Timeline

2006-07-14T16:26:00.000-07:00

Coming soon

World Cup 2006 - Germany

2006-06-07T00:50:00.000-07:00

From 5th June 2006

Groups A and B
Germany is seen as favorite for group A, not expected to fail passing. Poland may win the group dependidng of the direct result against Germany. Costa Rica has some chances for second.
England and Sweden are expected to pass in the top spots, waiting for decisions from group A to know their opponents.

Groups C and D
Holland and Argentina are expected to pass by that order.
Portugal needs a favorable result against Iran or Mexico to guarantee passage. Even if that happens it is undefined who will also pass.

Groups E and F
Czechia is expected to pass, with Italy or USA deciding the other spot among them.
Brazil is expected to dominate their group, with the second spot available to any other. Notice that a traditional Brazil versus Italy may happen already in round of 16.

Groups G and H
France is expected to pass easily, encountering Ukraine or Tunisia in round of 16, having already good chances for quarter finals.
Spain shall have an edge for top spot in their group encountering Switzerland or South Korea in round of 16, having also good chances for quarter finals.

Especulating to quarter finals
If France reach quarter finals it will play probably against Czechia, Italy, Croatia, Australia or Japan. Only Czechia and Italy are considered very likely and tough contenders.
If Spain reach quarter finals it will probably play against Brazil, Czechia, Italy or USA, being Brazil and Italy more likely.
Portugal has good chances of winning their group, then playing against Argentina, and the winner will probably face England in quarter finals.

Round of 16 ranking top chances
G1: (Germany or Poland) vs Sweden

G2: England vs (Germany, Poland or Costa Rica)

G3: Holland vs (Portugal, Iran or Mexico)

G4: (Portugal, Iran or Mexico) vs Argentina

G5: (Czechia or Italy) vs (Croatia, Australia or Japan)

G6: Brazil vs (Czechia, Italy or USA)

G7: France vs (Ukraine or Tunisia)

G8: Spain vs (Switzerland or South Korea)

Round of 16 prediction
G1: Germany vs Sweden => undefined, Germany favorite
G2: England vs Poland => England

G3: Holland vs Iran => Holland

G4: Portugal vs Argentina => undefined, Argentina favorite

G5: Czechia vs Croatia => Czechia

G6: Brazil vs Italy => Brazil

G7: France vs Ukraine => France

G8: Spain vs Switzerland => Spain

Quarter finals prediction
Q1: (G1 vs G3) = ??? vs Holland => undefined, Holland favorite

Q2: (G2 vs G4) = England vs ??? => undefined, England favorite

Q3: (G5 vs G7) = Czechia vs France => undefined, France favorite

Q4: (G6 vs G8) = Brazil vs Spain => Brazil

Monkey Woman and more

2006-06-03T17:17:00.000-07:00

Choose your mood!

2006-05-28T18:27:00.000-07:00

European ass day

2006-05-13T18:19:00.000-07:00

Uncut version

Excalibur Challenge, since 2nd May 2006

2006-05-02T00:01:00.000-07:00

With the popularity of games like Sudoku, puzzles or other brainteasers, it is noted that some of those games are mostly logic or memory based, not requiring much mental skills.

In this challenge one must only find each rule that allows to fill each matrix in each row. There is only one possible type of solution for each question. An high IQ may be favorable, as also raw effort. There is no age or educational level restriction.

The aim is to fill the last row determining the last matrix, Excalibur.

The challengers may e-mail me with the exact image file completed attached, subject "Excalibur Challenge" and identifying himself by a codename, country and age. The file must remain the type JPG and only 3 chances are given to any challenger for each question.

This will be posted in the front page for a maximum of 300 days or 30 correct answers.

Note
After 32 days, no one has achieved even a partial solution.
Hint: "there is more than the eye can see".
You may please keep trying.

