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Luck in Football

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Been some discussion on "lucky" results which got me thinking.

 

Luck for me in sport is success/failure coming from events outside the control of the teams.  So when someone hits the post we tend to say they were unlucky, but actually I think that''s wrong.  E.g. against Palace Elmander hit the bar, but there was no luck involved - he flicked the ball, but not quite on target.  Nearly good enough, but not.  The aim of the game is to get the ball in the goal, if we say he was unlucky really we''re being polite and saying his effort was nearly a goal but not quite good enough.  Similarly at the far end Palace had a shot which Olsson headed up onto the bar.  Again, this wasn''t lucky or unlucky for either side.  The attacker had a shot, the defender did just enough to keep it out.  It was all within their control, no luck involved.

 

It''s a bit like playing golf.  If two players are putting from say 15 feet and one holes it, the other just misses, it''s not luck - otherwise you might as well toss a coin.  It''s just that one has played better than the other.

 

So what does luck influence in football ?  For me the main thing is the officials, who should be objective.  If an official makes a mistake, this is outside control of the teams and is lucky for the team who get the decision.

 

What else ?  I suppose sometimes players from the two teams try to play the ball at the same time, and it ends up going in a direction neither of them intended, so you couldn''t say it was under the control of either of them.  So there would be some luck there.  But not all luck, e.g. if you''ve put a good cross in and two players compete, it drops at random to your centre forward who scores - yes, there''s some luck, but if you hadn''t put in the good cross in the first place, the chance would never have happened.  While this happens quite a lot, it doesn''t often change games because most of the time it''s somewhere harmless on the pitch.

 

So were we unlucky at home against Cardiff or Villa ?  No IMO, we just didn''t play well enough on the day.  But were we lucky to win against WBA ?  Absolutely not!

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When you get an assist off the ref to win away at Reading and keep up a promotion charge it''s pretty lucky.

But seriously, I do see what you''re saying. There''s not too much that luck dictates. I do remember some guy rolling the ball into an empty net only for a puddle to stop it on the line, that''s pretty unlucky.

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I guess because there''s such a fine line between success and faliure, people often bemoan bad and good luck, like hitting the post and just missing a put etc.

I''d say that it is unlucky in a way. In the same way as finishing 4th in a race is unlucky as you go home with the same as the guy in last.

If they gave half a goal for hitting the post, it''d no longer be at all unlucky, in fact you would probably feel lucky to have the half goal.

I''d argue Elmanders exquisite shot onto the bar merited much more than to give away a goal kick if you take it on merit alone but the rules are the rules and rightfully so.

I''d imagine he''ll eventually put one away.

What about the bad luck of a shot rebounding off the post, onto the keeper and then in? Surely that''s a bit unlucky or should the keeper have had the presence and reactions to get out of the way?

The thing is, it''s such a fine line that often you will hit something 95% perfect and know that 19 out of 20 of the attempts will work. You can never know you have hit a perfect shot. If the 19 all happen on the training pitch and that 1 time it hits the post happen in game, you''re bound to feel a bit miffed.

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One thing i do agree with is that you make your own luck a lot of the time, hence why people at the top of the table get more dodgy penalties than those near the bottom, the reason? They do more attacking and so probably put themselves in better position to even give the ref a choice to make.

I feel Hughton has finally learnt this if WBA is to go by, before we just camped in our own half away from home and bemoaned our luck when inevitably, the opposition broke down our wall and scored a ''lucky'' goal. If you don''t shoot, you don''t score.

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No, sorry, for me luck plays a huge part in the game. The differences between hitting the bar/post & the ball going/not going in, rebounding to safety/attacker ( I remember poor old Bunn being roundly vilified when the ball bounced off the post onto his back & into the goal) are minuscule & only represent the tip of the iceberg anyway.

It''s one reason why strikers suddenly can''t hit a barn door. Not always true, of course, sometimes something''s subtly changed in their technique or reactions. A good striker will have the confidence to play through his unlucky patch & start scoring again.

It''s impossible to quantify luck; how lucky was it that the ball clipped an Everton player''s heels on the way to Hooper? Would he have scored anyway? Who can say with any certainty?

The only leveller is time. Over the course of a season luck will cancel out. Hopefully ...

Thing is, I don''t believe in luck. Just the impossibility of determining every factor that occurs in reality. As in life, & as in football.

That is what gets my goat about all the ''certainty'' that flies around on here. A bit more humility in the face of all the imponderables the world throws at us wouldn''t come amiss.

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[quote user="ron obvious"]No, sorry, for me luck plays a huge part in the game. The differences between hitting the bar/post & the ball going/not going in, rebounding to safety/attacker ( I remember poor old Bunn being roundly vilified when the ball bounced off the post onto his back & into the goal) are minuscule & only represent the tip of the iceberg anyway.

It''s one reason why strikers suddenly can''t hit a barn door. Not always true, of course, sometimes something''s subtly changed in their technique or reactions. A good striker will have the confidence to play through his unlucky patch & start scoring again.

It''s impossible to quantify luck; how lucky was it that the ball clipped an Everton player''s heels on the way to Hooper? Would he have scored anyway? Who can say with any certainty?

The only leveller is time. Over the course of a season luck will cancel out. Hopefully ...

Thing is, I don''t believe in luck. Just the impossibility of determining every factor that occurs in reality. As in life, & as in football.

