Essential Football (Soccer) Training

While we're on the subject of sports, here's an old favorite commercial from the 2004 European Cup days. The "secret video" of an Italian national team training session (not real, of course).

Though Italy dives with more style, this could be almost any team these days!

German Lesson: Fußball Fieber

Herr J and I have definitely caught the football fever that sweeps Germany 3 out of every 4 years (World Cup, Women's World Cup, European Cup, then a sad, sad summer with no football). 

So we thought we'd put together some of the more important German terms that you need to know to follow football (men's or women's), along with some of our photos from Sweden-North Korea, Sweden-Australia, and Sweden-Japan games in Augsburg and Frankfurt. (No, it isn't that we are huge Sweden fans...the Quarterfinal  (Viertelfinale) and Semi-final (Halbfinale) matches just ended up that way).

Also known collectively as the Ampelkarte (Stoplight Cards):

Formally known as the Schiedsrichter(in), the Referee is commonly referred to as the Schiri. As unfortunately seems to happen more and more, when the refs make a questionable call you'll hear whistling by the crowd to show their displeasure or you'll hear the announcers on TV refer to the echt Wahnsinn (true madness).

Elfmeter = Penalty Kick. Though the obvious example would be some of Hope Solo's great work in the victory over Brazil, we'll go instead with Clint Dempsey's attempt earlier this year in a Fulham vs Chelsea game. Though his shot is blocked by goalie Petr Cech, we're pretty proud to have an American playing in the Premier League.

Why Elfmeter? Literally translated at 11 Meters, it's the distance (12 yards) from goal.

After the Verlängerung (Overtime), we have the Elfmeterschießen (Penalty Shootout) which brings the Goalie center stage:  

However, you definitely do NOT want to score an Eigentor, or Own Goal!

Traumtor = Dream Goal. There are a variety of examples to illustrate this one, but I'll go with something recent and something patriotic: Heather O'Reilly's goal against Colombia in the Group Stage. Also a great example of a Distanzschuss (Distance Shot):

And what is this whole thing called?? In Germany, you'll usually just hear "WM" (pronounced "vey-em", of course!). This also applies to any world championships....alpine skiing, rugby, etc.

 

Also known informally as "die Elf," ("the Eleven"), we have the teams themselves:

And Germany's beloved Jogi...one of the best in the world, but he often forgets about the cameras

 

Though we can play football anywhere with a flat surface and a ball, the big games are played in a Stadion (Stadium), like Frankfurt's Commerzbank Arena here. (In German, Stadium is a completely different word). A stadium full of Zuschauer (Fans/Spectators).

Schauspieler(in) des Jahres - Actor(actress) of the Year - This one we'll dedicate to Erika of Brazil, who puts even Cristiano Ronaldo and the Italian national team to shame:

In a game with so many Verletzungen (Injuries) - be they fake or real - we'll end up with a few minutes of Nachspielzeit (Extra Time / Injury Time).  It's in this extra time that both the US 2010 and 2011 National Teams made their fabled die pefekte Come-Back Gesichte (the perfect Comeback Story).

A Foul (Foul) often can lead to a free kick, against which the most common defensive strategy is mauern (to build a wall):

 

On the more technical side we have one that sounds almost the same but is spelled quite differently...

Not to be confused with Abschlag, where the goalie uses his/her hands to throw, punt, or drop-kick the ball (and must do so within 6 seconds), North Korea's goalie shows us her skills:

 

Despite rooting for Japan against Sweden last week, we'll be cheering for Team USA tonight.  Will American tenacity take us through to victory, or will Japan complete its fairy tale march to a first world championship?

Soccer and Technology

Frau A and I went to our second Women's World Cup game in Augsburg, this one a quarterfinal matchup between Sweden and Australia (Sweden won, 3-1).  On the train back to Munich, mobile phones kept us up-to-date on the first half of USA vs Brazil.  We rushed home to catch the second half on television (and extra time, and penalty shots...).

What a game.

Of course, I was starved for ways to re-live the experience, and found some interesting web sites with more than just video replays.

ESPN.com has "Gamecast", which provides real-time (and archived) commentary, statistics, and neat graphical depictions of what happened.  For example...

Their timeline shows key events in the game, such as goals, yellow/red cards, and substitutions:

 USA vs Brazil (First Half)

USA vs Brazil (Second Half)

USA vs Brazil (extra time)

It was a real fight -- three yellow cards in the last 8 minutes of extra time.  And I love seeing that US goal at the very end...