Editorial: End of an era

2006-04-19T11:52:00.000-07:00

After the end of the dutch league it is time to evaluate the level of accuracy a posteriori from what was published.
With the composite results from 279 games of 306 total, 91.2%, it was presented an ordering that is similar with the final league ordering by 98.7%, considering only rounded points, and one is free to check that independently, that is to say that an extension of reality was achieved.
The minor errors occurred mostly because some clubs started to play underdog compared to their previous level, in absolute contrast with others. This is an observation valid also from the latest results in the greek league. Since those were the most unbalanced leagues in the european top 9, it is not yet possible to say if that is a common phenomenon expected from every league like a regression to the mean or other intrinsic value.

After about a month using statistic tools to follow football league events, it becomes clear that mid to long term performances can be tracked to any club from any league with an high level of accuracy, while short term performances can fluctuate easily to the level of surprise.

With so many issues in current news and pratical matters that everyone has to deal with, football can become an excess from the real life that one may not give much general importance. In terms of performance, other sports have already league or rankings better structured and more accurate than the ones found in the daily newspaper, take a look at Elo used in chess for example and it was adapted for football national teams.

From now on this blog is being considered for evaluation, being football never more expected to be a major issue, but being possibly one or other post related to it. The system developed is abstract, and by that the input can be from every kind, and the internal structure can be changed to account for other competitive population. The system tracks every result as soon as it becomes available, there are no expected surprises unless the ones from subjective considerations.

In overall, this blog has traded some time for more objective views or knowledge, absolute or forced answers were never considered since subjectiveness is also part of the construction of knowledge, and that was also used in the design of the system.

Global Radar Shield, 18th April 2006

2006-04-18T15:00:00.000-07:00

How strong is the protection that one club can give to its position against the immediate follower?

Notes:

Champions League 2006/07 Tracker, 17th April 2006

2006-04-18T06:31:00.000-07:00

Spain
Barcelona is very close to secure 1st place, while Osasuna position in QR3 queue may be lost unless they recover in short time.

England
Liverpool has secured 3rd, while above positions are almost delivered. Only a large set of surprises could take 1st place from Chelsea. 4th place has no favorite by now.

Italy
Juventus is not secure of becoming champion, while Inter has almost secured 3rd. In the middle spot, Milan can drift to both sides. The 4th spot is undecided between Fiorentina and Roma.

France
Lyon is 100% available, while Bordeaux is almost 2nd. The 3rd place will go to a group of clubs that would include Marseille if they could recover the penalty point deduced.

Germany
Bayern Munich is almost 1st, but Hamburg may have something to say about that. Bremen is considered for 3rd since the performance of Schalke has been dwindling.

Portugal
FC Porto is very close to secure 1st, while Benfica has secured 3rd and is waiting for a slip from Sporting to attempt 2nd.

Holland
PSV is 100% available. 2nd spot is to be decided in an independent competition from the league between AZ, Feyenoord, Ajax and Groningen.

Greece
Olympiakos is very close to secure the title, while the 2nd spot is undefined between AEK and Panathinaikos.

Belgium
Standard and Anderlecht will decide the title, while Club Brugge may attempt 2nd if one of the above starts to decline from expected.

Targets are seen inside the mainframe, while actual points are seen in the QR3 queue.

Editorial: Echo from the void

2006-04-11T16:14:00.000-07:00

After some time in general football forums, it becomes apparent that the visitors mostly prefer backward and self-absorved subjective opinions than objectiveness when building an argument. Although everyone has an opinion, an opinion based on factual events is always more correct, it allows others to check independently what was proposed and apply thinking tools, like math, logic or context, enabling even the first proponent to step back and correct himself.

