Thursday, 2 January 2025

Copa America 2024

Doing my usual network graphs for the Copa America. It being the same year as the Euros acts as a nice compare and contrast (for the Euro 2024 group stage diagram, please see here - https://fulltimesportsfan.wordpress.com/2024/06/15/euro-2024-network-diagram-only-a-day-late/).

Group Stage: The Copa America network graph at the group stage is less tightly packed and inter-connected than the equivalent Euros graph Network diagram. The blue circles are the national teams. Size and colour relate to number of links to each item. Eleven of the blue national team dots are reasonably evenly spaced. Five stick out, four at the bottom, one out to the left. Same graph as before, but this time labelled. The twelve evenly-spaced teams are Ecuador, Chile, Argentina (Argentina are the team at the top), Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil, Colombia, United States, Venezuela, Mexico and Canada. The four teams sticking out at the bottom are Panama, Costa Rica, Peru and Jamaica (left to right). The team sticking out at the left are Bolivia. Argentina are not as central as I would have expected, and the US is more central than I would have expected. Toluca are the club team closest to the centre. 

Venezuela are probably the national team closest to the centre, but that's very "ish". 
The club team with the most representatives are Bolivar with 9. They are followed by America and Saprissa with 7, then Universitario, Flamengo, Fulham, Porto, Always Ready, Libertad and Herediano with 5. 

Jamaica are the odd team out because they only have a squad of 25, compared to everyone else's squad of 26. 

All national teams have at least one player playing in their home league. 

If the outlying teams predict the teams that are going out, I would expect Bolivia, Panama, Costa Rica, Peru and Jamaica to be among the teams that went out after the group stages, with the others being USA, Argentina and Chile. And I don't think Argentina will be out. 

Quarterfinals: The teams that went out were Chile, Peru, Mexico, Jamaica, United States, Bolivia, Costa Rica and Paraguay. The graph predicted 6/8 teams that went out. It included 2/3 of the hosts of the next World Cup which does not bode well. 

Canada were not the one of the three that I was expecting to survive (are Canada better than we think?). 

Because most of the outliers have gone, the remaining 8 teams are more evenly spread. Unlabelled network graph. The 8 remaining national teams are the blue circles. The remaining teams are in a very messy rhomboid shape, with 6 at the lines, 3 along one side, 2 along the other and one at the top, and two inside the shape. This is the same picture as before, but labelled this time. The teams that make up the rhomboid are Argentina at the top, then Colombia along the right hand side, with Canada at the bottom of that side. The next corner is Panama. Up the left hand side is Venezuela, then Ecuador. The two in the middle are Uruguay and Brazil. 

The club teams with the most players left in are: 
4 = Liverpool, Flamengo, Porto, Universidad Catolica, Real Madrid 
3 = Atletico Madrid, Tottenham Hotspur, Aston Villa, Minnesota United FC, CF Montreal, Independiente del Valle, Internacional, Sao Paulo, Girona, Paris Saint-Germain and Krasnodar 

Brazil are the national team closest the centre and Sao Paulo are the club team closest. Guessing from which team are the furthest from the centre, Panama are likely to go out. With the others it's less easy to tell, but I would expect Uruguay and Brazil to get through. 

Semifinals: I know Uruguay are good, so I don't think Brazil losing to them is time to declare the end of the world but ... Brazilian football in crisis? 

Canada getting through to the semifinals was also unexpected. 

What do the semifinal diagrams look like? The four blue circles representing the national teams form a diamond, but the three teams at the top, bottom and left hand side of the diamond have more connections between them than the fourth one which is the one at the right of the diamond. The same diagram as above, but now labelled. The three teams with more connections between them are Uruguay (left), Argentina (top) and Colombia (bottom). Canada are the team sticking out. Colombia are the team closest to the centre, with River Plate the club closest to the centre. The diagram is not positive for Canada's chances in the semifinals. 

Finals: After a semifinal that nearly ended in a riot - https://www.infobae.com/colombia/deportes/2024/07/11/con-pelea-en-la-tribuna-y-lagrimas-de-james-y-luis-diaz-asi-termino-la-semifinal-entre-colombia-y-uruguay/ (I am not sure how it is Suarez's fault but ...), the final had Argentina winning. 

I won't say it looked like yet another tournament when it felt like the organisers were bending over backwards to help Argentina to win but ... (I will never forgive FIFA for making me agree with the Croatian football federation). 

It also featured poor organisation and celebrations that people had to apologise for - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Copa_Am%C3%A9rica#Argentine_celebrations 

Hopefully neither of these will be repeated at World Cup 2026. The diagram before the final looked like this. Two blue circles remain. While they have lots of smaller red circles around them, they are linked by three lines. Same diagram as before, but labelled. The blue circle at the top is Argentina, and the one at the bottom is Colombia, the three lines that join them because there are players playing for that club playing for each country and Liverpool, Aston Villa and River Plate. 
While the Copa America group stages were less interconnected than the Euros, the finals are not much less interconnected. The Euro 2024 final had 4 club teams with players on both national teams (https://fulltimesportsfan.wordpress.com/2024/07/12/euro-2024-final-network-diagram/), the Copa America final had 3. 

The three are River Plate, Liverpool and Aston Villa, which I think says a lot about Aston Villa's return to prominence. (There is a small local bias. Only half my colleagues hate everything about this, the other half are enjoying a season where they have beaten Bayern Munich.) 

What have we discovered: 

1) The "closest to the centre" theory work for European Men's Football, Men's rugby union and men's rugby league. It works less well for European Women's Football and CONCAF/COMEBOL competitions. 

2) Argentina and Brazil see my attempts at prediction and mock them.
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