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A Bunch of Fives So when all is said and done, we analyse where, when and the quantity of times a ball has landed in the back of a net, past and present, or failed to, and somehow deduce why it was destined to be so. That’s the unenviable task of our resident expert Professor Statto, who brings us the benefit of his incisive intellect allied to half a century of football scholarship. And not least, his wry sense of humour.  He leaves the predictions to others, but he’ll provide you with the ammunition to sustain your challenge through your Score Five campaign. He’ll keep you up-to-date with what’s happening in the competition. He’ll lead you along byways exploring weird and wonderful facets of the game past and present, but always in his own inimitable style. Some comedian once suggested that “98% of all statistics are made up”, but the Prof. cordially invites you all to verify any information he presents – if only because he does most of the calculations in his head. Professor Statto and his amazing statistics. ====================================== Visit the Prof's 2008/09 season archives. Previous analysis The 40-30-30 formation, the secret of success and calling Benji Hello pals, and welcome back for the last time this season. It’s a real mixed bag this week. With all the ScoreFive titles now decided, I’m taking the opportunity to highlight some players who have put in fine performances this season. Also I’ve some information to help you all improve your prediction accuracy when Season 3 arrives in August, and some video footage of a very strange match indeed. Finally, we have a Missing Person bulletin. Before all that though, there’s the outcome of the FA Cup to deal with. Weekly highlights: FA Cup Final For a statistician, a one-match round provides various opportunities to find extremes. the average score of 2.43 pts (6.91 with Banker) was the highest per-match average of the season. Likewise, correct results at 89.6% were 12% highest than the previous best – the three-game Round 22A. What wasn’t a record? Bankers. A couple of savvy players chasing Cup leader Rolls Roys realised their only chance of snaffling the trophy lay in an upset, thus SteveClark44 and AlisonWright went against the grain and didn’t join the 90% of Chelsea-backers. After the Pompey goal had somehow survived a first-half peppering, it seemed the tactical-forecasters might have made the right choice when – shock horror! Chelsea conceded a penalty. It turned out to be a false hope (or false alarm, depending who you backed), as Kevin Prince-B failed to become Kevin King-B of Wembley, and then it was back to waiting for the inevitable Chelsea goals. The average of all your predictions suggested a scoreline of Chelsea 2.98 – 0.45 Portsmouth. In fact, there were more predictions for Chelsea to score five or above than to score one! As is so often the case, the deluge failed to materialise, but if it had been a Hit The Posts/Crossbar competition, I’ve no doubt Ancelotti’s boys would have put five in the net instead. So, one Drogba free kick was all they had to show for their dominance, which suited BobbyN, the only player to take a conservative view, and the only one to pick up 10 pts for his 1-0. It’s a toss-up for the Tip Of The Week between Bobby and Stuartiepops, who was hopelessly off-target but nevertheless entertaining with his 25-0 shout. I don’t think we’ll bother with a Top Players list this week: there are 66 equal-second placers! In the end, there was no change at the top of the table, where Rolls Roys (very appropriately a Chelsea fan) preserved his 7 pt lead to lift the Cup, but with his immediate pursuers going for broke and getting nothing, HammerDDH nipped in to secure the runners-up spot with HelloArthur2000 a point further back. Congratulations to the three of them for doing what no-one in the other comps could do – keep Lano off the top spot. He had to settle for fourth place. Rumour has it next season he’s going to give everyone else a chance by removing the 1 key from his keyboard. Champions League Final There are still five possible runners-up, with Tomhen, TheMightyQuinn, Illyr and Spieretti best placed to succeed, while Turvey100 will need a Perfect 5 and suicides among the other four if he’s to prevail. I’m sure the Supremo will give a mention in next week’s headlines to whoever takes the medal. Worthy of Mention The Perfecto wizards: The Banker kings: The Result masters The Goals grabbers Top 20 repeaters: two seasons among the leaders Late arrivals at the ScoreFive Ball: players who joined when the season was well advanced but still put in strong performances. If they’d played the whole season, they’d all be well inside the Top 100 Congratulations also to the 53 players who went through the whole season without having to call on a Magic Mike life. We mustn’t forget those who won a Supporters or Public League. They’re here: Also, you may find the Famous Fives page of interest. The Supremo is currently updating the list of luminaries and winners on the Wall Of Fame: The Tipsters
