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Episode 19: Latest Superliga chat w/ Casper De Linde & Probabilities w/ Mads Gerner Pedersen
360 Plays1 year ago
In Part 1 Casper De Linde and I chew over the latest Superliga action including both FC Nordsjælland & FC København struggling and a Randers masterclass.
In Part 2 I talk to Mads Gerner Pedersen about the season through the lens of odds and probabilities to see if they hold the key to a better understanding of how the rest of the campaign will play out.
As ever please do consider supporting the show by becoming a Patreon and check out the rest of my Danish football content at footballindenmark.com
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Transcript
Welcome and Introduction
00:00:08
Speaker
This is Danish Dynamite, the Super League Podcast, brought to you by footballindemark.com. Welcome to Danish Dynamite, episode 19, and for the first time ever, two episodes in a week, which is very exciting. So if you haven't listened to the interview with Matej Delac, goalkeeper from Horsons, that came out on Monday, go back and listen to that.
Super League's Summer Format: Viable Option?
00:00:29
Speaker
But for today's show, I have got Kasper Delin back by popular demand.
00:00:34
Speaker
to chew through another exciting weekend of Super League action. Kasper, welcome. Where to start? Actually, I think where we'll start is over the weekend, I decided to share an opinion on Twitter, which is always quite a dangerous thing to do. And not to my surprise, I discovered that people also have strong opinions. So the opinion was on the Super League switching to a Summer League format. And I wondered, Kasper, what's your take on this? Because my reasoning for it was,
00:01:03
Speaker
The weather is pretty rubbish as we get into late autumn winter. The winter breaks really long. You're competing with Bundesliga Premier League during the season and it means that
00:01:14
Speaker
when the teams have their crucial European qualifiers in the summer, they're just really getting going in their seasons. So they're not hitting them at full speed. And we saw with AGF getting beaten by a team from Northern Ireland, for example, that that can be quite detrimental to the coefficient. So yeah, I wondered what was your take on this, and I'm going to try and drag you into this debate.
00:01:35
Speaker
Yeah, so actually I heard your episode with Castellan as well and I saw your post the other day and I am basically pretty pro of making this move. I think it would be great to get more people on stadiums during the summer and I think it's an awesome opportunity and there's nothing worse than a cold winter day and everything is freezing to ice and the pitches are horrible and then the Super League gets
00:02:04
Speaker
you could say, settled on bad pitches.
Challenges of Summer Squad Changes
00:02:07
Speaker
So I like the idea of moving the season because it gives more games in a better period. And then I think you need to be extremely aware of the shortfalls as well because yes, you're right. There is a chance that your teams are up and running at full speed, but at the same time, there's no doubt that
00:02:26
Speaker
it's still going to be the summer window when squads are going to be emptied by bigger clubs, right? So it is also a balance there. So yes, you might be running in better form, but you will still be losing your best squad up against the end of the season, which I assume would be in favor of the strong teams in general over a year.
European Matches and Cold Stadiums
00:02:49
Speaker
So maybe it would be better news for FC Copenhagen and FC Michelin in the long run to have a setup like this.
00:02:55
Speaker
but that's just my quick thinking around it. Yeah, and your team are more than likely going to be involved in some European games over the summer, so that's going to be an exciting prospect and hopefully, speaking purely from a selfish point of view, maybe we'll get another draw in England or elsewhere in the UK that will enable me to go to it. I would like us to go to Wales. Yeah, that'd be amazing.
00:03:18
Speaker
That would be amazing. You mentioned about the weather. Is it just me, or does everyone say that Farum is the coldest place to be in winter? Because there are places more northern in Denmark, but it seems to me that's the name that people always say, that you've never been colder than an FC Nozling game. Is that true? I can say it is extremely cold at least. I'm not one of these fans that go on a lot of a weight trip. My small family doesn't really
00:03:41
Speaker
Permit me to to go but I can say farm is by far the coldest stadium I've been at And that's comparing a predominant downcedent. So often when we go during the winter months I have like two sets of ski underwear on extra socks and winter boots a winter jacket, of course I had and I still go home freezing with two blankets on so so it's not great. I
00:04:10
Speaker
Yeah, at the VBorg FC Michelin game a few weeks ago, I was handed a blanket, which is the first time I've ever had that in the stands. But that was quite nice having a blanket.
FC Nordsjælland's Crisis and Sheldrup's Impact
00:04:20
Speaker
I definitely didn't say no to that. Yeah, it's nice, huh? Let's talk about some of the action and big result this weekend. VBorg won FC Nordschle and nil. How big of a blow was that result to you? So the result was a very big blow. I don't even know if it's more concerning, but
00:04:39
Speaker
as concerning as the result was the game in itself. I mean, it was pretty underwhelming that we didn't have more tools in the toolbox than we did. And I think this season started out by being a bit, now I'm going to sound like a pure fan, right? But I think if Sinoshina was a bit unlucky in the first few games, but I think it's evolved into
00:05:05
Speaker
like a crisis on the pitch or a small crisis at least. So we're just not playing as well as we should. And V-ball, they are a structured team with a very fine balance between attacking and defending and knows how to make the game compact. And they once again proved that their concept in itself was strong and Norschland simply didn't have the correct response to that.