That is what gets my goat about all the ''certainty'' that flies around on here. A bit more humility in the face of all the imponderables the world throws at us wouldn''t come amiss.[/quote]

Throughly enjoyed the reason you don''t believe in luck, AKA chaos theory. Maybe one day luck won''t exist! We''ll pretty much be able to predict the future once computers get good enough and then the guy who figures it out will realise he''s never got a chance with the Kelly Brook of the day and nor will his favourite team win the inter galaxy champions league. He''ll then decide to destroy the machine, but the machine has already realised this and so destroys him before he can do this.

Then as one, the machine takes over and all humanity dies out...

Anyway, back to work for me!

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Everything is down to luck.

Otherwise what would be the point in playing the game?

You''d just measure up the players technical ability, like in Football manager or something and work out the result.

Of course, you can influence luck. If your players are motivated and really all giving 100% (not 110% because that is just silly) and at least a couple players in the other side aren''t having the best day you''re going to create openings for yourself. Against arsenal and Man.U at home last season we were lucky in a way that we were able to play our game plan and they couldn''t play there. Of course that was the idea, but it was probably also the idea this season. And it hasn''t worked this season against the big sides.

If there was no luck football would be boring and extremely predictable.

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It technically isn''t luck though, say a shot hits the bar, that''s a result of the player aiming and striking the ball so that it ends up hitting the bar. This represents a slight error in the technique of the player. He will have attempted to hit the ball into the top corner.

At ameteur level, have you never aimed for top right and it''s nestled beautifully into the bottom left? Are you brave enough to admit you didn''t mean it?

That is where luck comes in, where your error and the greater reward (a cross like Ronaldinhos that went in) both combine. Arguably, he''s played worse than he should with that cross and in exchange gets a greater reward than he set out to.

What do you do though? Ban flukes on the referee''s disgression?

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Thanks Jimmy; this luck business impinges on one of my favourite topics (philosophy of science).

It''s entirely possible ( I think) for every event since the Big Bang to be explicable by cause & effect. The sheer complexity of the googleplex upon googleplex of interactions that have taken place mean that we cannot determine the exact situation at any given moment.

In fact, even with your machine, it cannot predict everything; because it is a subset of everything, & therefore cannot have every piece of data. All scientific predictive models are partial ones - the more variables they can cope with the better the model (& the less the more like Wiz''s brain).

If this is true it has implications for free will, morality, guilt, innocence & quantum mechanics. I''m really worried about quantum mechanics. Single photon interference in particular. One day when I''ve got time ...

Here''s hoping for a win Sunday! OTBC!!!!

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It can be said you make your own luck - and having a positive attitude will generally tend to increase your tendency to have good luck.   Talk of upward momentum or downward spirals  in a football club is often dependent on the factors of positivity or negativity involved.  Our downward spiral from 2004 co-incided with great financial difficulty, poor performances on the pitch and the resultant negative reaction from the fans. So the whole club was a mess.   Going down to League 1 was the best thing for us, because it instilled a new determination and positive attitude in everyone.   I don''t think I have ever been to a game where things felt so positive - as the game against Colchester.   There was a wave of enthusiasm based on the new squad, but we know the rest.   Luck played its part - luck that it was Lambert who came here that Saturday and luck that he was available to be manager. 

The upward momentum took off and even in the championship there was a certain amount of luck - luck that Cardiff failed at the final hurdle for one - and it has been said that Lambert is a lucky manager.  And why is he a lucky manager?  Because of his positive attitude.  The whole club turned round from being an ailing, negative place to being a vibrant and go ahead force.  And that I believe creates your luck.  Luck that meant Liverpool couldn''t score when they were all over us and luck that Grant Holt had something to prove that day - and it set up our season. 

And so it goes on. Luck that the windfall just happened to come at the right time for us.  That is why I am so wary of negativity - from wherever it comes from.    It is insipid and once it gets hold, it is hard to get rid of.    I have never believed that Hughton is a negative manager. He simply needs time to get a balanced approach to the football instilled and then we will see the best of his football.  

We need to keep positive and that is not easy in the face of the kind of fixtures and massively wealthy clubs we play against.  Keeping positive will result in better luck imo - and I know I have a dig at some of our more negative fans - but the more people that are positive about our football club, the better it will be for it.   Some people don''t believe the attitude of the crowd affects what goes on the pitch.  I can''t understand that at all. To me everyone that goes to a football match contributes either positively, negatively or passively.  The mixture of those states governs the atmosphere and will certainly affect the team on the pitch, either for better or worse.  

As Ron says, we can''t possibly measure every slightest influence that affects life as we know it, but it is a sure bet imo that being positive results in better luck than being negative.  

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GP - all sorts of things other than ''technical ability'' influence the game other than luck. Tactics, players'' motivation and players'' form being the most obvious three. And how would you judge which attributes you were measuring up? The old Chelsea under Mourinho first time round were far less technically able than, say, most of the Arsenal squad, but Chelsea played a certain way and had a certain strong, athletic type of player who meant they were able to play to their strengths extremely successfully.

Luck can influence the odd game here or there - but I would agree with the OP that a lot of it isn''t actually luck. Even deflected goals are often not a matter of ''luck'' - maybe the defender should have been closer to the man, in which case the deflection would have been a full block, or the defender sticks his leg out to block a shot which is going wide and better judgement on his part would have resulted in a goal kick rather than a goal.

But there are times when luck can play a part - many deflections, bad decisions from officials, how the ball bounces back off the wood work, if a defender makes a great challenge only for the ball to bounce back off one of his own players into the path of a forward etc.

I don''t think these things affect the outcome of a whole season. Individual games here and there, perhaps, but if you''re relying on a few lucky incidents going one way rather than the other, then you''re not good enough to stay up or whatever anyway. There will be far more instances where you can point to ineptitude of players or tactics which cost point than there will be instances of luck costing points.

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