Results v Predictions
The message is clear: lighten up on the aways and forecast more draws. Goals per game, having edged above the 3.00 mark by October for the first time in 40 years fell back to finish at 2.77 (Home 1.70, Away 1.07) vs. 2008-09’s 2.48. As for the scores, this is how they panned out:
* any game where either side scores more than 4. I’ve highlighted the predictions that are most out of kilter with results. I think you can understand why I’ve been banging on for months about 0-0s being ignored. Look at your 1-2s as well! I would expect you to forecast slightly above the true %age on all the more frequent scores – say, the top 10 – as no-one should spend much time pondering “5-0 or 6-1?” over games where either side is expected to score a hatful – settle for the result, or 3 pts if you’re lucky. We had 41 games with a four or above this season, so that’s 10%+ of games that you’re unlikely to get a Perfecto from – and remember, if you can average six correct results every week, you will win the Prem competition comfortably. There are other lessons to draw from the above table, but for now, I’ll leave you to meditate on it. 4-4-2 is so last year… On Tuesday, Athletico Bilbao held a testimonial game for retiring local hero Joseba Etxeberria, who has served them loyally for 15 years. Over 20,000 fans turned up at Bilbao’s San Mames Stadium to see Athletico take on…a bunch of local school kids. Doesn’t sound very fair does it? Actually, it was a very even contest, with the kids taking a 2-1 lead before the Pros hit back to win 5-3. The key to the youngsters strategy was their unusual formation: 40-30-30. Yep, that’s right, there were a hundred of ’em, and to make sure they didn’t get too tired, the whole lot were substituted at half time for fresh legs. Someone filmed a sample of it on their phone - take a look: http://www.offthepost.info/2010/05/video-athletic-bilbao-versus-200-kids/ I received this link from a pal who is a Liverpool fan. He’s proposing that Man. Utd do the same thing for Gary Neville’s testimonial, with 200 Scouse kids providing the opposition. Sounds like a recipe for a bloodbath to me – unless they have 10 refs! Calling Benji…. “Ah, Schtatto, how you are?” he cackled. Before I could reply, he continued. “You for ze ScoreFife still are writing, Schtatto?” “I certainly am, Zloli, and it’s been lots of fun. I’m just working on my final column before having a break until the World Cup gets going”. “Ah, gut, zehr gut. I vant you a message for me via ScoreFife to send, Schtatto, ja? You a pen haf? OK, zis you must write. To Benjamin from Zloli. Your arse fast back here you must get, or a job you are out of. Zat you haf got, Schtatto?” “What’s this all about, Zloli?” I asked. It took me a while to disentangle the story. Zloli’s Ghanaian gardener Benjamin is a big football fan. He came to Zloli last week and asked if he could have some time off to go and see Germany play three games. Zloli knew that that Germany had three local friendlies scheduled before the team leaves for the World Cup on June 5, so he said to Benjamin “OK, provided you’re back the day after the third game” And in a fit of generosity, he asked his secretary to give Benji €50 a day spending money. Benji went happily away to pack. “Very decent of you Zloli,” I commented, “so what’s the problem?” “Ze next day he away has gone, und I discover zat ze zree games ze friendlies are not,” he fumed “Zey in ze Vorld Cup are! Benji to Zous Afrika has gone, mit €2,000 pocket money! For six veeks he not to return vishes. Mein garten ruined will be!” Oh dear. Zloli assures me Benji will be logging in to ScoreFive regularly during our World Cup competition to make his predictions, so Benji, if you’re reading this, you’d better decide if you value your job more than you want to see the World Cup. If football wins, you may need a slice of the Supremo’s $50,000 jackpot prize! Until the World Cup, pals, take care. Prof. Statto.
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