No worries, that was still one of the most unpleasant posts i've seen. Im surprised I was the first to call it out.
I'm pretty well articulated (part of the job), but yeah, I didn't mean to offend anyone. Won't happen again...unless someone else chops down another one of our players
No reason to say sorry about calling him a punk.* You hit the point, Boateng is someone, who didn't learn how to manage tricky situations without violence and doesn't know how to behave. You can take several scenes: Fouls on Bordon and the Wolfsburg player in the BL (can't remember the name), damaging other peoples cars with a key (drank last May too much alcohol at former teammate Patrick Eberts party (under investigation)), ... Boateng has a so restricted mind, that he doesn't even see, that he makes it even worse. Even if some parts are true (Ballack is an arrogant prick), it doesn't justify what he did. And he still did it on purpose. edit: * Didn't see your first post, so my comment is only based on the second post.
He's still a stupid kid with a "street" mentality. I expect nothing less. That's why he isn't reaching his potential and likely never will. In the end, he is just hurting himself with this behavior, self destructive.
The way it is playing out, Kevin Prince Boateng has everything to win and nothing to lose. The National Team full of sissies will cower in envy when they face Ghana.
Yeah, that describes him well. It's also why he bounces around from team to team. Coaches can't control him or talk sense to him, so they don't want anything to do with him. How many teams has the guy been on now already?
That's false. He got relegated with Portsmouth, who have financial problems, and the foul on Ballack didn't help him to find a new club.
The Ghana football federation apologizes to Ballack. Didn't think this would happen. Though its noble on their part, why the federation should apologize for the fault (albeit intentional) of one individual is beyond me. He wasn't representing Ghana when he fouled Ballack. What is the whole point of collectivizing guilt? Like salvation, guilt is always individual.
He might never be accepted in the BuLi again after this and his club got relegated. He has surely lost face/image after the whole incident. And for all we know, Ghana might not even pick him for the WC.
^^ Justice, perhaps Ghana doesn't want their image tainted, they must know that they are "second fiddle". Boateng didn't rush to represent them in the first place.
Here is the break up: Germany games since Ballack's debut:151 Won: 89 Drawn:30 Lost: 32 Win% : 58.94 Games Ballack has played with the NT:98 Won: 58 Drawn:20 Lost:20 Win%: 59.18 Ballack has scored 42 goals ( spread across 37 games) Games in which Ballack has scored: 37 Won:29 Drawn:5 Lost:3 Win%: 78.38 Inference: Germany's win% hasn't really changed much with the presence of Ballack. However, when Ballack has been used in an attacking role ( his scoring % is 37/98 = 37.7% which is very good for a non striker) Germany's chances of winning are significantly higher. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Games since 2005 (roughly the time when Ballack started playing as the anchor in midfield) Germany------------- Germany with Ballack--------------- Germany with Ballack scoring Won ---------48 ------------------------------- 32 -------------------- ------ 16 Drawn ---------14 --------------------- 8 ---------------------------- ----------- 2 Lost -------12 --------------- 8 --------------------- ----------- 1 Total -------74 --------------- 48 -------------------------- 19 Win% -------64.86 ------------ 66.67 ------------------------- 84.21 As on the overall level, Ballack's inclusion has no real impact on the win% of the NT. However, when he scores, (regardless of him being DM or CAM), the probability of win is substantially higher.
All competition should cease 2-3 months before a World Cup. That would give time for the tournament to breathe & restore its dignity. If we can wait for four long years clubs can wait for three months.
Agreed. They shouldn't have to apologize at all, saying that they feel sorry is ok but apologizing is just wrong.
Not to take anything away from poorvi's stats. But scoring a goal is the hardest thing to do in footbal. Thus when Ballack scores there is obviously a higher probability the team wins the game in the end. That is not something that distinguishes Ballack from other regular scorers. The team won also more matches f.e. when Klose or Podolski scored compared to the overall average of victories/games. I'm also not sure how much you can draw from a comparison between games he missed and those he played. I would guess the sample is biased meaning that the team (and Ballack) had quite an influence on which games he missed (f.e. unimportant games against weak opposition etc). He missed 60 games. I can easily see at least 5-10 games where Ballack and staff decided his presence wasnt needed. Those games would easily influence the overall average. Still its a nice, quick overview getting an first impression of Ballack's importance for the team. Anthony Baffoe apologized. Man, its been a long time since I heard anything about him.