00:05:34
Speaker
Result, bad. Game form, really bad. So let's see if it's going up or down.
00:05:43
Speaker
Your mood bad? My mood is actually okay because I mean, I'm not one of these fans who say it is so horrible that we've lost 10 points. I'm still pretty much in the mood of, yes, I would have preferred not to lose 10 points to obstacle making, but I still look at the big picture on where we came from. So I cry with one eye and I smile with the other one still. And people is probably going to say that it is unambitious. It's the FC Northland attitude.
00:06:11
Speaker
And, well, both of those cases might be true, but it's still the way I feel, I must say.
FC Copenhagen Cup Preview
00:06:17
Speaker
Got it. Yeah. And going into that game, I actually, when the teams came out, I thought if there was any opportunity for, for Nordsland to get some good luck in, in their favor, not playing against Elias Asciuri at the moment, who's, you know, unquestionably the, the danger man for V-Borg was a positive. And yet, as you said, it was a bit of a flat performance. I remember a chance for, for Ernest Nwama on his left foot, but
00:06:39
Speaker
Beyond that, there wasn't a huge amount to talk about. I wonder, given that there's been some water under the bridge since then, how much is Sheldrup's loss being felt, do you think? It's a lot, right? I think the big thing for me is if you see the build up now with Evsenoshlan, they've moved in Du Mante as a false
00:06:58
Speaker
left wing, you can say. So he falls down into the pitch, he becomes a part of the build-up, whereas shell-up was very often the man, the furthest in front of our team. So he had very few passes in him and that's because he was brought on, you can say, the very last part of the pitch.
00:07:14
Speaker
So it's been a fundamental change to the build up, which has had the consequence that we now only have speed over the right wing, which means that we in general are a bit more predictable. And then just back to the game, I think you're completely right. We only had the Nuama chance. And now again, I'm going to sound like a superfan again. But again, Bibo didn't either have any chances before they scored. So until the
00:07:36
Speaker
They came in front 1-0. It was a pretty even game with a small favor in FC Neuschland's advantage with FC Neuschland with the only big chance. Then there is a corner kick. They fumble it into the goal and that is also very much the talk of the season or the spring season at least that quality has just been dipping in these very crucial moments.
00:08:01
Speaker
that goes for both the shot from Nwama that hits the post and it goes from the full team not defending properly on a corner shot. On the subject of Sheldrup, I think hindsight is obviously 20-20, but seeing him play very few minutes for Benfica, I do wonder whether it would have been beneficial for him to have had the rest of the season on loan, see out what was a very promising year, continue that momentum and then move in the summer, but maybe that wasn't an option.
00:08:26
Speaker
Well, it depends, right? I think, could FC Neuschland have forced the player to stay? For sure, they could. It's not the first time in history that someone's been forced not to move, but it's also a matter of how do you want to live up to the promises that you make. And maybe, if FC Neuschland had been another club, they would have, as I said, forced them to stay. But I mean,
00:08:49
Speaker
he started to post on Instagram the eagle of Benfica in negotiation period so I think it was pretty clear on what Andreas at least wanted so it's always these conversations can be a bit tough because one thing is if Andreas gets upset but Andreas also played a very big role in getting in the next Norwegian superstar that's coming in the summer right
00:09:15
Speaker
So again, you want Antares Schererhope to be the ambassador for FC Neuschlein, going forward for the next many years. And if you're going to battle out, every single time there's a great Norwegian player, they're going to battle it out against FC Copenhagen. So even though it sounds crazy to let your best man go, it might be worth it in the long run to respect the arrangement that was made to have a strong ambassador in the
Randers' Success and Managerial Strategies
00:09:43
Speaker
future.
00:09:43
Speaker
I was thinking more in terms of a loan back. I remember with Arsenal when we bought Saliba, he went back on loan to Saint-Étienne for another season to manage that development process. But maybe it wasn't an option and maybe the player wasn't up for it. I can say definitively that what Andreas wanted was to go to Benfica. I think it's a fair conversation to have. How should you have made him stay if
00:10:10
Speaker
He wanted to play that move, but there was no chance of him staying with his own wish, at least. That's fair. You've got a big game coming up tomorrow in the Cup, playing FC Copenhagen, a sort of test run for what will be the title decider perhaps in a couple of weeks in the Super League. How do you feel about the Cup? Do you have the same excitement for it as you would for a league game? And do you think that winning the Cup would make up for not winning the league, should that happen?
