Del Ray Magician

Using Math to Crack the Barca Code

Ever since people have been watching soccer, they have loved the unpredictability of the game, the marvel of a sudden run down the wing, or a shot from distance, or a slick passing move. And ever since people have been playing football they have been trying to make it predictable; training hard to master the perfect run down the wing, the perfect shot from distance, the perfect passing move.

Since Pep Guardiola took over as coach at Barcelona and José Mourinho arrived at Real, football fans have witnessed two teams attempting to perfect the sport using thoroughly contrasting methods.

Both teams have scored exactly the same number of goals; 2.4 per match on average. Both teams play an attacking game with art and grace, both dominate La Liga, the Spanish championship, and both stormed through the early phases of the Champions League last year.

And so everywhere were set for a historical treat when the two best teams in the world played four games in three weeks at the end of last season: a league match, a cup final and a two-legged semi-final in the Champions League. But it was no feast of football for the fans; rather, the games developed into one intense battle strung out over 390 minutes, which revealed everything that can be said about modern football.

The Magic of Barca's Passing

You could rave about Messi's slalom run which made it 2-0 to Barca in the first leg of the semi-final, or about the move which saw Real player Angel di María set up Cristiano Ronaldo's match-winning header in the cup final, or about the magic of Barcelona's incredibly fast passing between the 30th and the 40th minutes of the semi-final second leg. You certainly could rave about those things.

But the true story of these games is told by the numbers. Math and geometry, with angles and diagonals, must be applied to the game in order to grasp why Barcelona won the Champions League and La Liga while Real Madrid only took home the Copa del Rey. It is something many football coaches occupy themselves with before and after the game, and some even during halftime.

José Mourinho is obsessed with modern match analysis, like many other coaches in Spain and England. Since his time at Chelsea, and then at Inter Milan and now Read Madrid, he has trusted stats company Amisco supply him with match data collected in 60 stadiums all over Europe. Every little movement of every player is captured by sensors, then analyzed and sent to him.

Ask Terry Brooks: August Post « Del Rey and Spectra - Science ...

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Dear Readers,

Here we are, back in the familiar Ask Terry forum, all of us hoping the same thing – that I will actually know some real answers this time out. Well, don’t hold your breath. Just remember that I make my living writing fantasy, and it doesn’t stop with the books. But there’s always that time or two when I slip up or actually tip to the real thing, and you get the answer you always knew was hiding out there somewhere.

So let’s end the suspense and see what magic we can conjure up::

Terry Brooks replies: Probably not. I am not fond of writing or even passably good at writing short stories. Mostly, when I take one on, it drives me to distraction. As I have written before, it is all I can do to keep a short story short and it is really not worth the effort. I much prefer writing long fiction. I like reading short fiction, but I am not good at conjuring it up. That said, I can’t speak for what will happen as time goes on. If I get too weary to stick it out with long fiction, I may fall back on writing short. Or maybe age will make my long fiction magically turn into short fiction.

Terry Brooks replies: Now, there’s a question I haven’t heard before. Hard to say, really. I love books and being around books and writers and readers of books. It forms the basis of who and what I am. I am immersed in it to such a degree I can’t imagine life without it. All of it is joyful and endlessly fascinating and compelling. But that doesn’t address your question, does it? I guess maybe what I really like is the satisfaction I get when I have finished a book – or any piece of writing, really – so that I can hold it up and say, “That’s mine! I wrote that! I really like what it is and how it works.” Then, a day or two later, I set it aside and go on to the next piece of work.

Robots & Magic

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To be continued, an annotated guide to sequels

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Chapters on magic in Spanish literature