Women's World Cup 2023 - Final Network Diagram

As you can all imagine, full working decorum was maintained at all time between the Australian and English offices for the entirety of Wednesday morning (UK time) and the company messaging system was full of GIFs flying in all directions. 

(We also have the rugby union and cricket World Cups where similar battlelines might be drawn.) 

The network diagrams now look like this: The club team closest to the centre are Manchester United. 

Because so many of Spain's players play in Real Madrid and Barcelona, but England have two players playing for Barcelona, England are slightly closer to the centre. 

Barcelona are the team with the most representatives in the final, with 10 players. Next are Real Madrid with 8 and Manchester City with 6. 

Manchester United and Barcelona link the two national teams, with Ona Batlle of Spain, and Mary Earps, Ella Toone, Katie Zelem and Alessia Russo of England playing for Manchester United and Irene Paredes, Aitana Bonmati, Mariona Caldenty, Alexia Putellas, Laia Codina, Maria Perez, Salma Paralluelo and Cata Coll of Spain and Lucy Bronze and Keira Walsh of England playing for Barcelona.

Once a tournament is down to two teams, the community view doesn't give a lot of information, but I'm including them here because it's quite pretty this time.  

I will be spending Sunday morning hiding from the match so I don't jinx England. I have been informed by colleagues that this is ridiculous. They will thank me if England win.

Women's World Cup 2023 - Semifinals Network Diagrams

In the predictions made in the last post, the diagram got 2/3 correct where there was a proper prediction.

Following the eliminations after the quarterfinals, the network diagrams now look like this:  

It's now sort of squished diamond shape, with most of the weight in the Australia, England and Sweden cluster at the bottom of the diamond. Spain are the team sticking out at the top. Sticking out is normally a bad sign for the next match, but Spain are Spain and are somehow doing well despite a whole lot of problems. 

England are the national team closest to the centre, with Chelsea (just about) being the club team closest to the centre. 

The club teams with the most representatives are Barcelona with 11 players left representing them, followed by Manchester City with 10 and then Chelsea and Real Madrid with 8. France going out wiped out the Paris Saint Germain and Lyon players (not totally, but not far short since it reduced them to 1 player left each). 

The community view is interesting, given there's 4 teams left and 5 communities. Arsenal are the mysterious 5th community, I think because they link 3 of the teams (Australia, Sweden and England). 

As for the diagram's predictions for the semifinals, they are as follows: 

Sweden vs Spain - diagram probably says Sweden, football knowledge says Spain. The diagram has been mysteriously right about Sweden so far but I don't think it can continue. 

England vs Australia - knowledge (esp. since Australia are at home) says "dunno", diagram says England just.

Women's World Cup 2023 - Quarterfinal Network Visualisations

I start with an admission: of the predictions I made in my last post except for the USA vs Sweden match, where the diagram disagreed with footballing knowledge, the diagram was wrong. 

But I'm still going to carry on making the network diagrams because I enjoy it and because they look pretty. 

The community views look particularly pretty this time, but let's start with the usual network diagrams that look at the links between teams.   

The club team closest to the centre is Manchester United, while France and England are the national teams closest to the centre. 

Denmark and Norway being eliminated has broken up the Nordic+Australia pack at the bottom. There's now a cluster of 5 teams (Netherlands, France, England, Sweden and Australia) with Spain and Colombia sticking up and Japan sticking out at the bottom. 

The club teams with the most representatives are Manchester City (with 12 players representing them), then Real Madrid and Barcelona (with 11) and Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain (with 9). 

As I mentioned, the community views are very pretty.  

There are 8 teams left, who are now each their own community. 

For the quarterfinals, the diagram's predictions are as follows: 

Spain vs Netherland - Knowledge and diagram says "ooooooh" because that should be a good match. 

Japan vs Sweden - Diagram says Sweden, knowledge says Japan, Japan's players tending not to play overseas, is a thing, and that will affect the diagram. 

Australia vs France - Diagram says France, Knowledge says France are mis-firing but have depths of talent and are mercurial France! vs home town Australia so, who knows. 

England vs Colombia - Diagram and knowledge say England, although they've been making tough work of it so far.