00:10:39
Speaker
So, if we start with what I feel about the cup. So, in general, if Sinoshina had quite a good success over the years in the cup and I've been really enjoyed being in the stands for the cup earlier. So, I'm pretty excited. I'm a bit curious to see how we're going to solve it from a team selection point of view because I think we will see a little bit of rotation and that
00:11:08
Speaker
I think how we decide to line up is also going to have a big influence on how happy I'm going to be with winning or losing. Because if we come tomorrow and we've rotated half the team, then my expectations are low. But I hope that he comes in strong and he plays a proper side so we won't get beaten around.
00:11:30
Speaker
So let's see my hopes are going down at the moment. It's definitely not. I'm not as excited as I was for the teams form, but again, now we have quite a few home games coming up. So hopefully that can change my attitude.
Bronby and Silkeball's Mid-Table Safety
00:11:44
Speaker
I guess if there was a time to play FC Copenhagen, it might be now they've been grinding out results. They haven't been putting in fantastic performances. And I think this weekend gone.
00:11:54
Speaker
they probably got a bit lucky. There was an offside goal for AGF which seen the replay and to me it looks onside so I don't know what happened there. There were also some heroics from Kamil Grabara and the game finished 0-0. AGF come away with a creditable point but you know FC Copenhagen haven't been blowing teams away lately so it could be an interesting time to face them.
00:12:15
Speaker
Yeah, well, I get what you're saying, but there's still 10-1-1. And it's okay that you decline a little bit in performance. And I think the biggest respect to Nijstrup and the way he set up the team, I think even when they aren't playing, smashing, attacking football, I think there's still a very hard team to create chances against. So, yeah, as I said, I am slightly pessimistic for Evsenor Schlatt's chances in the next three games against difficult making lower.
00:12:42
Speaker
over a very short period in time. And before we completely move off the subject of FC Nordsland, I just wanted to give you three names and you tell me whether you think they will still be here next season or not. Ernest Nwama. Out. Oliver Willardson.
00:12:59
Speaker
Out. Adamo Nagalo. Out. Wow. When you add to the fact that Fagir is only on loan, I believe, right? Correct. And Bidstrup is going to be returning to Brentford. That's a big, that's a big change that's going to be happening for next season and for the, I guess, for the European matches depending where, when they're sold. Yeah. And that's exactly it, right? I think,
00:13:23
Speaker
we at epsilon the fans we speak about the big reset this summer so it's all it's also all or nothing now because next year we will not be title containers at all i think these epsilon teams they come in cycles and they perform in cycles and now we will go into the next build up and.
00:13:45
Speaker
I think in addition to those you mentioned, I think Jakob Steynkresdensen is also a likely candidate to leave, right? So potentially it's all three of the central midfielders who's out. So I think they will be super
00:14:05
Speaker
It will be a very interesting period for Jan Lausen to figure out how to reset the team so we don't drop out of top six again, but we try to stop the bleeding somewhere. It's going to be fascinating to see how that's rebuilt and what you do with the money because given some of the sales recently, I think FC Nordsland have shown the ability to command decent transfer fees. And I think that's something that can't be said for all teams in the Super League. So I think with that money to play with,
00:14:31
Speaker
It's going to be very interesting to see who gets brought through from the academy and who comes in in terms of maybe more experienced players to study the ship. And I'm not actually, I'm not that concerned. Again, I don't expect us to be number one or two next year. So it's just a matter of figuring out who's going in and who's coming out from the bottom as you said.
00:14:53
Speaker
And the only two or three players that really concerns me is actually Bistro, because I haven't seen anyone in the academy that has similar attributes. And I think a Bistro player is going to be extremely expensive to buy. Secondly, it's a similar problem with Nagalo. Probably very expensive to buy a quick defender with good feet in the long passing range.
00:15:15
Speaker
and then Nuama is also a bit of a tough one. I know we have a few very quick people on the under 19 squad that potentially can replace Nuama but he has star quality and every time someone with star quality leaves then we need to build it up again.
00:15:33
Speaker
Absolutely. Well, watch this space. The next team that I wanted to talk about was Ranners. And they've been a real surprise since moving to the championship group. Obviously lost them, lost their manager, Thomas Thomas Berg, moved to FC Michelin. And I thought this was going to be the case of them just fading away towards the end of the season as they bed in under a new manager.
00:15:55
Speaker
They're not the deepest squad, and yet they picked up a one-all draw away at AGF. They beat FC Copenhagen, got a draw with FC Nordsland, and then this weekend gone, absolutely blew Bromby away. 4-0 in Vestein, an incredible result, and what a job the new manager's doing there.
