The Science Behind the Beautiful Game

By popsci Posted 06.16.2006 at 2:11 pm 9 Comments

Becksred
If it’s not clear already, I can’t get enough of the World Cup. I’ve been catching as much action as possible during lunch hour, I’ve installed a Firefox extension that instantly notifies me of any goals scored, I’ve been scouring YouTube for fun nuggets (like this amazing Tiger-esque clip of Ronaldinho showing off his crazy skills), and I wrote about Adidas’s advanced new ball a few days back.

Today webmistress Megan pointed me to another trove of Cup-related goodness from our friends at NewScientist.com. They’ve assembled a number of soccer-related studies and papers produced by like-minded football-crazed scientists the world over. So check it out—and learn why we humans may never be able to accurately make offsides calls, why teams with red shirts (Spain, Iran, Switzerland) might be the teams to watch this year, advanced synthetic materials (previously covered by PopSci) making better goalie gloves and plenty of other interesting tidbits. As for me, if I’m going to do any uniform-based betting, my money’s on the Netherlands’s sweet orange crush. —John Mahoney

Related:
Better Headgear Through Chemistry
A Rounder Ball For the World Stage

9 Comments

Comments

ket (imported)
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 06/18/06 at 12:13 am

American team sucks. In term of superior tactics, I put my money on Iran.

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ketdumb (imported)
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 06/18/06 at 1:28 pm

Obviously this guy about has a low brain cell count. Iran is so far the worst team in the WC. I am not an American fan either but this guy is a little off....as well as all the Iranians.

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chocopie (imported)
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 06/19/06 at 12:34 am

about the red uniforms...

wut about s.korea?!

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F. Samari (imp...
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 06/19/06 at 4:33 am

Respecting people and moreso everyone's opinion is respecting onself(Respect and be respected). Telling Iran is worst team could relate to past scores that's all right but think not many highly credited teams got to this year's WC. Iran won Australlia in 1998 WC and did the same to US then, yet I think this time they only lost to tactics and bad play in WC. there i agree.

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John Mahoney -...
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 06/19/06 at 5:52 pm

I must admit I was skeptical of the red shirt thing as well, but w/ S. Korea's big draw against France yesterday and Spain today, maybe there's something to it?

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rapist (imported)
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 06/20/06 at 3:13 pm

no one cares about S. Korea.

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Rooney (imported)
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 06/21/06 at 9:05 am

En-ga-land, En-ga-land, En-ga-laand!
En-ga-land, En-ga-land, En-ga-laaaand!!

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John Mahoney -...
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 06/21/06 at 12:29 pm

Although they sport the lucky red shirts, the redness of Owen's swollen knee will probably cancel any red voodoo coming their way.

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Yan (imported)
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 06/22/06 at 12:55 am

Football (soccer) newbs! Iran hahaha

Brasil
Argentina
Germany
England

wild cards:
Czech Republic, Switzerland

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