Second Round Predictions

No post-mortems on England or Italy, mostly because I'm still writing those posts ;)

1. Brazil vs Chile - I can't see past Brazil for this one.  I can see it being a scrappy match and a narrow win but I think Brazil are going to win.
2. Colombia vs Uruguay - I think Colombia are going to win.  They've been a good, solid team, and Uruguay are without their main man (Cavani not having been at his best in this World Cup).  But, and this is a big but, if any team are going to be able to finagle a win in these circumstances, it's going to be Uruguay.
3. Netherlands vs Mexico - Despite wanting Mexico to win (for student P, if for no other reason), I think Netherlands are going to win.  But that's only if they can win in normal time.  If this goes to penalties, I think Mexico are going to win.
4. Costa Rica vs Greece - Costa Rica ought to win.  By all that makes sense in football, it ought to be Costa Rica.  But I refuse to count Greece out because if ever there was a side who don't accept things like "making sense in football".
5. France vs Nigeria - France.  Too much firepower and enough of a defense to withstand Nigeria's attack.
6. Germany vs Algeria - Germany, same logic as for France.
7. Argentina vs Switzerland - Should be Argentina, unless Messi can't produce some of his usual magic.
8. Belgium vs USA - You know, the US could actually do this.  But then again, so could Belgium.  Belgium aren't so good that they can't be beaten, but then again, neither are the US.  The US have a player who can conjured up a moment of magic in Clint Dempsey but Belgium have a team who can stick to a task without deviation for 90 minutes.  It's a total coin toss.

2014 World Cup Second Round Interconnectivity Diagram

This is what the diagram looks like for the second round

Nearest club team to the middle = Arsenal.
Nearest national team to the middle = France (probably).
Teams with largest number of players = Bayern Munich (12), Napoli (9) and Porto (8).  Bayern have only lost 2 players, Mario Mandzukic and Javi Martinez.  Maybe there's something in the theory that having the title sown up early is easier on the players.  Then again, if that were the case, Manchester United wouldn't have had so many players drop out, although their case wasn't helped by so many of them being on the England team.

Amazingly the communities view shows each team as their own community.  I was expecting Belgium and France to bleed into each other.

Austrian Grand Prix

There are no words for how excited I am.  F1 back in Austria.  If nothing else, I'd like to thank Red Bull for this :D

Fastest Friday Practice	Price	Fastest Saturday Practice	Price	Fastest Qualifying	Price
Lewis Hamilton	8/13	Valtteri Bottas	8/1	Felipe Massa	10/3
Amount won/lost on a £1 bet	-£1	Amount won/lost on a £1 bet	-£1	Amount won/lost on a £1 bet	-£1
Amount won/lost on a £10 bet	-£10	Amount won/lost on a £10 bet	-£10	Amount won/lost on a £10 bet	-£10
Season Total £1 bets	-£0.30	Season Total £1 bets	£2.73	Season Total £1 bets	£2.18
Season Total £10 bets	-£3.02	Season Total £10 bets	£27.30	Season Total £10 bets	£21.78

World Cup 2014 Group Stages Interconnectivity Diagram

These are as correct as wikipedia can manage.  All players have been shown as playing for the team for which they last made an appearance, so, for instance, Joel Campbell is shown as an Olympiacos player, even though he is only on loan for them from Arsenal.

The clubs with the most players are, oddly enough, Bayern Munich and Manchester United with 14 players each.  I say oddly because, well Bayern did well this season, but United really didn't.  The United players are from a wide spread of countries (4 from England, 2 from Spain and Belgium and 1 each for Mexico, Holland, Japan, Ecuador, France and Portugal), while Bayern had 7 from Germany, and 1 each from Brazil, Croatia, Holland, Spain, Switzerland, US and Belgium.

Each team has at least one team member playing in that country.  All countries except England and Russia have at least 1 player playing for a foreign club.  This leads to a very tight diagram, particularly in the middle.

The graph is a lot more cluttered that the Euro 2012 equivalent (http://fulltimesportsfan.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/finalised-diagram.html), possibly because there's a lot more teams, and possibly because teams in Spain and Italy (for example) have a lot more foreign players from South America and Africa than they do from other parts of Europe.

The communities view is too confused to interpret, because as well as the countries themselves, the clubs with lot of players represented appear as communities in and of themselves.

Canadian Grand Prix

Yay, my favourite grand prix of the season.

Fastest Friday Practice	Price	Fastest Saturday Practice	Price	Fastest Qualifying	Price
Lewis Hamilton	2/5	Lewis Hamilton	4/5	Nico Rosberg	5/4
Amount won/lost on a £1 bet	-£1	Amount won/lost on a £1 bet	-£1	Amount won/lost on a £1 bet	-£1
Amount won/lost on a £10 bet	-£10	Amount won/lost on a £10 bet	-£10	Amount won/lost on a £10 bet	-£10
Season Total £1 bets	£0.70	Season Total £1 bets	£3.73	Season Total £1 bets	£3.18
Season Total £10 bets	£6.98	Season Total £10 bets	£37.30	Season Total £10 bets	£31.78