From what was observed directly in forums, the replies sounded very limited and tried to do things like:
1) Evoking performances achieved by a group of athleats, and managing staff, that is not the present group, and trying to get an immediate unjustified correspondence with the present group.
2) Believing that if one team has a series of games with the same result, that should count differently from having another series of results.
3) Believing that everyone on forum is on the same level, of knowledge or intelligence, when it comes to find or present an explanation for what or why something is or has happened.
4) Not being aware of their own repetitive behaviours and presuming a direct indication about work shown as a personal attack.
5) Having a personal view not independent of his favorite team, whether it plays good or bad relative to the expected.
6) Having a personal view very biased by media and social environment.

From what was presented on this blog:
1) Only results achieved by athleats from which performance was in benefit of their teams in the current season are considered.
2) A result is an expression of a team's current performance, it is tracked immediately as soon as happens. The team is seen better or worse, depending directly from the actual results.
3) Posts may have a defined order. One must be aware of his own limitations when reading what is presented.
4) That may be related with the "killer ape" theory or apes in general.
5) Performance related numbers don't change according with the name, geographical region or colors of a team.
6) Whatever appears on media or is said, is not considered for the prodution of this type of results, they are produced mostly automatically.

It must be acknowledged that point number 2) was something not immediately recognizable when devising such a method, but since some replies insisted in that notion, it was found that the system is capable of tracking precisely that kind of events, being that only one particular case.

The accuracy of the projections is not publicly available, but can be computed. The less keen in math may check when the system simply commits an error, since it has already generated extraneous reactions mainly because of the limitations of the human factor by not assuming that computers can deal much better with enourmous and various kinds of info.

The info presented in projections is simplistic because it was chosen to be so. The subjective parts are left for interpretations. It is not important to know circumstancial data if it doesn't have a correspondence in actual future long term events, that is why that kind of info is not even computed, nor other like UEFA rankings, easy to compute or find on the Internet.

The technics behing the system, and sub-systems in general, follow college level habilities, even so this is just a particular low-layered raw case. Some technical staff or alike may devise more routine work without even suggesting something new.

The speed and orientation of info produced was also considered, few posts regarding the same info have followed the same method, having some replied with topics related to short-term projections, that was the main subject of a previous post, there is no need to insist on it. Note: dates pass, concepts change.

It is expected that the visitor of this blog, may acquire objective info about some team's performance, becomes even more criticaly objective and gain time to discuss other football related issues. This was a suggestion for a step from opinion to fact based opinion.

Constructive comments are welcomed.

Portugal and Holland - EGP Advantage

2006-04-07T11:38:00.001-07:00

From what is seen, FC Porto hasn't shown enough power to assure the title, not being able to protect their leading status from Sporting, to date. This weekend FC Porto will play away on Sporting's ground.

Sporting has an advance good enough to keep Benfica far away, while the same happens between Benfica and Braga.

Boavista can't do more than 5th along with Nacional, while Setúbal is good enough to threaten Nacional without needing to worry much about Leiria and followers.

Bottom clubs are very close to each other, with Guimarães having some chances for maintenance in contrast with the few for Gil Vicente.

PSV is the reigning champion, while AZ don't need to worry much about Feyenoord unless some surprise happens. The same happens between Utrecht and Ajax, being Ajax leveled with Groningen.

Roda can hardly keep 9th with the opposition from Twente and Vitesse.

EuroClub Ranking 2006 - EGP, 02nd April 2006

2006-04-07T11:38:00.000-07:00

What is seen is nothing more than the average capacity of a club to perform above its own position in the ranking. It is needed to note that this specific ranking is always posted based on previous results and don't reflect only participations on any single official competition.