00:16:13
Speaker
Yeah, very, very strong. I think the biggest achievement that he's done, and this is going to sound a bit tough, but is that he's not changed too much. He's just added a few percentage on how they want to pass the ball around the pitch. I think he's a bit more offensively thinking in general, but it's very much playing on similar Rana's principles that work, and I think the
00:16:37
Speaker
The game in Bronbe was a true statement to how good they actually are.
Relegation Battle Analysis
00:16:43
Speaker
And especially, I know this might sound a bit weird to you, but Danish media tends to focus on the teams on Zealand. So, if you know Ashland, Bronbe is a Copenhagen. And it doesn't matter what's happening really in Jutland, we're still only going to be talking about what's happening on Zealand, right? So, when good stuff happens in Jutland,
00:17:01
Speaker
then it often takes the media a bit longer time to really catch what's going on because the focus is predominantly on Zealand teams. And I think it's a bit of a shame because once again, just like we've seen with Vipo and also I give doing great stuff,
00:17:17
Speaker
It's just like a team from Jutland probably get a little bit less appraisals than they should. And wow, did they show that they need all the recognition around. Yeah. And if you think back to the season before last, two of the key players for Rannos were
00:17:33
Speaker
Steven Odie and Toe Sin Kehinde and I think in the last few games you've really seen that their confidence return, the goals have come back for Steven Odie and yeah those players when they're on form can add so much that I think it just gives them an extra dimension.
00:17:49
Speaker
completely agree. I think it's going to be interesting to see what they can do, whether they can push up from currently sitting in fifth and was looking at the league table and I've said many times, I think that this league split is very positive in that it keeps
00:18:04
Speaker
teams throughout both parts of the league engaged and with something to aim at. But there's two teams that I think, to use a British media phrase, are already on the beach, right? They're thinking about the summer holidays. They know that their position is safe. And I wouldn't say they've given up, but they're not playing with the intensity of the teams around them. And that's Rombi and Silkeball.
00:18:27
Speaker
I feel like Silkable are 10 points from safety, six games to go. They're not going down. The teams below them are stuck in that fight. Bronby are sixth, so in the championship group, but they are 10 points off the top three. They're not going to threaten there. So for fans of those teams, how should they be
00:18:46
Speaker
Trying to enjoy the rest of the season. Should they be hoping to see young prospects coming through? Should they be looking for an uptick in form to finish the season strong? How should they be approaching these given it looks like there's not really much for them to aim for?
00:19:03
Speaker
I think it's always a tough question, right? We had a talk in, I think it was in December, where I said Loongbi should just relax, lay back, they're already out and then they came in really strong and they've really proven themselves over the season since then, right? And I think that is a testament to the fact that
00:19:23
Speaker
you can still move a lot and the let's say Lengbu goes down then they must go down with a pretty good attitude no matter what and it must they must come into the next season pretty high. I think similarly for silkyball and botb if they just especially botb if they just lie back now they might get six more beatings which is going to be very bad for next season's preparation and again they have two games against FC Copenhagen just around the corner
00:19:49
Speaker
One thing that Bompyfence doesn't like is to lose to FC Copenhagen. They really need to, I think, play their best and then of course if one of these young players is good enough, bring him in. But don't bring him in if he's 10-15% below the rest.
00:20:06
Speaker
only bring him in if he's just chasing the others. And for me, watching a lot of under-19 football, I can say it's super tough to assess if a player is good enough. The only one that can truly assess that, there will be Jesper Saadsen and team. If they don't play now, it's probably because they are lacking more than 2, 3, 4, 5% in my opinion.
00:20:27
Speaker
I know Twitter can be a bit of a skewed medium for, I don't know, sourcing opinions, but I have seen some Brumby fans talking about Jesper Sorensen maybe not making it past the summer. What do you think? Is that too premature or has he failed to have an impact? So I think there's two things. First of all, you can always fire a coach if the dressing room, if you've lost the dressing room. It's one of these cases where, just like with Eric Hamrein, no one believes that he should be there. Get him out.
00:20:57
Speaker
I don't think that's the case in 1B, and I think 1B fans are making a fuss out of these defeats. I think when I break down these games that they've lost, yes, they've been poor at times, but I think it's also worth noting which kind of changes have Jesper Saadsen made towards the formation up against what Niels van Exen did. And he has a far more ambitious style on the bone than Niels van Exen ever had.
00:21:25
Speaker
with an ambitious style on the board, you also get into more vulnerable positions on the pitch. And I think when they have met these extremely structured teams, the weakness of the Bronbe organisation has been extremely clear. So maybe Jesper Saabsson didn't step change Bronbe. He went all in and maybe he got a bit of false promises in the first few games when they met.
