Later today, Pim Verbeek will be announced as the coach of the Australian national football team. This comes after he was recommended to the FFA by former manager Guus Hiddink, and another Dutchman, Dick Advocaat reneged on his contract. So Australia is staying Dutch, so to speak. Verbeek has extensive experience in Asia, which was certainly a major factor in his selection. The other main contender was Phillippe Troussier, a Frenchman who also has experience in Asia, leading Japan to an Asian Cup win. Although Troussier is pretty highly regarded (he is more experienced than Verbeek at international level), I think the FFA’s decision to stay Dutch is a good one. We haven’t yet firmly established a particular style of play. But having come so far down the Dutch path, it might be counter-productive to try playing a different way. Keep in mind that the FFA’s technical director, Rob Baan, is also Dutch. With a Dutch national coach and technical director, at least we should be assured of continuity in the style and method adopted by our national teams, and hopefully the technical director has some success in embedding this style and method at the grass roots level of the game in this country.
Tag: football
The greatest game of them all.
I’m fascinated by the idea of ordinary football fans being able to own a football club and collaborating to decide on which players to buy and sell. This idea is very close to reality as MyFootballClub has agreed terms with Ebbsfleet United FC to buy a controlling share of that club. MyFootballClub members get a say in the running of the club, including picking the team from week to week. This takes Fantasy Football to a whole new level! At £35, it’s very tempting to buy my own share of the club…
One might imagine the idea of letting the fans pick the team could drive the manager crazy, but here’s the reaction from Ebbsfleet United’s manager, former Ireland international Liam Daish:
Everyone has worked wonders to get this club into the top half of the Conference. We all agree the club needs something extra to take it to the next step. As a football fan, I think the MyFootballClub idea is fantastic. And as the coach, I look forward to the challenge of working with thousands of members to produce a winning team. Alan Kimble and myself are 100% committed to making this work.
I think “challenge” is the key word in that quote.
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Schulze & Webb: Awesome
Before I go any further with this post, I want to thank Ben for imploring the readers of his blog to check out this presentation from some guys called Schulze & Webb. These days, you get pointers to so much stuff out there on the web, a lot of it interesting, but a lot of it only so-so. Then, occasionally, you’ll come across a gem, which truly was worth reading, and the presentation by Schulze & Webb, for me at least, is one of those gems. A word of advice if you do decide to read it, though: if you’re going to read it, read it right through as there’s a lot of good stuff in it.
I can relate to the presentation, titled The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Interaction Design, and its authors, Schulze & Webb, on a number of different levels. For starters, they use the example of football, specifically that magical goal Argentina scored against Serbia and Montenegro in the 2006 World Cup, to illustrate the concept that the means or the experience is more important to most people than the end result. In scoring that beautiful goal, Argentina strung together 24 passes before Cambiasso struck the ball into the back of the net. Football fans all over the world appreciate that goal because of the lead up to it, not the goal itself. This is also one of the reasons why football lovers can tolerate nil-all draws, and indeed why it can be truthfully said that some nil-all draws are more enjoyable than games in which five goals are scored: there’s so much more to the game than the goals. But football is only the most obvious example. The same can be said of other sports from cricket (the innings-long battle between batsman and bowler, rather than the fall of the wicket) to tennis (the rallies, rather than the rally-ending shot). Anyway, using football to illustrate a neat concept is a sure way to get me on side!
Their presentation also resonates with my recently written “About” page. They both speak of thresholds, boundaries and tipping points. They both talk about figuring out how to develop new things that harmonise with human experience and the human cognitive model (I love their bumptunes hack for the Powerbook; I wonder if the MacBook Pro has an accelerometer?).
Several months before submitting my Ph.D. thesis, I made the decision that I wanted to refocus my subsequent pervasive computing research more towards the user, or at the very least, to ensure that if I was going to be developing middleware to support pervasive computing applications, I would lobby hard to have some time and resources set aside to build decent, cool applications to exercise that middleware. It turns out I didn’t have to lobby that hard! But the point I’m trying to make here is that the Schulze & Webb presentation has provided a timely reminder of why I made that decision to think more about the user in the work that I do: it’s because in the research space I work in, that’s where the rubber hits the road. You can build middleware, context management systems and so forth, but in the end, it’s all in support of what the user wants to do, and it’s a fun challenge figuring out neat applications that people actually want to use because they’re a joy to use.
