There Will Be (own) Goals (Nate Silver, Day 5)

Poor Bosnia-Herzegovina. Two minutes into your toughest match and you deflect a long ball into the box into your own net. That had to be tough, but the Dragons settled down and fought pretty evenly against Los Gauchos (Cowboys and Dragons, together at last!) until Messi broke through and put the game out of reach, or so I thought at the time. Surprisingly, Bosnia-Herzegovina was able to produce some late drama and made for a very enjoyable finish. I (and Nate Silver) would love to have seen what would have happened had Bosnia-Herzegovina not put themselves into a hole early. Alas, counterfactuals are the province of philosophers and bullshit artists. [youtube id="oBIxGjSHzF8" width="633" height="356"] Ecuador looked like they were going to get a solid result against the favored Swiss. Despite being outplayed for much of the first half, they were able to grab and hold a lead heading into halftime. However, it is hard to hold Switzerland's Nationalmannschaft (Nati for short) down and the Swiss were able to equalize early in the second half. That set the stage for one the most glorious late goals I've ever seen. Breaking from one end of the field to the other, basically ignoring Ecuador's attempts to foul (and good on the ref for ignoring said fouls), they were are able to get the ball to Haris Seferovic who buried it right before the referee called time. That was a well deserved win for the Nationalmannschaft. Les Bleus were dominating the game even before a red card gave them a penalty shot and a man-advantage. They ended up with 71% of the possession and an easy three-nil win. La H will need to constrain their physicality to within the rules of futbol in their next game, or else they'll likely see a similar result. Yesterday was the first tough day for Nate Silver and his friends at 538. They ended up 0-3 and are down to $197,271. Today is another day, so once more unto the breach, dear friends. Day 5: Game 12: Germany, 21.54%: Risking $42,492 to win $44,192 Game 13: Iran +0.5 goals, 15.27%: Risking $36,871 to win $35,116 (Updated) Game 14: USA +0.5 goals, 14.27%: Risking $39.191 to win $26,127 (Updated) Hopefully the Nationalelf gets things off to a good start against Selecção das Quinas. I have pretty much no faith that the Yanks will ever get a good result versus the Black Stars.  That just leaves the Super Eagles against the Princes of Persia, which reminds me of a truly excellent book: Hamid Rahmanian did a masterful job retelling Ferdowsi's poem. If you have the opportunity to check it out, I highly recommend it. With that, I'll leave here, ready to enjoy another great day of futbol.