00:21:49
Speaker
if Simitryland, when they met Silkeball, there was doing bad, both of them, and they met Halsens, who's been absolutely terrible. So maybe that gave him confidence to keep pushing for a little bit more. And I think now meeting these high structured teams in top six, they've gotten their asses kicked, and maybe it was just a bit too much. So I think, I understand why he wants to change football like that. And I think it's a step in the right direction, but I think it's clear that it's moved too fast. And I think the entire conversation
00:22:19
Speaker
around firing a coach where you've given him the job to change Bronbe into a more offensive direction is ludicrous. I think it's senseless to think that you can change a team over nine games on a formation point of view and on the style of philosophy as well and then expect them to be competing against the top.
00:22:42
Speaker
Then what you should have done, or could have done, is you should have taken a Nils-Pelixen 2.0, another extreme pragmatic in setting up the game. And then, yes, maybe then your demands could be bigger in terms of short-term results. But if you want to make a true change to the game, then just like with Eric Tenharg in United, he also looked like a complete idiot at the beginning of the season against Brighton and against Brentford, because the ambition level for the game was extremely high.
00:23:10
Speaker
Does that make sense? Yeah, that makes total sense to me. And I think he's in a tricky position because he's got these final six games of the season where he could, in theory, experiment, stick with the plan and see if it beds in. But at the same time, if they finished it with these six games disastrously, lose two Derby's,
00:23:30
Speaker
you wonder, will the sentiment outweigh the benefit of being able to have those six free-hit games? It's super tough, right? I think when Bronte played against Evgeno Ashland, they played a pretty good game in the second game, and they played with Ennis Benzli Mane on central midfield. Should Ennis Benzli Mane be playing against Evgeno Ashland when all rumours say he's out this summer?
00:23:55
Speaker
I mean, so what do you build up, right? So I think that in itself is a move towards trying to set the best team to win points, but it's also not playing the long-term game. But again, if you then take out all the players you don't expect to be there next year, who's then left? And already now they're struggling with the team that they have. So if they intentionally handicap their own team by taking players away that are not there yet next year, I mean, who's left, right?
00:24:22
Speaker
Yeah, and I think a big potential departure for them is Matt Hermanson. Everyone saw Vincent company at the stadium and I don't think it's a big secret that he's looking at Matt Hermanson, Burnley obviously being promoted to the Premier League.
00:24:39
Speaker
would be a great opportunity for me to see him over here. But yeah, big loss for Bwombian. I think even though they've conceded 43 goals this season, which is the most by any team in the championship group by 11. Despite that, he's looked good and he's put in some strong performances. So yeah, that's going to be a big loss for them.
00:24:59
Speaker
I think it's actually interesting because I completely agree. I think he's a very, very strong goalkeeper and I think that his goalkeeping skills in itself is at a very high level and he might very well be the future national goalkeeper of Denmark. But Barnaby wants to build up the game now with the ball.
00:25:20
Speaker
at the feet of the goalkeeper and he's just not that good at that. So if Bobby had to sell someone where they could cash in, get a goalkeeper that's a lot more ball focused oriented, it might not be too bad to get in a goalkeeper that's 10% worse on the saves if he's 20% better on the ball because it might actually be a real change to the way they build up the game.
00:25:46
Speaker
So when I look at departures in Bombay, I would say they are losing a super good player, but they're not necessarily losing a player that's super important to their style of playing. You touched earlier on a prediction you'd made, which was that Loongbi were dead and buried and should just accept their fate. And I don't know whether they listened to this, but they obviously took it to heart because I think since that January window, we've talked every week about how
00:26:15
Speaker
Even though sometimes they're not getting the results, the performances have been superb. And they find themselves now five points from safety. They leapfrogged Alborg. So for anyone listening, Horsons sat one place above relegation on 26 points. Lüngbi there with 21 and Alborg with 20.
00:26:38
Speaker
It's hard to know which way this is going to go. I think you could say that Alborg are building some momentum, at least in terms of performances. Lungbi definitely have some momentum. Horsons have shown. They've got great fighting spirit.
00:26:51
Speaker
it's going to be really interesting to see how this pans out. Do you want to change that lung bee prediction? Well, I want to change what they've been worth in the end of the season. Because I think again, it is our rivals, but they've really put in a strong show here. I still think they're going down.
00:27:11
Speaker
and I think actually that horses will stay up. But I think, again, huge, huge results on the pitch. And yeah, I've been playing a little bit of football with Jonathan Hartmann. So maybe he has been listening in on the podcast. So... Say Lüngbüy and Alborg were to go down, if you were to take one player from each of them and drop them into the FC Nordsland set up for next season, who would you be taking? Alborg and Lüngbüy.
00:27:39
Speaker
I wouldn't take a Olympic player. I mean, they are player by player worse than every single player that we got, right? And I don't see anyone. I think it's got good collective now, but I cannot see anyone playing a real role.