World Rankings: FIFA and ELO

2006-04-06T15:58:00.000-07:00

Since World Cup 2006 is soon to start, a look in a world ranking might suggest the relative potencial between teams.
It was decided to compare the World ELO Football Ranking from 30th March 2006, with the FIFA World Ranking from the same month.
Taking only the first 60 teams of the FIFA ranking and checking their corresponding rank in the ELO ranking, it is possible to get a similarity of 88%. Although it is a very high number, in practice it is noted that some teams may not have produced much positive results in the last few months to be ranked so high in the FIFA ranking. This is one of the main arguments against FIFA ranking, it tends to respond slowly, hence not being able to give much more than a delayed or time distorted vision of each team’s relative short or mid-term previous performance to the reader.
Applying the latest method developed to FIFA ranking, intended to absorb small fluctuations mainly from random events that can influence results and assuming that they shouldn’t have weight in a team’s average performance, creates positional classes enabling a composite view for teams of the same level. This also filters the best teams among the generally good. The level of similarity is almost the exact same but this was the ranking seen

In red are teams not qualified for World Cup 2006, and only teams qualified are shown below rank 20. For purposes of construction of World Ranking posted previously, only ELO ranking is used.

Champions League 2006/07 Tracker, 05th April 2006

2006-04-05T11:07:00.001-07:00

This tracker only accounts spots available for clubs from the top 9 european leagues and for the next european champion.
At the bottom is visible a queue with clubs that have almost guaranteed QR3 participation minimum.
There is the particular case of portuguese clubs FC Porto and Sporting still disputing the title, and on QR3 queue a similar case occurs between belgium clubs Anderlecht and Standard.
This info may be changed according to UEFA regulations about the club that wins the trophy this year or other UEFA regulations.

Romanian league test projection

2006-04-05T07:55:00.000-07:00

This is just a test projection, it was a good test since most of the clubs are unknown and so the results are unbiased.
What is seen is that the data source required for this projection hasn't achieved the average progression that makes each club to have played against half of the league opponents twice to unbiase calendar distribuition, enough to be considered a good projection. That was exactly one of the intentions.

From what is shown in EGP, Steaua is good enough to menace Dinamo in long term, Sportul is to be menaced by all the following 4 clubs, is a slightly weak 3rd place club. Rapid can easily menace 3rd or be menaced by followers, but higher places look difficult to reach. FCU Poli clearly demands more than 7th by now, after that a division occurs with Farul well stablished on 8th relative to the top clubs. Bottom clubs are divided between the below average and the lowest 2 clubs. The considerations made about relegations, and others in general, depends mostly of the calendar of each club and are not to be seen as definitive yet.
If the calendar is to be considered balanced, after round 28 only Dinamo and Steaua will fight for the title since the others have not shown much power.

This may be the last projection about this league.

Editorial: Top league's projections, 04th April 2006

2006-04-04T21:03:00.000-07:00

Some developments in team's performance happened this week resulting in some changes, decisions or surprises.

In particular, projections for dutch league are not more to be made this season.

Alot of feedback has been received by football fans directly or indirectly, some not very friendly, objective or unbiased. What I have to say to these people is thanks for their interpretations, to see what can break these projections and to compare the info on the projections with the league tables, as a matter of fact the projections are much more superproductive, because they are based in less info and give more insight to future events.

I appreciate the feedback since it helps to determine what set of info can be considered more valuable to the reader and selected to be posted.

Some sub-systems that could have enabled earlier placement projections have changed drastically. It is to be tested soon from factual data. Classified info will only be available to the designer.

EuroClub Ranking update, 02nd April 2006

2006-04-04T09:35:00.000-07:00

This version follows a different method than the same ranking previously posted, but identical to the latest World Ranking posted. It intends to do the same than before and also filter the best clubs among the generally good.
Being this a ranking and not a projection, one is free to make their own interpretation from the fact based data presented.
Having passed two weeks since the last update, some variations are very clear and should be related to real events.

Acknowledgement

European Football Statistics

World Ranking, 30th March 2006

2006-03-31T11:14:00.000-08:00

This follows a different method than the previously posted. In red it is seen the teams that are ranked in position 20 or above and are not to be present on World Cup 2006, below that are only referred teams that qualified. On the right side it is seen the average rating of each team.

