viable by not adjusting the rules for fouling in order to deter teams from implementing that strategy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hack-a-Shaq

In a more general sense, there's a play (I guess that's what I'll call it) known as an "intentional foul" that is commonplace enough that in modern console basketball games it's possible to instruct players to foul.

I'm really interested in what you think "playing soccer" means and what defines a "soccer match." Does that game where 6-year old children run up and down the field kicking a soccer ball on a soccer field not count as soccer because of the complete absence of competent soccer play? Or is it not soccer because that one kid is sitting down in the middle of the field picking at the grass and his nose instead of running after the ball and trying to kick it?

Ok i can think of several things. Lets first agree that winning first position has important tournament equity value. It may boost tournament win probability by 30-50% overall. Sure a small 2% becoming eg 2.5-3% has value.

Until better modeling is presented all i can think of is model the game using Poisson distribution for the goals scored for each team (of course its more complex than that because when behind in score you play a bit differently in scoring tendency than if you are ahead etc).

Using past results in the tournament i could argue the avg for Germany is 3 goals per match and for US 2.

Therefore if they play at that natural level we have chance for Germany to lose that is

eg

N[Sum[Sum[
3^k/k!*Exp[-3]*2^m/m!*Exp[-2]*If[m > k, 1, 0], {k, 0, 10}], {m, 0,
10}]] ~ 0.24698


Now if both teams tried to play a more careful defensive game you could for example imagine the 3 becoming 1.5 and the 2 becoming 1. (any idea to improve that to not look arbitrary as in 50% reduction for both ? For now it looks kind of sensible)

N[Sum[Sum[
1.5^k/k!*Exp[-1.5]*1^m/m!*Exp[-1]*If[m > k, 1, 0], {k, 0, 10}], {m,
0, 10}]] ~ 0.252207

So even if not by a lot, just a bit, Germany loses more often with a more careful game.

If their true numbers were even more severe ie 4 to 2 (14.8% loss )vs careful game 2 to 1 (18.26% loss). So if the relative scoring averages of the 2 teams is more severe than 3/2 the defensive game hurts even more the best team.

A more complex model is probably needed to do it all better and incorporate both attack and defense and how these change as the score changes. I am open to better modelling ideas.