Copa Minnesota-An audio report

Last Sunday I attended the first ever Copa Minnesota. A game that featured David Beckham, Landon Donovan and the Los Angles Galaxy versus my local team, the Minnesota Thunder. The event drew 20,000 fans. With the help of General Manager Djorn Bucholz, I was able to attain a field pass and spent my time at the Hubert Humphrey Metrodome taking photos and conducting interviews with fans, staff, players and yes, even David Beckham. I did an audio story of the whole event in a sort of BBC/NPR style. I’m very pleased to say it seems the audio has been picked up and linked to by a number of blogs around the U.S.

So I thought I’d share my audio story with our loyal Craven Cottage Newsround readers and give you a chance to listen – if you’re interested.

You can either right click here to download or just click to listen.

This is all hosted on Blue Sky Soccer in which I also have photos of the event posted here.

Probability

Imagine a team that has played 38 games, a full season.  They won 13, drew 13, and lost 12.   Fairly average.  Not out of the question for Fulham, although perhaps next year.

How did that team get those results?

Here are five random sequences.

DDDLDWLLWDDL DWWWWWLWLDLDDLDWDWLWLDLLWW
LWLLLLWLDLDD DWWLWLDDDDWWWWDDWLWLWDWLDD
WLDWDLDWDWDL DLWLWWLWLDWLDWWDLLLDDDWWDL
DWWDDWDDWDDD LWLDWWDWWDWLLLWLLLLLDDWLWL
DLDDDWDWLWWW DLWLLWLDWLWWDLWWLLWLDDLDDD

All five teams are exactly the same.   They end with the same number of points.  If you were to judge each team after 12 games you would come to vastly different opinions.

Team 1 looks a bit like us this year.
Team 2 looks like it’s in a bit of trouble.
Team 3 is doing okay.
Team 4 hasn’t lost yet.
Team 5 is doing quite well too.

This is stretching a point – football isn’t random – but equally, it does show how one team could get to the same point in very different ways, and that, by judging the team after 12 games, we’re missing the bigger picture.

Crock news

The club has kindly outlined our injury list:

McBride – Christmas

Fantastic news.  One warning is that he might be back, but not BACK.  It’ll take a little while before Brian finds his mojo.   The good thing here is that he’ll have been effectively rested for half a season, which might make a big difference in the season’s concluding months.  You never know.

Cook – moving in the right direction

Sounds ominous.  Even if he is back in the new year, it’ll take a while for him to get match fit, and then maybe some time to get used to the club and the Premier League.  I don’t know that we can expect much of him this season, but as with McBride, if he can provide some late season oomph when everyone else is tired that can’t be a bad thing.

Keller – on the way back

Ok, but with Niemi back in form this is less important.  It would still be good to have him around in case something happens to Antti.

Bullard – four to eight weeks

Hmm.  Is this possible?   He’s been away so long we really can’t know what sort of player we’ll get back.   The other thing is that he won’t be the saviour everyone’s hoping he will be.   While the four games we saw him in were very impressive, it’s unlikely that his form would’ve been maintained for the whole season if he hadn’t got injured.   So, much like Kurt Cobain dying at 27 and ensuring a perfect legacy was untainted by an embarrassing downswing, we only saw Jimmy at his best.    Still, he’s a good player and would definitely bring something different to the midfield.  Fingers crossed.

Christanval – never

He had rows with Sanchez after last year.  We know he’s fragile.  It could very well be that the club has his wages on an insurance policy and is just letting his contract run down.  It may be nothing as sinister – he could genuinely be injured (all the time) – but I doubt we’ll see him play for Fulham again.   Shame, a very gifted player.

Pearce – 2 weeks?

Valuable depth in defence.  He generally doesn’t let you down back there.

Volz – 7 to 10 days

Alright, we could do with Volzy making a comeback.   Probably in centre-midfield, funnily enough, where his high energy displays last year impressed so many of us.  He’ll run, tackle, shoot, the lot.  Not Diego Maradona, but he has the skills we badly need out there.   The injury couldn’t have been worse-timed.

Elliot – well, what do we expect?

Simon Elliot is presumably some way off, and I guess has played his last game for the club.  Presumably an insurance job.

Ashton – back for Blackburn

This is interesting.  I like Bocanegra but I don’t know that he’s the answer at left-back. I think Konchesky’s back for Blackburn (and David Bentley), but if he’s not then Ashton will certainly be needed.  We’ll have to see.    He made an encouraging start to his Fulham career and it’s nice to know that he’s able to step up when required.