Film Locations

Once a year I like to look at where the films I've watched are set. This is a deeply incomplete look at films up to August 2015. That's all locations, including fictional ones, and, as you can see, the United States and the United Kingdom dominate.

If I just look at real places, they dominate even more.   
If I look at the UK-set films

They're mostly set in England, and Wales and Northern Ireland have no representation at all. I really need to watch more films :)

Women's Cycling

There is no women's Tour de France. I wish there was. I am 100% behind most of the many and varied attempts to get one.

But the whole "x amateur women are riding it to try and get one" that's getting all the media attention this year strikes me as the worst possible way.

Partly this is the media's fault. The first week of the Tour is the one with all the boring flat stages, so the media look for anything they can to write about. And this is an interesting thing to write about. 

Unfortunately, it means that they aren't covering the Giro Rosa*. Given the Giro is the only one of the grand tours that actually has a women's race, this is frustrating. Especially as it was such a good race. Annemiek van Vleuten is just amazing.

Compare the coverage of the amateur race with the coverage of La Course, where the the UCI Pro women's teams race the most interesting stage of the Tour in the morning before the men. La Course is down to one stage which is annoying but hopefully the joy of crowd might convince them to give it a second stage again.

Also, see, I told you van Vleuten was amazing.

Another annoying thing is the amount of face time Skoda are getting for backing the amateur race. If you've got that much money, Skoda, you can fund a goddamn women's pro tour race! (Sorry!)

The other thing that annoyed me was the people who were up in arms about the lack of women's Tour but were willing to ignore the Giro Rosa. It could be because the media don't cover the Giro Rosa so people don't know about it. Or it could be people just enjoy getting enraged without doing some background research.

I think we're more likely to get a women's Tour if we makes the most of the excellent riders we have now. That wil make it clear to sponsors that they can get recognition and sales money (or possibly tax write-offs) by sponsoring them or a race. This involves building on the successes of the Giro Rosa, and races like it. To an extent, we are getting there, just look at the number of UCI pro women's teams. Also look at how many of them attached to men's teams, suggesting a more stable funding stream.

Build from what we've got works better than build from nothing.

*The pink thing isn't pinkification, it's the colour of the original Giro race sponsors so the men's jersey is also the pink jersey.

2018 World Cup Final Diagram

What a match!

Probably the best final since 1994, although, admittedly, my memory only goes back to 1994.

Exciting, excruciating, and while the better team won, I feel terribly sorry for Croatia. Also, I told you that Lloris would drop a clanger.

No community view this time because once you're down to two teams it doesn't add any value.  

Five teams would have had a winner either way (Atletico Madrid, Barcelona, Juventus, Monaco, Real Madrid), this is a lot more than normal.

Possibly because very few Croats (2/23) play in their home league, and only 9/23 French players play in the French league.

At the last World Cup final, only two teams would have had a winner no matter who won, and those two teams were Real Madrid and Lazio.

Comparing it to the last two Euros, which I can do because this World Cup final was an all European final, in 2016 only Lyon would have had a winner whichever side won, and in 2012 there was only 1, Manchester City who had Mario Balotelli on one side and David Silva on the other.

Six clubs jointly had the most players in the final two teams, Atletico Madrid, Barcelona, Marseille, Monaco, Paris Saint Germain and Real Madrid.

Juventus are the club team nearest the centre.

World Cup Final Predictions

I think I really ought to go for France just because I predicted them before the start of the tournament.

I think they'll do it, because they've got that little bit more quality throughout.  Before anyone says anything about *that* Croatian midfield, I know they're good, and I love them, but the thing they don't like, real, proper Modric and Rakitic kryptonite, is someone who harries them and doesn't give them space on the ball.  In N'Golo Kante, France have an excellent proponent of that.

I am looking forward to the tiny midfielder football off.

While Lloris hasn't had one of his regular clangers, I have the greatest of doubts about Danijel Subašić's goalkeeping.  Croatia also have Vida, who is one of those players *things* happen to and I fear the next one is going to be a bad thing.

France also have Mbappe.  Who is better than advertised!

There's also more than a small part of me that wants France to win just for Didier Deschamps who I loved as a player.

2018 World Cup Semifinal Data Vizualisation

As Croatia are the team sticking out, I suspect that they are the least likely to progress.

France, Belgium and England are a giant smush still.

Spurs are the team with the most have most players left with 9, followed by Manchester City and Manchester United on 7. Manchester City lost several players when Brazil were knocked out.

Paris Saint Germain are the club team nearest the centre, while France are the national team nearest the centre.

The community view is interesting. There are 4 teams and 7 communities, one for each country and then 1 for Barcelona, Juventus and Liverpool. I don't quite follow why Barcelona is separate but Monaco isn't since they both connect 3 teams and have one player from 2 of the teams and 2 from the third.