00:27:54
Speaker
In all bow I would probably take as a tough one. It's a really tough one I would probably take Lucas Anderson because he's such a he's such an interesting Character and maybe we could be the the squad that could get him back into Into real form and we could play him as a deep lying midfielder and then someone else can do the hard work next to him and
00:28:22
Speaker
This is going to be like Emiliano Marconde's revival team. For me, it's more, it's going to be like a Danish pillow role. You know what? I've got a theory that he's growing his hair long so that if they get relegated, he can disguise himself and still walk around the city. Could be very true. Could be very true.
00:28:41
Speaker
But yes, still so much drama to come in the next round of games. Horsons kick things off on Friday against Obie. V-Borg play Ranners on Sunday lunchtime. At the same time, Al-Borg play Lungbi. That's an absolutely huge game at the bottom of the table because
00:29:00
Speaker
whoever wins that is gonna leave the other one bottom of the table a drift then we've got the copenhagen derby which is always an incredible spectacle and i think i'm right in saying away fans are allowed in this time is that right i have no clue
00:29:16
Speaker
Okay, I think that, don't quote me on that, but I think they're allowed back in. Nordsland AGF, Sunday afternoon, the late game, and yeah, that's gonna be a fantastic game. I don't see that being a goal fest. I think that AGF are really, really tough to beat, but that could be a spanner in the works for title ambitions for sure.
00:29:36
Speaker
No doubt. And then Monday, it's FC Michelin, Silkeborg. And this is one that struggling to get excited for this one, just because it looks like Michelin have sewn up or close to sewing up that European playoff place. As I said, Silkeborg looked like their
00:29:53
Speaker
on the beach and so I can't see past this being a sort of routine 2-0 Michelin win. Do you have a different opinion on this one? I think it's going to be super dull and I think Silverball has also had a bit of a rough time with injuries and form crisis on great players so I have a very hard time seeing Silverball manage to do anything about this game and I've not looked at the form
00:30:18
Speaker
in between them. But if I recall it correctly, Michelin has been doing pretty strongly against Silicon Ball over a fairly long period. So, so yeah, I definitely expect a pretty easy game for me to learn. Yeah, actually, in the previous games this season, we had quite incredible three-all draw. Silkeborg won away in Michelin 3-1. So that's been the results this season. Last season, I think Michelin got the better of all four
00:30:44
Speaker
encounters. But yeah, this season, Silkeborg have put six past Michelin in two games. So talking about this not being a high scoring game, I might be wrong. But yeah, let's see. Cool. So yeah, Kasper, thank you so much for coming on. As always, full of knowledge and interesting tidbits about Danish football that I couldn't possibly
00:31:05
Speaker
pick up on my own. So I'm really grateful for you coming on, really grateful for you sparing your time and I hope you will come back for the season finale because I'm going to be doing a little awards show and I'm going to be canvassing the opinion of various people. So I'd love to get you back then and sharing your awards of the season. I would love to be on that show and I promise you that I'll be slightly less depressed in the next episode.
00:31:33
Speaker
Listen, football is as much about the journey as the destination. That's what, that's why I keep telling myself as Arsenal fall further and further behind in the title race, but you have to try and enjoy the present and you know, Nordsland are playing some great stuff. You're in the cup, you're in the title race. Enjoy it. Well, enjoy it. Well, you can at the end of the season, you can reflect and there might be something to celebrate. There might not be, but it's going to have been a season that you'll remember. Definitely. Fantastic. Okay.
00:32:00
Speaker
Stay with us after the break. I've got another special guest coming up for very interesting feature on probabilities and odds and all sorts of numbers related stuff that is way beyond my pay grade.
00:32:16
Speaker
Welcome back to part two and I'm delighted to be joined by Mads Gurnap Edison, an FC co-fan who throughout the season has been producing these brilliant graphs that chart the various probabilities for title, relegation, et cetera. Mads, welcome to the show. Delighted to have you here. Thank you, Henry. Thank you for having me. I guess if you haven't seen one of Mads' graphs, I'm going to put the link to the most recent ones on my Twitter so that you can see what we're talking about. But I guess the first question I've got is,
00:32:43
Speaker
What is it that really kind of drew you to the numbers side of the game and into producing these? I think when I started producing these, we were in the winter's break in the 21-22 season. As a Copenhagen fan, it was a pretty weird time. We fired Stolle a year prior and we got just told as a coach and I think everything was looking kind of s***.
00:33:05
Speaker
And then there was a very long winter break. And I just sat and looked around at the betting numbers and thought that these have a very good way of telling what are the actual chances. And I started producing the graphs. And then, of course, my background is that I'm an economist. So I work with numbers every day. I love working with numbers. So this is an easy thing for me to do, especially because I don't know anything about football, as many of the people I stand with will probably
00:33:34
Speaker
I agree with me on. I guess when you're working with economics, there's absolutes in terms of numbers. Whereas in football, it feels like there's so many things that can contribute to a game, you know, a game that looks 3-0 down, that looks dead and buried. The statistics will tell you, you can't come back from that. But we've seen, I think, two or three times this season, teams come back from 3-0 down. So I wondered, how does the softer side of things come into the calculation?