Women's World Cup 2023 - Last 16 Network Diagrams

The first set of diagrams (https://fulltimesportsfan.wordpress.com/2023/07/22/womens-world-cup-2023-group-stage-network-diagrams/) was remarkably good at predicting the outcome of the group stages. 

The 3/16 that I didn't predict were Canada, although I did say group A would be tight, Italy, because they confounded me (again) and Germany, but I don't think anyone guessed that Germany would collapse like that. Definitely not German colleague who started a meeting with "please no jokes". 

To an extent, I think both Italy and Germany's closeness to the tight group at the bottom of the previous diagram was what meant I thought they'd go through when reading the diagram. 

With half the teams eliminated, the network diagram now looks like this. Much like Eurovision, there's a European and Australian cluster, which means the "central weight" of the diagram is not in the middle. 

That means that saying that either Leicester or the Chicago Red Stars are the club team closest to the centre, and either England or Nigeria are the national team closest to the centre doesn't give as much information as usual. 

The club teams with the most representatives left are Barcelona (with 15), Manchester City (with 13) and Paris Saint-Germain and Real Madrid (with 12 each). Manchester City and Real have crept up by not losing players, while other teams did. 

The community view looks like this: One day I'll figure out how to stop Gephi from cutting off the edges of the labels when the exceed the edges of the diagram. 

There are still three multi-team clusters, they are: 

England and Australia 

Denmark and Norway 

France and Netherlands 

These were also clusters in the first set of diagrams, with the change being that Sweden has moved out of the England and Australia cluster. 

While some of the eliminations were relatively straightforward to predict, the last 16 provides a number of games where "football knowledge" suggests one winner, and the diagram another. They are: Switzerland vs Spain - football knowledge says Spain, the diagram is unclear 

Netherlands vs South Africa - knowledge and diagram say Netherlands 

Japan vs Norway - knowledge says Japan, diagram says Norway 

Sweden vs United States - knowledge says United States, diagram says Sweden (US have been an outlying team, even when they win [https://fulltimesportsfan.wordpress.com/2019/07/01/womens-world-cup-semifinals/] so I think this might be one of the times when their is a weakness of the diagram based on circumstance. 

Australia vs Denmark - Ooooh, that's down as either way whichever method you look at it. 

France vs Morocco - knowledge and diagram say France, goalie hopefully says no (although I am happy with either team winning because I <3 renard="" wendi="">England vs Nigeria - knowledge and diagram says England Colombia vs Jamaica - knowledge says Colombia, diagram says Jamaica 

So this should be a good test of the underlying theory. 

(Even if it's wrong, I'll still keep making the diagrams because they're so pretty)

Women's World Cup 2023 - Group Stage Network Diagrams

Slightly late, but really, who starts a World Cup on a Thursday!!! 

Making these charts revealed some interesting things: 

1 - All teams have at least 1 player playing in their home league except Canada. I'm not sure if that's because the US league is both so strong and right next door. 

2 - All teams have at least one player playing abroad. 

3 - Adding more teams has made the diagram much messier. 

4 - A remarkable number of Zambia's players (4/23) play in the Kazakh league. Also, I found out there was a Kazakh league. This shouldn't have surprised me. 

5 - There are Saudi Arabian women's teams. That really did surprise me. 

What does the diagram look like?  

The club teams with the most representatives are Barcelona, with 17, Chelsea, with 16 and Paris Saint-Germain with 14. 

Looking at the community view, there are 32 teams but 24 communities. The communities are as follows: 

1 - Vietnam 

2 - Zambia 

3 - Philippines 

4 - Argentina and Brazil 

5 - Panama and Costa Rica 

6 - China 

7 - Colombia 

8 - Portugal and Nigeria 

9 - New Zealand 

10 - South Africa 

11 - Haiti 

12 - Jamaica and Canada 

13 - United States 

14 - South Korea 

15 - Spain 

16 - Ireland 

17 - Morocco 

18 - Switzerland 

19 - France and Netherlands 

20 - Australia, Sweden and England 

21 - Japan 

22 - Denmark and Norway 

23 - Italy 

24 - Germany 

It's actually really hard to tell where the centre of the diagram. Obviously, there's the physical centre, which would be Brazil or New Zealand in terms of national teams and Pachuca for the club teams, but the weight of the teams is concentrated in the bottom, where Sweden, Norway and Denmark make a really heavy cluster. That also makes it hard to make predictions (as L requires). 