Gamecast also has a running feed of information throughout the game.  If you're stuck at work without a live video stream, this is the next best thing (you end up waiting impatiently for each refresh, not knowing what to expect):

Statistics for the team and individual players are also updated in real time:

USA vs Brazil - team statistics

It's interesting that even being down to 10 players for the last 56 minutes of the game, the US still managed 51% possession.  Other than the US advantage in corner kicks, things look pretty even.

Here are the player stats...

USA vs Brazil - individual statistics

Wow - Carli Lloyd is a magnet for fouls, with 5 drawn and 5 committed!  Wambach gets hammered (5 fouls against vs 1 committed) whereas Boxx must be our 'enforcer' (just the opposite).

Gamecast gets even better when you click on "Shots" and it shows a map of the location of every shot from the two teams.  The US clearly favored the right side (or just had more success getting open there) while Brazil mapped more strongly to their left:

USA vs Brazil - Gamecast shot map

Then, if you click on a shot (for example, the solid blue Abby Wambach goal on the left of course!) it will show you an animation of how that play develped!  This one goes from Ali Krieger taking the ball from the Brazillian attacker, pass to Carli Lloyd at midfield, pass to Megan Rapinoe on the left wing, then her cross to Abby Wambach, and the shot:

USA vs Brazil - development of game tying goal at 122'

In contrast, Marta's goal early in additional time was set up by 5 forward passes, 4 backward passes, and a cross, many in tight quarters:

USA vs Brazil - development of Marta goal at 92'

In addition to raw statistics, you can see the "average" position of the players for each team.  In this case, look how spread out the US defenders had to play (#6, #3, #19, and #11), whereas the Brazilian defenders stayed much more in the middle of the backfield (#3, #4, #5, and #13):

USA vs Brazil - average position USA

USA vs Brazil - average position Brazil

Gamecast also provides even more "where-they-were-most-active" detail info for individual players, called a "Heat Map".  We can compare Abby Wombach with Marta because they both play the Center Forward - Left position.  Wombach spends little time in the defensive end, whereas Marta ventures deeper (and obviously more often) into her own end.  And look at how disciplined/consistent Abby seems to be lining up above the box - definitely not the organic Brazilian style!

 USA vs Brazil - Heat Map for Abby Wombach

USA vs Brazil - Heat Map for MartaRapinoe spent her time almost exclusively on the left side, and because she took most of the corner kicks gets mapping there too: 

 USA vs Brazil - Heat Map for Megan Rapinoe

Even more interesting is the comparison of the goalies.  Clearly Hope Solo has a much more aggressive style, coming further out and mirrors the left-weighted shot map of Brazil.  (Obviously, the effectiveness of the Brazilian attack has a role in her positioning too):

USA vs Brazil - Heat Map for Hope Solo

USA vs Brazil - Heat Map for Andreia

Of course there are many other web sites with similar features.  Adidas Match Tracker looks very in-depth, probably designed for the hard-core fan:

VisualSport keeps and displays data over an entire season and league, so performance changes over time might be trackable but it looks a little cartoon-ish: 

Finally, of course, there are iPad and iPhone apps too!  TotalFootball looks sharp:

An iPad option is the World Cup Visualizer.  The engineer in me likes these things, because it allows you to look at the sport in a different way.  I think statistics will continue to get more use by soccer clubs themselves and perhaps have the same impact that sabremetrics has had on baseball in the U.S.. 

2018 Olympics: The Decision

The 2018 Winter Games were announced today, and (sniff, sniff) Munich did not win. They'll be held in Pyongchan South Korea instead.

After months of campaigning and signs everywhere, Munich held a day-long party culminating in the broadcast of "Die Entscheidung," or The Decision at a couple of public viewing points.  The biggest festivities were at the BMW World by OlympiaPark, which would have held many of the games.

We stopped by Marienplatz to watch the announcement.  It was far more crowded than the average summer tourist Glockenspiel viewing - actually very close to the point of being dangerous.  Rather unusual for Germany and its usual efficient crowd control!

Despite not having a win to celebrate, they went ahead and released the balloons and shot off some cannons or fireworks or something from the tower as the crowd quickly dispersed.

All in all, it was a nice bit of sun on an otherwise busy work day! And any perfect summer day is a day worth celebrating!

P.S.....I really don't know what this was, but had to take a picture. If anyone knows the story behind these types of vehicles (and the related crazy Austrian backpacks), I'd love to know! I'm not sure how to describe these in English, so I have no idea where to begin Googling them in German! But I'm curious.

Here's the Austrian cousin we saw at the World Cup downhill skiing event

Women's World Cup

Back in February we attended an Alpine skiing World Cup event in Garmisch-Partenkirchen (Women's Downhill).  So yesterday, we went to Augsburg to watch Sweden take on North Korea in one of the Women's World Cup soccer matches.