Acknowledgement

World Football ELO Ratings

Advanced Satellite Consulting

UEFA 2006/07 top 9 league's access tracker

2006-03-28T13:18:00.000-08:00

This data doesn't follow a posteriori observations considering teams winning or loosing every game. Spots in yellow background are only available if one club qualifies to UEFA competitions by more than one method. This info may be changed by UEFA.

Champions League 2006/07 top 9 league's access tracker

2006-03-28T03:37:00.000-08:00

What is visible is not the final position still possible in the league, but the ordering of the spots that gives access to Champions League, check dutch access method for more info. This may be subject to changes by UEFA decision.

EuroClub Ranking, updated by 19th March 2006

2006-03-21T03:00:00.000-08:00

EuroClub Ranking 2006
"EuroClub Ranking" is a variation of "European Club Ranking", available on the Internet, that intentionally doesn't take in account small fluctuations between a team's overall performance and also small differences between different teams, by assuming a greater margin of error to account for random events that may circumstancially affect their performance; besides that it also groups clubs in positional classes. Since it takes in consideration national and international official competitions, this is a good ranking to estimate a team's overall performance during the entire season.

1) 130 Juventus
2) 128 Barcelona
3) 127 Milan
4) 126 Inter
5) 125 Lyon
6) 124 Chelsea, PSV
7) 123 Liverpool, Roma
8) 122 Bayern Munich, Hamburg
9) 121 AZ Alkmaar, CSKA Moskva, Real Madrid, Zenit
10)120 Benfica, Marseille, Schalke, Sevilla
11)119 Ajax, Arsenal, Lokomotiv Moskva, Manchester Utd, Palermo
12)118 Bremen, Lille, Olympiakos, FC Porto, Rapid Bucuresti, Villareal
13)117 Bolton, Espanyol, Heerenveen, Middlesbrough, Steaua, Valência
14)116 Basel, Deportivo, Feyenoord, Levski, Shaktar, Spartak Moskva, Sporting, Udinese

All clubs still in UEFA competitions are visible in black.
It is immediate that the mean performance of Champions League candidates is superior than UEFA Cup candidates, as expected.
Looking to the top, one can see the 5 stars of european football, they are all currently in Champions League and leading their national leagues, except Milan and Inter with opposition from Juventus. A medium gap is noticed between these clubs and the other 3 still in UCL, suggesting that if one of those 5 doesn't become European Champion, from today's standards would be a surprise.
The clubs in UEFA Cup constitute a very balanced group with no great differences unless one consider the top and bottom rated clubs, even so there is just a medium 4 positions gap, which is to say that there are no clear favorites.

Empirical view
Earlier was stated that empirically when 2 clubs are differing by more than 10 rating pts, the less rated hardly could win, that is a good aproximation for clubs more closer to the mean, but since this distribuition follows a bell-shaped curve, the top and bottom clubs tend to have a boost in their ratings, so a better empirical approximation would be a difference of more than 10 class positions in this ranking. To understand this one may take the example of the top team Juventus, and see that all UCL teams except Villareal are big or moderate threats to its international objective, while Milan, Inter, Roma and Palermo are the biggest threats to its domestic objectives. This view it is only possible if one assume that this ranking can express each team's mean potencial, and other person may find other number around 10 more suitable.

Acknowledgement

European Club Ranking

Weekend, from 17th March 2006

2006-03-17T09:28:00.000-08:00

This week romanian football fans found many reasons to cellebrate their clubs success and even more after UEFA draw two of their clubs against one another in UEFA Cup quarter finals, which assures them more points within UEFA Country Ranking and puts one romanian club in the semi-finals.

Instead of insisting in football, I will post something else new about Romania.

Meet Alexandra Maria Lara

She is a romanian young actress, having starred in more than 20 movies, famous internationally after starring in the truth based World War II movie Der Untergang, directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, performing in a supporting role as Hitler's real life private secretary Traudl Junge.
This was one of the best movies to depict the dispair, the inabillity to deal with their own failure, and the fall of Hilter and his followers. It also shows a very bad articulated and ideologic divided hierarchy by the nazis. This was also the first time that a german speaking actor played Hitler in a main role with a high level of screentime exposition, a very good performance by swiss born Bruno Ganz.