The following are my predictions from this diagram, with the caveat that it was really hard to distinguish the centre of the diagram. 

Group A - Philippines and New Zealand out, but closer than expected (I said this before the NZ vs Norway game and have witnesses to me saying it. Multiple witnesses. I should also apologise to Norway for drawing them in my work sweepstakes.) 

Group B - Nigeria and Ireland out 

Group C - Zambia and Costa Rica out 

Group D - China and Haiti out 

Group E - Portual and Vietnam out 

 Group F - Brazil and Panama out, but that sounds weird to my ears 

Group G - South Africa and Argentina are out, but see previous statement 

Group H - Morocco and Colombia out

Formula 1 - British Grand Prix 2023

The good: Ignoring first place, there was racing all the way up and down the grid.

The bad: That Ferrari.  Last year we had a car that went, and a strategy team that didn't.  This year, the strategy team have reached the dizzying heights of not-actively-harming-the-team, but the car has no go.  Given the other two Ferrari teams make up two of the bottom three I suspect it's the engine.

The embarrassing:  Channel 4's coverage in general (seriously, it look me 5 minutes which included an ad break before I had to hit the mute button).

The coverage pretending that Norris getting ahead and staying ahead for a lap and a half was a sign of someone challenging Red Bull's domination, rather than it taking that long for Verstappen to figure out which was was forward following the jostling at the start, and then the Red Bull overtaking the McLaren in a lap.

The racing was closer while there was no DRS activated, and I think it highlights that the go-faster button's time is through.  DRS was invented to create more overtaking opportunities, now all it does is mean that no one else has a chance of keep the stronger cars behind them, no matter how good the individual driver is.

2023 Tour de France Withdrawals - Week 2

Every edition of the Tour has that one stage where there's a sudden disaster and lots of people drop out. I've seen it be hard mountain stages, where too many people are over the time limit, but not enough for the broom wagon to be cancelled, I've seen it be hard stages where there's been a bug going through the peloton, I've seen it been rain and crash. 

This year's "that one dratted stage" seems to have been stage 14, where a combo of slippy road, a turn and ill-fortune took down a swath of riders (https://www.eurosport.co.uk/cycling/tour-de-france/2023/tour-de-france-neutralised-after-extraordinarily-nasty-moment-on-stage-14-involving-almost-all-teams_vid1951457/video.shtml) 

[I'm not sure who that Intermarche-Circus-Wanty rider is, probably Adrien Petit, but that's possibly the actual face of "damn it all" made flesh.] 

Stage 14 really stands out in the pie chart of withdrawals by stage.  And you can see the inflection it causes in the Kaplan Meier diagram  The Kaplan-Meier split out by teams makes it clear that life continues to happen to Astana and EF Education-Easy Post  

All of last week's withdrawals were either did not start the day following previous crashes (or general wear and tear) or mid-stage abandons due to aforementioned crashes. Interestingly, that means there still hasn't been an over-the-time limit withdrawal. 

In the yellow jersey standings at the start of the third week there was so little in it that people started to talk about 1989. I know people enjoy talking about that edition. 

I've mostly just been enjoying Kwiatkowski and Izagirre winning stages, and desperately trying not to jinx a certain rider who is still in. (If I avoid jinxing him, I will explain who it is) 

The final post in this series will be delayed by a week for reasons, but I hope to add an extra special diagram to make up for the delay.

2023 Tour de France Withdrawals - Week 1

The withdrawals so far in the 2023 Tour de France have come in three groups: 

1 - The crash that lead to Mas and Carapaz's withdrawals - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/66076741 

2 - The crash that wiped out Guarnieri and Luis Leon Sanchez - https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/tour-de-france-crashes-blight-motor-circuit-finale-to-stage-4/ 

3 - Stage 8's two crashes that lead to Cavendish's broken collarbone and Cras's withdrawal - https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/cras-blames-spectator-for-tour-de-france-crash-which-saw-simon-yates-mikel-landa-lose-time/ 

Quinn Simmons is the first "general wear and tear" withdrawal this year (https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/quinn-simmons-abandons-the-tour-de-france-ahead-of-stage-9/). I expect them to start mounting.