The challenge in my particular line of work is this: how do you create applications for emergency and disaster prediction, response and recovery which are “fun” to use? How do you design an application for the emergency services sector which creates an experience as pleasurable as watching Argentina’s second goal against Serbia & Montenegro in the World Cup? Is it even appropriate to create fun applications for an industry that, by definition, regularly deals with human tragedy? I hope the answer to the third question is a resounding “yes” if the applications help to save more lives than would otherwise be the case. Perhaps the word I’m looking for isn’t “fun” but “rewarding”. An application that makes its user feel rewarded for using it is a successful application because, presumably, the user will want to continue using it. An emergency worker feels rewarded if they are saving lives and making snap decisions that turn out to be good ones. Therefore, I think a good reformulation of my goal while I remain part of the SAFE project at NICTA is this: to develop rewarding applications (and supporting infrastructure) for the emergency services sector. This isn’t far off my official job description, but what it does is bring into sharp focus the importance of considering the users’ experiences as they interact with the application and system.
Thank you Ben. Thank you Schulze & Webb.
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I guessed right
After Zidane’s assult on Materazzi during the World Cup final, I was thinking to myself "either Materazzi insulted Zidane’s mother or he insinuated that Zidane was a terrorist because of his Algerian/Islamic background". Well it turns out that Materazzi did both of these things, although he denies it. Zidane has always had somewhat of a vindictive streak in him, but I’ve never seen him react to anything quite like that before, and never in such an important game. Slurs against his mother and his ethnicity are the surely the only things that could have provoked him to such violence.
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Italy wins it
Australia can have the satisfaction that it was knocked out by the eventual winners of the World Cup. Italy and France played out a 1-1 draw in the final, so it was decided by penalties. Italy, for once, managed to keep their nerve during the shoot out. Trezeguet was the only player to miss his penalty, with the ball striking the underside of the crossbar and coming back into the field of play. Amazingly, Zidane had scored from a very cheeky penalty in normal time, also striking the underside of the crossbar, but the ball crossed the goal line before bouncing back into the field of play.
Italy had the better of the first half, but France completely dominated the second half and extra time with some brilliant moments provided by Malouda, Ribbery, Henry and Zidane. Italy had a goal disallowed for offside in one of their rare attacking moments of the second period. Zidane could have sealed victory in extra time with an unopposed header, but Buffon kept Italy in the game with an excellent save.
Zidane was sent off in extra time for a blatant head-butt to Materazzi’s chest. Why, oh why oh why did you have to end your career like that Zizou? Nobody wants to remember Zinedine Zidane, surely one of the greatest players ever to have graced a football field, for that one moment of sheer stupidity.
Australia’s World Cup run has been halted by Italy, with the referee again a central figure to the drama. Totti scored the only goal of the match from the penalty spot with the very last kick of the game, to send Italy through to the quarter finals. Kewell was absent from the biggest match in Australia’s history with a touch of gout. How we needed him. Italy had most chances to score in the first half, with Schwarzer pulling off some fine saves. At the beginning of the second half, the referee quite unbelievably sent off Materazzi for what was at worst a yellow card offence: he clumsily brought down Bresciano on the edge of the area. Italy were down to ten men. As was to be expected, Australia dominated the rest of the match. However, we were very unimaginative in attack. There were no incisive passes. Nobody was prepared to run at the Italian defence until Aloisi came on towards the end. He caused the Italians a few nervous moments, but we still had nothing to show for it. If it had gone to extra time, we might well have had something to show for it. Then, in the 94th minute, Grosso made his way into the Australian penalty area. Lucas Neill went to ground in an effort to dispell the danger. The challenge was mistimed, but Neill didn’t collect Grosso. Instead, Grosso made the most of the situation by stepping into the prone figure of Neill and went down. Penalty. Totti gave Schwarzer no chance with the kick. A truly awful way to be knocked out of the tournament, but Italy deserve credit for surviving so long with ten men.
The Australian team have done the nation proud. It was a wonderful ride while it lasted. Revenge in four years.
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We’re through!