The world is numbers thou. The only real thing we have to measure anything that happens is... stadistic.
Amen to that. That is true, most of the games that Ballack has missed weren't due to injury but due to the fact that he was rested/ others were given a chance against inferior opposition. That was a disclaimer I made in my first post when I compared the win% of the NT with or without Ballack. The way to get around this handicap is by assigning multipliers for different level of opposition. Easy teams will have a multiplier of 1, average teams of 2 and difficult teams 3. That way we can get a more realistic impression of Ballack's impact. You are right about scoring. The % will be higher whenever a player scores. The correct way to compare it would be between different players, if anything.
On your insistence I computed the win% of the major NTs in the last decade: Germany: 58.77% England: 57.63% Argentina: 58.93% Spain: 72.52% Portugal: 51.15% I didn't compute the win percentage for Brazil, Italy and the Netherlands because I couldn't find a site that lists that their games in a chronological order in English. RSSF has it in Portuguese for Brazil in a very haphazard manner ( the games aren't listed one after the other, there's a lot of text also) and leads to dead links for the Netherlands and Italy. France is the team I have missed out on. But your point stands. Even in a decade, that has been the worst for German football in a long time, win% is comparable to the other major NTs.
Overview of Germany NT performances in the last decade. I thought its best to post a collated ready reckoner of Germany's performances over the last decade. I decided against making a new thread to save BS some much needed bandwidth. Sites used to collate data: RSSSF DFB All Germany games from 2000-2010 ( last game included was the one against Malta) were used for these findings. Here are the findings: Here is the excel with the data. I had this table in excel, but the guys who designed BS have not made it compatible with Excel You guys will have to double click the image and zoom in to see the numbers. The chart gives win% of the NT taking various parameters into consideration. 1) The over all win% in the last decade is 59.15% , which is quite good and only significantly bettered by Spain and probably Italy and Brazil. 2) The win% in home games is 66.67%. I.e every 2 in 3 home games is won. In away games the win% is ~ 51%. Having said that, the loss% in both home and away are almost the same. This means that Germany does tend to draw away games that they would otherwise win at home. 3) Germany has won 86% of the games it has scored first. This is a very telling statistic. Just two games in the last 10 years (against England at Munich and against Czech Republic at Euro 04) were lost after taking the lead. This shows that Germany has consistently been good at preserving the lead and making the right ending. 4) One major myth that is busted is that Germany are comeback kings. At least in the last decade they haven't had any notable comebacks. Germany has won only ~ 17% of the games where they have conceded first. However, Germany have managed to either draw or win ~ 44% of the games when they've fallen behind. 5) Over the 142 games played in the decade, Germany have scored a total of 319 goals at an average of 2.25 goals/game. However, this number is largely inflated because of meaningless friendlies against weak Asian teams and qualifiers against weak continental opposition like Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, San Marino etc. In the same period, Germany has conceded 147 goals which works to 1.04 goals/game. 6) Germany has gotten 178 yellow cards (1.25/game) and 8 red cards (0.06/game). Expectedly, the maximum concentration of cards is during tournaments. Almost all friendlies and most qualifiers are without cards. Surprisingly, Germany has won 87.5% of the games in which German player(s) received a red. : p I have counted two yellows for a player as 1 red and 1 yellow for the team. If you need any data cuts you can use the filter option in the excel or ask me. F.e goals / game away. Comeback win% at home etc. What are your inferences?
Re: Overview of Germany NT performances in the last decade. We alreaedy knew they had a crap world cup defence. in world cup final tournament games, germany has the worst goals conceded to games ratio out of the top 10 teams. The second best goals scored ratio to games out of all teams also follows... look up the world cup table somewhere
Get yer Ballack t-shirt here. Unfortunately, they don't ship to the US. I'd get the 82M Gegen Kevin too. http://www.wirsindballack.de/