Looking at withdrawals by stage:      

All the withdrawals have been mid-stage abandonments or did not start the next day due to previous crashes, there have been no riders who have missed time limit cut-offs. This is despite the first week containing an unexpectedly large amount of climbing and difficult stages compared to usual (https://twitter.com/eltiodeldato/status/1674387305618894848 and https://twitter.com/eltiodeldato/status/1674713858722676736 demonstrate this well). 

Because there's relatively few withdrawals, the Kaplan Meier chart is pretty flat, although the Kaplan Meier split by teams makes it quite clear that the Tour has happened to Astana.  

Talking about Astana, one thing this week has highlighted is the paucity of cycling knowledge in the people writing about road cycling in the big media sources. 

The UK press coverage, in non-specialist outlets, entirely understandably, was all about Mark Cavendish. 

Cue, when Leon Sanchez had to withdraw, many inches of print about how this was terrible for Cav's sprint train. 

... 

... 

Yeah, that Luis Leon Sanchez. 

As a vital component of a sprint train. 

... 

Dear general sports journalists who cover cycling once a year, either stick to the facts or if you want to add opinion, throw some money at the excellent cycling journalists available and get them to write you something. Because really, sometimes, what you write, makes you sound like morons. 

Now, I know a sensible team, if they had a sprinter who could break one of "the records" but needed a sprint train, would put together a sprint train, and dedicate the team to that. But it's Astana, and who *ever* accused Astana of being sensible*. Of course they've frankensteined a team together to try to go for sprint victories and have a GC contender, plus Lutsenko for climbing stage wins. 

I can't help but feel I am a jinx on Cavendish because news of the crash happened just as I opened my phone to check how the Tour was doing on Saturday. 

L is putting it down to a Belgian conspiracy, but he's had more than one twelve-hour shift this week, so we will forgive him melodramatic conspiracy theories. 

I love that Vinokourov has immediately gone with "if Cavendish wants to stay, we will have him" (https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/66147017). Because he knows how that feels and because he has style**. 

All this, and I've not said anything about Pogacar vs Vingegaard, which is bubbling along nicely. 

In the grand tradition of "you can't win a Grand Tour in the first week, but you can lose it", neither of them have lost it, and it could get very interesting in the next two weeks. 

* Said with love, affection and exasperation. Astana have been my team since they were created, because wither Vinokourov goes, so do I. 

** He lies, cheats and connives, but he does it with style.

Formula 1 - Austrian Grand Prix 2023

Given orange is not one of Austria's national colours, there was a remarkable amount of it about at the Red Bull Ring. 

To an extent, as a Ferrari fan, I can't be too disappointed, there were two Ferrari podiums. 

On the other hand, sprint races are still a waste of time, and there is no way of stopping Red Bull. 

The thing that makes me happiest about the Grand Prix is that it looks like I might be able to upgrade the Ferrari strategy team's probationary cookie of competence to a full cookie. 

The stacked pit stops didn't quite work as well as they could have done (it's Ferrari, it would be dull if everything went as well as it could), but they show thinking and decisiveness and other things previously missing. 

The major talking point from the weekend (other than Hamilton and Verstappen's little spat about having a single dominant F1 team being boring) was track limits. I have some sympathy for both sides of the argument. Yes, having stewards pouring over footage of the track, flagging it but the message only coming through laps later is good for no one. I did like the suggestion that the message should be sent electronically and flag on the driver's steering wheel, but I'm not sure where on the display it can go and be noticed (have a really interesting article on F1 steering wheels - https://www.mercedesamgf1.com/news/how-does-an-f1-steering-wheel-work). 

On the other hand, F1 drivers, if you're the best in the world, keep it on the race track! It can't be that difficult, both Leclerc and Verstappen managed it. Now that most race tracks don't have walls or gravel next to the track, but have run-off areas instead, people don't respect the edges of the track. The previous solution of "sausage" kerbs were too dangerous (Red Bull is supposed to give you wings, but the cars are not supposed to fly), so this is the solution we've got. 

If F1 is going to keep it though, it needs to be enforced at all the tracks and enforced in a more timely fashion.

A Bushel of the Bard - Comedies

Some time ago, @anaisbelieve on twitter asked for suggestions for Shakespeare adaptations to watch, and I'm using this meme pinched from S. to expand on my thoughts.  The one's I've not seen yet have been skipped.

