On: Soccer and the law of large numbers

[jimbokun]

Also, after watching a little more football, I can now watch a 2-0 match and see how that result can be just as decisive as a 35 - 7 victory.

(One more tip for the Amercian Football fan: multiplying every score by 7 is a good way to convert to something more familiar, kind of like converting Celcius to Fahrenheit.)

[tshtf → jimbokun]

7 is a very close approximation.

In 2006, the average world cup combined score was 2.3 goals: http://www.insidescience.org/current_affairs/best_team_not_g...

In 2006, the average NFL combined score was 20.7 points: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_average_score_for_one_...

20.7/2.3 = 9

[jonknee → tshtf]

Your NFL comparison is off by 2x, the numbers were for a single team. "What is the average score for one team in an NFL game?"

[tshtf → jonknee]

You are correct. The multiplier becomes 18!

[sandipagr → jimbokun]

Is it really? How about the US comeback after going 2-0 down? And it does happens a lot.

[hazzen → sandipagr]

I believe the grandparents meaning is that a 2-0 final score can be viewed as a crushing defeat, not that a 2-goal deficit is an unrecoverable situation.

[sandipagr → hazzen]

I am not sure about that. Scores of 1-0, 2-0, 2-1 are the most common scorelines. I would say difference of 4 or more is more crushing