Reep is great. Hopefully he will someday have the fame of Bill James. I wish we could have spent more time with the two managers that we mention briefly in the Weak Link section—Sacchi and Lobanovskyi. Along with Cruyff and a few others, these two make up a cohort of philosophical deep thinkers about soccer who…

Busted.

My opinion, Lloris.

Got to be these guys, right? http://proshop.soundersfc.com/

Totally agree with you. Strikers' numbers should be corrected for PKs and for tap-ins. In The Numbers Game we talk a lot about how the psychology of perception affects how we see the game and how we assess the numbers in the game. Goals are focal moments that naturally draw too much attention. I'm guessing that…

No, probably not, even though I tweeted that he might be a Ewing Theory candidate. He's a fantastic player, and he'd have to really be bringing a lot of negative network effects to make the overall team worse with him than without him.

I've heard the argument made that the next oligarch/king should go outside the biggest leagues to a club like FC Copenhagen, stock the roster, and get to the Champion's League through that route.

I'm smelling Pay-per-View, maybe before Mayweather-Canelo?

I can't believe it took this long to get to the first WAG question. Sad to report, no analytics on this subject.

No doubt. The likelihood of scoring a goal increases across the 90 minutes, so physicality and conditioning and putting a hurting on the other side all must play a role in that. We don't however have exact numbers on that yet.

To get to the other side? (I know there's a joke in here somewhere.)

No, probably not. Might be a bit of an overstatement.

I hope not. The season is long enough that luck will condense at least a little (law of largish numbers and all), so that talent and skill and teamwork will be more likely to dominate. But the great thing about soccer is that the Wigan fan has a ton of hope heading into the FA Cup final against Man City, whereas the…

At least they're better than golfers. And, if they high kicked, they'd be awesome.

Possibly, but unlikely. Of the top four, only Serie A seems in any danger of falling out. The fifth spot is up for grabs among France, Netherlands, and Brazil right now, but don't forget that over the long haul China will be a major player.

Oh no, I'm here. I answered that question first, but it didn't get attached as a reply. My answer then, "Pretty far for an academic" (I think); now, "25 yards."

You're right, they should. In the same way, there should be an NFL team that also just plays the long ball, chucking it way upfield with eyes closed hoping something good happens or the ref blows his whistle or the ball impales on a helmet. Oh yeah, the NY Giants.

Exceptional goalkeeper. Defense is more important than offense. One equation in The Numbers Game is the (absurd) 0 > 1. Namely, a clean sheet is worth on average 2.5 points to your club, but a single goal is worth a little over a point.

Football was invented by the English.

If you read Inverting the Pyramid or one of the other histories of the game, you will find, as I did when researching the book (I had no idea before that), that back in the early days there were many different offsides rules among the local leagues and universities playing the sport. One rule was basically a blue…