Australia came back twice from being a goal down to earn a draw with Croatia, which was enough to take us through to the round of sixteen. It was one of the hairiest ninety minutes of football I’ve ever sat through, and one of the weirdest as well. The referee again had an absolute shocker, failing to send one of the Croatians (Simunic) from the field after he’d received two yellow cards. The same player was later shown another yellow card and then a red card after the full-time whistle was blown. The ref also missed a clear handball and an obvious foul on Viduka, thereby denying Australia two cut-and-dry penalties. Finally, he appeared to blow the final whistle just as Tim Cahill stuck what would have been a winning goal in the back of the net! I won’t say anything about Zeljko Kalac except that he shouldn’t play another game for Australia at the World Cup. I shrieked with horror when I saw him in the starting lineup when the national anthem was played. My hotel room TV was lucky to survive after he made that absolute howler. Anyway, the 2-2 draw was enough to take us through, and that’s all that matters. Kewell’s goal was magic. He’s finally showing glimpses of the way he played for Leeds United when he was at the peak of his powers. He deserved a goal for the way he played, and I’m glad he got it. Lucas Neill has been absolutely top class for all three matches so far. He ought to be playing for a better team than Blackburn, and it wouldn’t surprise me if bigger clubs were interested in buying him. He’s composed under pressure and plays the ball intelligently out of defence instead of just whacking it upfield. For me he’s been the best performer for Australia at this World Cup.
On Wednesday I was told that I’d have to fly to Sydney on Friday to attend a couple of seminars on behalf of NICTA Queensland. If I’d flown down on Friday morning, I’d have missed the TV coverage of the game because I’d have been in a taxi at the time. So I decided, screw it, I’m going a day early so I could watch the coverage. There was no way in the wide world I was going to miss that match. It turns out that if I’d flown down on Friday morning my plane would have been diverted due to fog anyway, and I wouldn’t have been able to attend the seminars anyway. The second seminar was cancelled because the Boeing guy who was giving the seminar got diverted to Melbourne because of the fog. So all-in-all it worked out really well.
The way football has suddenly captured the imagination of this country is absolutely unbelievable. The flight attendants were saying they couldn’t wait for the match against Italy on Tuesday morning. The major free to air channels have had extended coverage of the Australian team. A Current Affair is doing interviews with footballers’ wives. Ken Sutcliffe has said that the Australia v Croatia game was the best moment of his career as a sports presenter. The country has gone football crazy. It feels kind of weird that everyone is suddenly embracing the sport, but I guess that’s what we always wanted. I also get the feeling that this support won’t be fickle. I think the A-League can expect a very good season in terms of attendances. Qualifying for the round of sixteen means that the FFA receives more money than they expected to get from this World Cup. So the game is finally on a strong financial footing in this country. What’s scary is that Australia hasn’t yet won the World Cup, but the celebrations sparked by qualifying for the next round are bigger than anything this country has seen in sport. It’s wonderful!
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Harry gets off…
…the FIFA charge against him, that is. Apparently there were inconsistent reports from the German referee and his assistants. In short, Harry’s a very lucky boy.
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Australia beaten by Brazil
I’ve created a monster. My lovely wife, who got up to watch the Australia v Brazil match with me at 2am this morning, informed me I was unable to go to bed tonight until I’d blogged something nice about Harry Kewell. Let’s see: apart from blasting the ball over the top of the goal when it seemed easier to score and then getting himself reported for remonstrating with the German referee after the match, Harry didn’t play too badly when he came on in the second half. He could easily have ended up with two goals rather than none.
Brazil were an improved side from the one that played Croatia just under a week ago, but they were still far from their entertaining best. In truth they were more than lucky to walk away with all three points (apparently this bit needs explaining: you get three points for a win, one for a draw and none for a loss) after scoring two goals and somehow managing to keep Australia scoreless. Though Australia lost the game, I think they played very well and deserved a point from the match. As it is, Australia now needs a result against Croatia to progress to the round of sixteen. Australia should be confident of beating Croatia, although a draw is all that’s needed. Croatia are having a harder time scoring than Australia is, and I think Australia looks stronger and fitter than the Croatian team. Hiddink has got the Australians well organised, so Croatia should find it very difficult to break down the Aussie defence. Still, anything can happen. Let’s hope the Australian’s have a good win.
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Bloody Awesome
Australia downed Japan 3-1 in their opening match of the World Cup. Tim Cahill scored the first two goals ever by an Australian in the World Cup finals, and it’s the first match Australia has ever won at a World Cup. John Aloisi scored a brilliant solo goal in the dying minutes to cap off a highly entertaining match. Hard to believe Australia was losing 1-0 until the 85th minute, after a controversial goal put the Japanese ahead in the 26th minute.
Just fantastic. Won’t say any more.