I presume Juventus are their own community because they have 1 player from Croatia and 1 from France and it's more logical than giving Juventus to either country.

However, following that logic, I'm not sure why Lovren is in the Croatia community rather than the Liverpool one, unless it's because of the extra distance he is away from the others.

2018 World Cup Semifinal Predictions

Of the quarterfinals, the only one I called wrong was Brazil vs Belgium and I was very happy to be wrong.

I was unfortunately right that Uruguay minus Cavani lack bite, well, they still had Suarez, but that's the wrong kind of bite ;)

I am both sad for Russia and happy for Croatia.

As for the semifinals, I cannot separate France and Belgium.  France do have the feeling of having reached the semis without difficulty, and they have Mbappe (and Didier Deschamps).  On the other hand, N'Golo Kante and Mbappe apart, Belgium may have the better player in most positions - I really rate the Alderwiereld / Vertonghen combination, Lloris hasn't had his monthly clanger yet in the French goal and that Belgian midfield are terrifyingly good.

I will stick with my France prediction from before the start of the World Cup.

It should at least be a good match.

Croatia vs England may well not be as good.  But it should be interesting.  Because um, yeah, they're reasonably well matched.  Or rather I have the greatest doubts about the Croatian goalie and defence, but their midfield are stonking.

Logic says Croatia, an unfortunate promise to be nicer to England says England.

2018 World Cup Quarterfinal Network Diagrams

Note how far Russia are from everyone else.

Manchester City remain the team with the most players (11) but they are now followed by Spurs (9) and Paris Saint Germain and Manchester United (8 each). Real Madrid and Barcelona's numbers dropped rapidly and suddenly. I think Russia are responsible ;)

France or Croatia are the national side nearest the middle. It's very hard to tell which is the closest given how far away all the teams are from the centre, mostly because Russia and Sweden are so far away from other teams that it distorts the graph.

Monaco are the club side nearest the middle.

When Shinji Okazi was removed from the network (because of Japan's sad loss) it separated Belgium from England. I think that's because the weight of Japan was pulling England down into Belgium. All 8 countries are their own communities.

It's interesting to see which teams have been linked to which countries. Barcelona, Real Madrid and Man City are all "Brazilian", while Spurs, United and Liverpool are English. Chelsea are "Belgian" while Krasnodar are "Swedish", which is probably news to them. Atletico Madrid are Uruguayan, but that at least makes sense.

2018 World Cup Quarterfinal Predictions

My second round predictions were:

France vs Argentina - predicted France, France won, the match was every bit as close as I thought it would be.

Uruguay vs Portugal - predicted Uruguay, Uruguay won, a much better match than I expected. I do hope Cavani is all right for the quarterfinals.

Spain vs Russia - predicted Spain, Russia won because this World Cup is glorious. My Spanish boss got the details right about what would happen in his doom-laden prediction beforehand.

Croatia vs Denmark - predicted Croatia, was right, damn it.

Mexico vs Brazil - predicted Brazil, was right, damn it all.

Belgium vs Japan - predicted Belgium, was right, damn it all again, and was even more right about it being closer than people expected. Japan are a good side and I don't get why people don't realise that.

Sweden vs Switzerland - predicted Switzerland, was wrong.

England vs Colombia - predicted lots of goals and Colombia and was wrong on both counts.

Predictions for the quarterfinals:

France vs Uruguay - on the one hand, France were my pre-tournament pick to win the whole thing and have been solid. On the other hand, my heart belongs to Diego Godin. Being rational, I think France will win, especially if Cavani is injured but I am hoping for Uruguay.

Russia vs Croatia - logic says Croatia. Logic has little to do with this Russian team. I think Croatia will do it though.

Brazil vs Belgium - probably Brazil but ...

Sweden vs England - this will either be really exciting or the dullest match ever. Sweden have enough about them to frustrate England but I don't know if they have enough going forward to beat them so I will go with England.

2018 World Cup Second Round Network Diagrams

While most of the eliminated nations were, as expected, the ones around the edges of the diagram, the elimination of Germany has helped to reduce the crowding in what was the top of the diagram. In the first round diagram Werder Bremen and Denmark (probably) were the club and national team closest to the centre of the diagram. I say probably because it was really hard to tell because even the closest national team was some way away from the centre.

In the second round diagram Genoa and Switzerland and the club and national team closest to the centre.

The club team with the most players still in hasn't changed, it is still Manchester City, who have only lost one player, going down from 16 players to 15 players. The teams in second and third place haven't changed but have changed order, because Barcelona are now in second place with 13, having lost only one player, while Real Madrid who had been in second place, having lost 3 players. The community view has changed significantly. There is now only one multi-team community, England and Belgium, who remain a single community because of number of Belgian players who play in England. Several of the other multi-team groups have either had both members knocked out (Poland and Senegal and Tunisia and Egypt) or the removal of one team (Germany) has split the entire group.