00:34:03
Speaker
I think it depends very much on which numbers you use. Odds, numbers, or prices, whatever you want to call them, are very much based on a market balance. So the bidding company's utmost job is to profit maximize for themselves. So they try to find a bidding line where they have
00:34:23
Speaker
an approximate gain or loss that's equal no matter the outcome but there are several other numbers you can use where you have more firm let's call it underlying parameters for example five thirty eight which i use as well and euro club index which is a hypercube product also has a power ranking they take much more into account what is happening in the game so if
00:34:46
Speaker
If your Copenhagen wins a slim 1-0 on home soil, but actually are playing worse than the opponent, 538 will give them less of a bonus than, for example, a bidding company will, because the bidding company is looking much more what is the market equalizing odds. Got it. And so which of these different methodologies do you think is most accurate in terms of, I don't know if you've gone back and compared the outcomes versus the probabilities. I think there's something,
00:35:13
Speaker
This is maybe like an injury of being an economist, but there's something really, really appealing in the way bidding works. Because of course, a bidding company sets an odds to begin with, that tries to reflect what they believe is the most likely outcome. But as soon as the market opens, it becomes what you can call a market clearing mechanism. So
00:35:42
Speaker
If a team has very low odds on an outcome, then people will probably shift towards the other outcome. And if the other outcome is played heavily, then it will be balanced out by the odds company. Odds are very much, it's an expectation. So the numbers are an attempt at showing what the market expects. And I think that's very appealing. Yeah, it's almost like tapping into the wisdom of crowds, right? Yeah, completely.
00:36:11
Speaker
Of course, this is an interesting market because at least some part of the bettors have a bias. But as long as that part of the customers is small enough, then in theory, the odds should reflect the balanced expectation of everyone.
00:36:27
Speaker
Interesting. It may come as a surprise, but I bet very little myself. I like my money too much because like on average, you will lose over time. But I follow some of these Twitter pages, Facebook pages where they give advice. And if you follow some of the big ones, you will see that very soon after they post
00:36:47
Speaker
Propose that the odds will actually fall quite heavily on the outcome they suggest and that of course is because a lot of people take out their advice and they all Go towards the the proposition they pose so the betting company will say okay There's actually a much larger expectation then and we thought so we have to calibrate the odds downwards to not lose money on that outcome and
00:37:12
Speaker
Got it. Wow, really interesting. And I wondered, you know, doing this every week, you must be really sort of clued in to what's happening. I wondered what's the most interesting things you think the data has shown this season, whether it's, I don't know, big swings or unusual movements or anything like that? I think the most interesting thing we've seen, like if we go over the entire course of the season is, of course, it's, you know, they started out as, I think,
00:37:39
Speaker
there was an 8% chance pre-season that they would win medals. They are actually much higher. I think they had a 20-ish percentage chance of relegating. So of course, to see them just skyrocket through the first 15 rounds, I think they went into the plus 80% territory for medals after 15 rounds. Of course, that's been very interesting because nobody in the market expected that, even though they had a quite strong
00:38:10
Speaker
spring season, last season, after flirting with relocation. And then, of course, there are these very large swings. I think actually from around 25 to around 26, the middle chance for Bebo and EKF has changed a lot. After around 24 and 25, they were completely neck and neck.
00:38:32
Speaker
I don't know if you can call it dropping points because I don't think they expect it to win against Copenhagen, but then we both took a very crucial win against Neuschland and now there's a 25 percentage point gap. So it's very quickly and sometimes it feels like betting companies add in like a correction during some rounds because the swing becomes very large, even though it's only based on a single round.
00:38:57
Speaker
Yeah, I've noticed that myself. And actually looking back through the title winning probabilities throughout the season, what surprised me was that there's only been four weeks where Nordsland have had a higher chance than FC Copenhagen. We think of them being so dominant all season. And the other thing that really struck me was that in round 10, amazingly, runners were
00:39:20
Speaker
the second most likely title winners, which I don't remember happening at all, but you know, the graph doesn't lie. No, that's, I gotta say before the winter break, I can't exactly remember why, but I think especially the point regarding Northland only having
00:39:35
Speaker
four rounds as an outright favorite to the to the championship is uh like at face value it's very surprising but in respect to the thing that odds is pretty much like a market expectation so even though they were down eight points the market had a quite large and i think fair expectation that Copenhagen based on the strength of the squad should be able to at least
00:39:58
Speaker
come back somewhat. I don't think anybody expected to close the gap so quickly, but people do expect Copenhagen to be by far the best team of those two. For someone like me looking at this from the outside, it does still surprise me that FC Copenhagen are close to 80% probability now to win the title and FC Nordsland, only two points behind them in the table, still have to play each other and yet they're sat at 20% probability.