Augsburg is just a 40-50 minute train ride from Munich - basically the same as going to the airport!  Quick & easy.  It's smaller than Munich (about 260,000 inhabitants vs 1.3 million) with a likewise smaller stadium.   The Impuls Arena seats 31,000 (vs. 65,000 in Munich's Allianz Arena) and this game drew over 23,000 - a good size crowd for the first round.  First round games of Germany or the U.S. are the most popular and sold out... 

There is a typical pre-game activity for all FIFA World Cup matches:  the teams march out in parallel; each player walks with a child, holding his/her hand.  The players line up, country flags are displayed, and the respective national anthems played. 

 

We were sitting in the third row of the southeast corner of the stadium -- so anything in our end was really close, but action on the far side of the field was not so easy to photograph (even with the big zoom lenses we brought along).  In the first half, Sweden defended the goal in front of us.  We did get one shot of the Swedish keeper with a Sony 3D ad making her look cool, but North Korea for the most part was not too dangerous and the ball didn't spend much time in our zone. 

The first half ended 0-0, and we hoped that Sweden would continue to create action... and that in the 2nd half it would be in front of us.  We were not disappointed!  In the sequence below, the Swede made a dangerous push right in front of the goalie box, but the keeper made the stop. 

A number of corner kicks were right in front of us -- in the photo below the set was handled right, but the header ended up off target (and probably not strong enough anyway).  But Sweden was creating the most chances and you got the feeling they would break through eventually. 

North Korea did keep it interesting with a few scares of their own.  The picture below was one of their best opportunities, but the Swedish goalie made the stop (with the help of some physical play by the defender). 

Still early in the second half, Sweden again went knocking on the door, but the North Korean goalie again closed the door... 

The North Korean style is ball-control, and most corner kicks and free kicks were NOT put into the air -- rather, passed to a neaby player.  (The height differential probably also dictates that style of play.)  In this case, however, we have a clear view to the other end where North Korea did try a set piece.  Not well executed though. 

Around the 60th minute came the game changer.  Sweden came quickly down the right side, right in front of us!  A smart, fast cross came to the striker who trapped it and placed a hard shot past the goalie who could not get back left-to-right in time.  1-0, Sweden. 

  

Yes, the ladies celebrate the same way as the men... 

And that's how it finished too.  In the end, the better team won but it was a fun game to watch.  In general, we've found that watching fussball in person give a much better feeling for the speed and precision of the game -- we prefer it to television.  We're going to see of some of the elimination round games are available!

Spring Skiing in Stubai (Austria)

Here in Germany, Easter is a prime time for vacation because everyone gets Good Friday and Easter Monday off (four day weekend!).  And it's not just a long weekend -- schools are out for 2-3 weeks so many of my colleagues are taking a holiday for the entire time.  Munich really empties out as families leave for Italy, Spain, Greece and Turkey.

Things are a bit different this year because Easter arrived so "late", on the 24th of April.  For those heading south, it doesn't matter, but many Bavarians like to use this time for one last ski trip.  Frau A and I decided to do this too (although only for a couple of days).  Since we're in late April, there is one place guaranteed to have decent slopes: the Stubai Glacier.

The snow is truly guaranteed -- you can buy a lift ticket online and they will refund your money if there is not enough snow to ski through Easter.  They offer the same guarantee in October too!  Here is a snippet of their website recently:

In the valley there is no snow left, but on the glacier at 3000+ meters they have 200cm of snow.

As you seen on the map above, the Stubai Alps are in the south of Austria, near Innsbruck, on the border with Italy.  The range has at least 9 peaks over 3000m, and the glacier is accessible via the Stubaital (Stubai Valley).  The valley stretches 40km with a single main road going through it, with a half-dozen "large" towns along the way catering to tourists year round (hiking and similar activities in the Summer).

There are many other ski areas in the Stubai region, but the glacier is the only one with the altitude and depth to support skiing so late into warm weather.  In fact, the season there usually starts in the middle of September and ends in early June!  (Of course, the snow quality starting in May is relatively low, with mostly slushy conditions... but addicts can get their fix.)

Here is a map of the pistes:

The glacier area has 110km of slopes, most of them (85km) are easy-to-medium difficulty.  There is a mix of gondolas (5 of them), chair lifts (7), and t-bars (9).  They also have a "fun park" like Defereggental.  What's really nice is that you can drop you equipment off in the "comfort center" at the base of the pistes and leave your skiis & boots overnight -- no lugging equipment back & forth from the hotel!