Originally I was going to something like this following the "Sword-fighting Films" series in the same format, but you've seen how long that's taking so I shall do it this way instead.  Worst comes worst, it'll mean parts of the other posts might be ready.

With advanced warning that the correct answer on how to watch the pound for pound (or minute for minute) best Shakespeare adaptations is to get the BBC's Animated Shakespeare on DVD some adaptation recommendations.

Comedies:

Much Ado about Nothing: I am going to go with the obvious option, because there is a reason it is the obvious option.  

My choice is the Emma Thompson/Kenneth Branagh version, because it is excellent.  Not only do they make Dogberry abideable (I don't care if that isn't a real word), but the "Kill Claudio" scene works because everyone involved treats it as seriously as it needs to be treated.  Because if Beatrice could, she'd do it herself, and Benedick loves Claudio but can't get out of the promise and he's going to go through with it ...

If you want something a little different but still very good, I recommend the Shakespeare Re:Told version with Sarah Parish and Damien Lewis.  I don't like this version just because Hero doesn't end up with Claudio, although yes, that is definitely one of the biggest things in it's favour.  The other main reason is that the leads have enough chemistry to make a houseful of students yell "just kiss already" at the TV.

Taming of the Shrew: I'll go with Shakespeare Re:Told here as well, because in it, she doesn't get any more reasonable, just less unrelentingly horrible.  The Shrew is not tamed, merely redirected (and ends up being the Prime Minister).  Rufus Sewell in a mini-skirt and eyeliner is an added bonus.

The Winter‘s Tale: The only version I've seen is the Animated Shakespeare one.  I recommend.

Twelfth Night: I've seen it live in the Corn Exchange in Manchester, in the round.  Where the front row had to wear pakamacs for reasons.  It was a hoot, and is "the version in my mind's eye".

I've also seen the Animated Shakespeare version, and a National Theatre version during the COVID showings (thank you National Theatre).  Also most of the Joan Plowright version, mostly in the right order (long story, but it was available on YouTube, and may still be).

None of these are bad, the live version is still my favourite though.

A Midsummer Night‘s Dream: Another one where the first version I saw was the Animated Shakespeare one.  I've also seen a National Theatre version (once again, thank you National Theatre for putting them online over COVID), which did pleasingly tricksy things.  Like, literally midway through a speech I went "oh that's what you've done".  I have seen most of the Kevin Kline/Michelle Pfeiffer/various other people version, which also fills me with warm snuggly feelings, even if it has the most gloriously wistful bit with Bottom at the end.

Also during COVID I saw a Globe Theatre version online, which in grand traditional Globe style, I didn't quite like.

The Merchant of Venice: Like everyone else who answered these meme questions, I remember which play I got for exams.  My GCSE English teacher chose this one out of the three options (this, Midsummer Night's Dream and Macbeth) because it had the least worst coursework essay question.  (The question was "Shylock, victim or villain?"  I'm not saying it was good, I'm saying it's better than "the use of words associated with weather to create an effect in Macbeth" and "how to stage (whichever scene it was) in Midsummer Night's Dream".)

That meant we got to read the play out (I got lumbered with Launcelot bloody Gobbo.  My dislike of him is based on experience.  My beloved English teacher didn't hate me, merely knew I could deal with his lines.).

On the other hand, it also means that I've yet to see a proper production of it without coursework hanging over it.  Because we were supposed to watch the Olivier version but something happened (fire alarm most likely) and ... and ... and.  I might have seen all of it in pieces but mostly thinking about aforementioned coursework essay.  

I am aware that's an odd gap.

The Tempest: I do love the Animated Shakespeare version something rotten, even if they soften Ariel and Caliban.  I didn't mind the recent(ish) Globe version, although Roger Allam is by some way the cuddliest Prospero (possibly a mite too cuddly, pers. opinion etc).

As You Like It: This is my favourite of the comedies, I think because everyone (except Jacques) gets a happy ending (and people like Jacques are never happy).  It was my favourite even before I saw the excellent RSC version several years ago (everything about it was excellent, from the acting, to the music, to the lighting.  Like I can still close my eyes and wrap myself up in the lighting effects if I think hard enough level good.)

I may have been biased by the first version I ever saw being the Helen Mirren one on VHS (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077180/).

Histories up next, where I have less positive comments about some versions.