Football Rankings - trying to be fair

2006-03-15T08:06:00.000-08:00

Rankings are a way to compare elements from a common context according to a criteria considered fair and able to describe the intended objective.
There are many football rankings published, some available on the Internet, some made by entities that organize competitions, others made by experts or media and even some made by fans. If one tries to compare most rankings, some differences will be noticed, since the criteria followed wasn't always the same or hasn't been updated.

UEFA Rankings
One type of rankings very well accepted in Europe are the ones made by UEFA. They are mostly used to determine the number of places available for clubs from each country to access UEFA competitions, to determine the starting stage of a club in each competition and for seedings in general, including national teams. The main problem found in this type of rankings is that some are made by results older than 4 years, not reflecting the present status of the football produced by a country or a team, and giving small chances of teams from low ranked countries to see their level boost after a good season. That aspect is not entirely negative since it is more of a mechanism to surpass the short-term surprises and filter lucky events, giving more exposition to regularly good teams. It could be better, since there is the backdraw of giving the same importance to the performance achieved today as for the one achieved years ago, for pratical terms it should have a declining method in time to account more for present events and describe present reality better.
Other limitation is that each team's performance is not just what they do in one type of competition, but what they do at everyone they are involved in, and also being able to manage themselves within that demand. This type of ranking doesn't describe any transformation a team has passed by between two UEFA game events, it is a self-absorbed ranking, closed in itself.
By its nature, this ranking is only usefull to describe the performance of a team in UEFA competitions, and its construction is rather too simplistic. It is available in the Internet and may be updated after each UEFA matchday.

It is more valuable to follow a team overall performance using other rankings.

EuroClub Ranking
From the rankings that contemplate more than just a participation in UEFA competitions, it is available on the Internet "European Club Ranking". It is a very good ranking that takes in account the performance of european clubs in different official competitions, domestic or organized by UEFA. The main limitation found was that it tries to show a very high rigour with many decimal places that is unjustified, since every game outcome comprises also the interference from a large set of random events. My view is that this ranking can reflect, much better than UEFA's, each team's relative mean potencial within the others, even using weighting to reflect relative differences between european countries level of quality/competition. Using some math, it is possible to change part of that ranking to get "EuroClub Ranking" which assumes that random events may happen, and accounts for a small margin that tries to absorb the fluctuations around each team's mean potencial caused by that set of events.
This is the ranking updated by 12th March 2006

1) 130 Juventus
2) 128 Barcelona
3) 126 Chelsea, Lyon
4) 125 Milan
5) 124 PSV
6) 123 Bayern Munich, Inter, Liverpool
7) 122 AZ Alkmaar, Roma
8) 121 Benfica, CSKA Moskva, Hamburg, Real Madrid
9) 120 Ajax, Lokomotiv Moskva, Marseille, Zenit
10)119 Bremen, Manchester Utd, Palermo, Schalke
11)118 Arsenal, Lille, Olympiakos, Rapid Bucuresti, Sevilla, Villareal
12)117 Bolton, FC Porto, Feyenoord, Lens, Middlesbrough, Udinese, Valência

Names in red are for clubs out of current UEFA competitions until the date of the last update. From all that was written above, this ranking intends to determine what are the best overall teams in Europe, not what are the teams that achieve a single specific objective.