00:40:23
Speaker
What's the kind of reasoning behind that? Or does it come back to, as you said, this is what people are voting for with their wallets? Yeah, so that of course is the basis of it. So this is the expectation of the market. I can keep saying that many times, but it doesn't get really interesting. But I also think that I don't know how big the part of bits on this market is Danish versus international. Because I would believe that the Danish market would be more skewed towards Neuschle because they have a better look at
00:40:52
Speaker
how Northland has been playing and how Copenhagen has been playing. Like me, I would say that the last four games for Copenhagen has been very shaky. They got away with a not underserved, but maybe a bit lucky win against Wipo. Davana's loss was completely fair. The single point in all hoops was completely fair. So I would say that Copenhagen is struggling a lot. Of course, not overall, but looking at the strength of the squad, they are struggling. They're going into a
00:41:19
Speaker
period now with five very tough games on paper Copenhagen should be much better than one week but we know that the Darby's they take on something extra that I see a lot of one defense expecting that they will get hammered out of parking and it's just something different when it's that game so I would expect that the gap to be closer especially because the Northland game we have left Copenhagen has left this away and
00:41:45
Speaker
Copenhagen sometimes struggles a bit on an artificial turf, while Northland really doesn't. But maybe there's an international market who don't see these details. Yeah, absolutely. And I think if you were just looking at the form, for example, Rhombia are turning up to the Derby in really, really bad form. And yet, as we know, this is almost going to be a cup final for them because they can't make it into Europe. They're not in the cup anymore. And so winning these these remaining Darby's is really that's what the fans are looking for.
00:42:14
Speaker
Yeah, there's no doubt that Jesper Simpson can save a lot of face by winning, maybe even better if he can win in Pardon, while for Copenhagen there should be
00:42:25
Speaker
in theory, the easiest of the five coming games. So they take two different approaches to the games. And I think a lot of international players don't have that perspective. Absolutely. The final thing that I wanted to ask you about is the relegation odds, because if we look at the graphs, again, it looks like if the three teams that are most likely to be fighting for those two relegation points, if the trends continue, it looks like we're going to reach a point on the final round of the season where
00:42:53
Speaker
The odds are more or less the same that would be pretty exciting. It's a very exciting race i think it's so bad.
00:43:05
Speaker
I think they're lucky that there's only six rounds and let's say 12 rounds remaining, because then I'm pretty sure that they would get caught, but it's really getting close. But still we're in the relegation, so few points are necessary. Like if Lüngbüy or Ubi wins one game, two games out of the remaining six, it's almost locked for them. I'm actually more, I think it's more interesting that Lüngbüy keeps having a higher chance for relegation, even though they are a pointer hit.
00:43:35
Speaker
of Albo, because when you're in the relegation game, the point average are so low, I think both Loombi and Albo, they have to be around 0.8 points per game. So one point is a lot. And I'm actually quite surprised that they keep having Loombi as a higher favourite for relegation than Albo.
00:43:54
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And I think also what surprised me was looking at the pre-Christmas odds for Albo that were still never went higher than 40% for relegation, even though they were getting hammered every week, practically. They're now sad at 80%, which feels more likely. But yeah, it seemed like that took a while to escalate. But I think it's because Albo is historically, it's a team that survives.
00:44:21
Speaker
Like they've been daily champions in 2008 or something, played a decent champions league run the same period. And they always like been able to stay up because it's my understanding. I think it was a fairly well run club until four or five years ago. And they've been a stable super league club for as long as I remember. So the idea that they could relegate is so far fetched that I don't think the market catches up to it.
00:44:50
Speaker
I would have expected that we saw the same in the, what was it, 12-13 season, when we were flirting with Relication on the second last round or something. I don't think anyone believed that it would ever happen, and it didn't, because it's a stable club and they're always there, so how could they ever go down? And I think also if Albo goes down, it will be a huge eye-opener for them, and I have
00:45:12
Speaker
I would fear that they could see the same as maybe Sunil is going to be. They don't go straight up again because they have to really collect some deeply internal errors. It's going to be fascinating to see how it all plays out. And thank you for coming on the show, Mads. Thank you for producing these graphs. I think that seeing them every week really gives a
00:45:31
Speaker
It helps you contextualize the season. It helps see how the season's been moving. It's easy for these game weeks to merge into one another. And so, yeah, thank you for doing what you do. And if you're listening to this and haven't seen them, I urge you to go check them out. They're really, really great ways of keeping track of the season and getting a sense of whether what you see with your eyes is what's reflected in the probabilities.
00:45:53
Speaker
Yeah, thank you for having me. I think my audience is quite small, but those who are there, they enjoy it. And that's the most important thing for me. Absolutely. I can definitely empathise with that. Take it easy. Good luck for the rest of the season. Thank you.