At the top of the highest lift, they have a great lookout platform - gorgeous place for photos.  Here is Frau A walking up to the top:

This is the view from down on the slopes, looking over the Fun Park...

 

... and the same view from the viewing platform -- you're standing on a small peak (snow in the foreground) looking over the same range in the background:

 

The pistes at the highest altitude had great snow, but with such blue skies and intense sun the runs near the bottom were getting a bit wet.  The scenery was beautiful and it was not too crowded as you can see in the photo below (taken from an open window in a gondola):

We would stop frequently to take more photos, because the weather was incredible.  This is one of the upper slopes, winding through the mountains:

They also had a short Super-G run, complete with a starting gate and appropriately spaced flags to weave through.  The timer was not working that day (sometimes they will even have a clock that shows you how fast you made it) but you still got a feel.  Here is Frau A ready to go:

It was simply a great, and unusual, Easter weekend.  We've already circled September dates on the calendar to get our first skiing next season in Stubai.

Munich 2018?

Throughout the city you'll see banners emblazoned with a blue and white hot air balloon. These have been popping up at every event in Munich and Garmisch for almost a year, but now are out in force across the city.

These are part of Munich's campaign to host the 2018 winter olympics.

Munich is pitching these as the "sustainable" and "friendly" games, and if it wins would be the first city in history to host both the summer and winter Olympics.  

How would this work? The events requiring special topography (you know, actual mountains...) would be held in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, with some events at Koenigsee.

Of course, the one big issue is opposition from the farmers who own the land by the slopes in Garmisch. In order to have any large event, they must lease fields to the event to allow people to get to the slopes. The farmers are protesting the environmental impact on Garmisch and have threatened to refuse to lease the land for the Games.

Munich was selected as a candidate, along with Annency, France and Pyeongchan, South Korea. The Olympic committee has just visited the candidate cities and will make the announcement in July.

Both Munich and Garmisch have hosted Olympics before - Munich would love to have a friendly Olympics to balance out the memories of the tragedy of the 1972 Summer Games and Garmisch wishes to forget the 1936 Winter Games that it hosted under the Third Reich. I didn't realize it, but the IOC had also awarded the 1940 games to Garmisch before they were cancelled due to the outbreak of WWII.

Munich Olympic Ads are everywhere...there was a foozball table wrapped in an ad at my gate at the Munich airport. Even Rischart, who is a big supporter of the bid, got into the spirit of things by topping their chocolate krapfen with chocolate wafers emblazoned with the Munich 2018 logo

Who will win? It's hard to say. Most predict that the decision is between Germany and Korea. Korea may have the edge in diversity, as the previous Games will have been held in Europe (in Sochi, Russia). Additionally, it was a candidate city in the last two bids, so some feel that its time is due.

Germany, on the other hand, has been praised by the IOC for the government's clear committment to the games. With the 2006 World Cup, Germany has proved its ability to successully organize a major world sporting event. And Munich deals with a few million visitors descending upon the city every year to drink vast quantities of beer. And, though on a much smaler scale, Garmisch has proved its capabilities with the World Championship Alpine Skiing.

The German love for winter sports is clear; though holding the Winter Games in Asia will likely inspire far more new winter sport lovers (as winter sports are not big in much of Asia...not having winter makes a difference....). And internally there definitely are some issues to work out with the Garmisch-Partenkirchen venue.

In terms of venues, Korea has presented an incredibly compact site and has already constructed some new arenas. Germany is pitching sustainable development and plans to integrate the Olympic venues from the 1972 Summer Games into the new plans, to create sporting venues good for both summer and winter events.

And what of France? Their initial bid was spread over 4 cities in the French Alps, and was criticized by the IOC for being too spread out. They revised the plans to focus on two venues (same as Munich) but stil face challenges with the plan. Their budget is relatively low, and the plan doesn't seem to have the same clear governmental support as does Munich's. However, it's still equally in the running and could surprise everyone.

You can check out the official sites of Munich, Pyeongchang, and Annency to see their plans and slogans.

Update on Monday, May 9, 2011 at 17:46 by Frau A

While Munich anxiously awaits the 6 July IOC decision, a major hurdle to the Games was overcome this weekend - Garmisch-Partenkirchen voters approved the Games in a referendem.  At 58% approval, it was not exactly an overwhelming victory, but a vote against the Games by a critical venue may have hurt Germany's chances at winning the Games.

The issue is not resolved - there's still the question of getting individual landowners to lease the necessary land at the foot of the slopes - but it's one step further in the process.

Until then, the flags and banners continue to cover Munich.