World Ranking
Some aspects about UEFA's rankings are similar to the ones about FIFA's ranking, it reflects mostly the outcomes of the games in FIFA's or other continental federation's events.
Available on the Internet is "World Football Elo Ratings", one ranking that comprises most of the results achieved by each national team in all kind of games. Those are the principles that approximates the ranking to the true national team's mean potencial within the others. Using some more math, for similar reasons than before, the following "World Ranking" can be derived.
This is the ranking updated by 13th March 2006 filtered and re-ordered to show only the teams qualified to the final stage of World Cup 2006

1) 126 Brazil
2) 124 Holland
3) 122 England
4) 121 Spain
5) 120 Czech
6) 119 France, Italy
7) 118 Argentina, Portugal
8) 117 Germany
9) 116 Sweden, USA
10)115 Croatia
11)114 Iran, Mexico, Poland
12)113 Japan
13)112 Australia, Serbia and Montenegro, Switzerland
14)111 Ivory Coast, Paraguai, Ukraine
15)110 Costa Rica, Ecuador, South Korea
16)109 Tunisia
17)107 Saudi Arabia
18)106 Ghana, Trinidad and Tobago
19)105 Angola
20)104 Togo

One is free to organize it in known groups. From all that was written above, this ranking, considering all the national teams, intends to determine what are the best overall national teams in the World, not what are the teams that achieve a single specific objective.

In both rankings a difference of more than 10 points roughly says that the team lagging behing hardly can win, but within that margin teams are considered to be close. This approximation is just an empirical observation and one is free to guess from the info shown what teams are presently the prime candidates to win any competition.

Acknowledgements

About short-term projections

2006-03-09T13:19:00.000-08:00

UEFA Cup - Round of 16 - 1st leg
From the projection made only two results came out right, the victories of Lille and Basel. One is free to use the Internet to compare results.

About short-term projections
During this week projections were made using different statistic methods, resulting in different predicted results. Some that were posted became outdated in few hours, since a different method was adopted.
The results obtained are not enough to draw conclusions, but after the experiment several reasons for the discrepancy can be pointed out, from the point of view of the designer.
Assumptions had to be made, since there were many ways to compare teams. When one is trying to compare teams by results, what is doing is assuming each team as a whole and taking the final results of each game as the only valid form of work produced by it. In reality each member of the team, athleats, managers or technics, have a different range of performance through time, hence influence in a team, and must be able to play coherently in a productive group, so a team can be seen like a composite signal that fluctuate in time, suffering interference from every other variable one can think of. The final result is no more than a way of accounting for the goals, one in a wide range of events happening, being known that not every goal requires the same amount of actual effort to be produced, hence the result not being an accurate measure of the effort spended .The result becomes the future objective within the game, that motivates game intervieners and public. So the happening of a goal is the barrier between the future illusion of an event or the present notion of an event happening, hence, within the laws of the game, the time of a game is the main force that brings the possibility for the event to happen and also the possibility of creating in the mind of the spectator a simple and common-sense accepted measure of the most relevant events that could account for the game itself.
Since a two leg elimination round is no much different than a league with two teams, each result of a game accounts for half of the league time to play, reducing the chance of happening enough events that could express each team's full potencial, being the number of goals the possibility of a team rule over the other without a regular effort in time, and turning circunstancial events crucial. By this, any projection of the result of a likely game, even taking part of the past history of results, is not enough to determine a closer approximation to the real set of events that constitute one single game.
Although a result in a very short timespan competition cannot be better predicted, for a long timespan competition, it is noted that a team, as a whole, may see its own performance by any pratical measure converge in mean to an hipothetical value equivalent of obtaining that single abstract value in all moments of measurement. That is the principle that keeps the players, fans and others in the late timespan of a league believing that a season objective is or isn't likely to happen.
Saying that it is making an acknowledgement that the most probable thing one can find in trying to predicte the outcome of one single game, is the boredom or enlightenment, of becoming aware that there are so many events that a criteria has to be made, being by that the prediction biased by the referrals of the predictor, human, machine or abstract.
By contrast to short-term predictions, the notion of a team historic carries so much time that the mean performance of even generations can be seen reflected in the final outcomes, being that mean understood by the general audience and regular media, turning a team's name a common word or a forgotten one.