Champions League predictions - the final

[Agathon]

OK - I'll look for signups at the end of August. The Beeb one is fairly easy to use, but I'll look at the UEFA one. Given the number of English speakers on here it would probably be easier to stick with the EPL - Besides I must have Alan Shearer as my centre forward.

[Drogue]

Nah, Rooney all the way New wonderkid, with something to back up the hype

[Zopperoni]

I had Van Nistelrooy, Makaay, and Ibrahimovic in my squad this season.

Those were the only good moves I made o_O

[Locutus]

Well, congrats, OFITG, a deserved win (even if you needed a little bit of help to get there )

And I didn't get around to this earlier, but congrats to Zop for winning the UEFA Cup game, another well deserved win (Although, if NYE hadn't given up after the winter break... )

The first time I participate in this game and immediately I win two 2nd places and 1 victory

And a big thank you to Paul from me as well, for organising this game year-after-year



As for next year, I agree that a PM for the final would probably be a good idea. I really didn't like how the final round was more about getting a unique score than about correctly predicting the outcome

I don't think I would really fancy Zop's suggestion though, sounds a bit too complicated to me. It would be a crime for Paul to have to manage, it would deter new people from joining in and it would take a lot more time and effort to participate. As it is, I usually spend only a few minutes (or even seconds, in the later stages) making my predictions, and I would like to keep it that way...

One other suggestion that I would like to throw into the group for discussion: predicting who goes through to the next round. Not just for the CL groups like we did this year, but for every match in the UEFA Cup and the Quarter and Semi Finals in the CL. So if Celtic plays Liverpool in the UEFA Cup, you would not only predict the scores of the home and away games (e.g. 2-1 and 1-3), but also who wins the aggregate score (e.g. Liverpool goes through), or possibly even what the exact aggregate score will be (e.g. 3-4 or 4-4, Liverpool goes through). You would have to submit this prediction at the same time as the prediction for the first match of course.
One problem with this might be for Paul to manage this, as I see no easy way to implement this in Excel...

BTW, all Dutchies go to this thread: a discussion for an Apolyton meet this summer, where we can (among other things) celebrate our successes in the prediction poules together

[Zopperoni]

Oh yes, and another suggestion I had for the UEFA Cup was to delay the "End winner prediction" until the CL dropouts have entered the tournament.

[Locutus]

Didn't we do that already this year?

[Zopperoni]

I don't remember, to be honest o_O

If we did, then mea culpa.

[Worthingtons]

Pekka, if it wasnt you for, I'd shoot myself!

[Paul]

Zopperoni, we already predicted the UEFA Cup winner after the CL dropouts joined.

And my reply to Locutus:

As for next year, I agree that a PM for the final would probably be a good idea. I really didn't like how the final round was more about getting a unique score than about correctly predicting the outcome

I really like this idea. Of course, we would have to find some way to let me also make my predictions. I would suggest that I pm my prediction to one or more of the other people. We could use pm send tracking to make sure that I don't read other people's predictions before I make mine. Or we could have a neutral outsider who collects our predictions and posts them after the deadline.

I don't think I would really fancy Zop's suggestion though, sounds a bit too complicated to me. It would be a crime for Paul to have to manage, it would deter new people from joining in and it would take a lot more time and effort to participate. As it is, I usually spend only a few minutes (or even seconds, in the later stages) making my predictions, and I would like to keep it that way...

Managing would probably not be a very big problem. Adding an extra column for those points and a sum at the bottom of that column to make sure that people don't assign more points than they have should be easy.

But I agree with Locutus that most people would not want to spend that much time on posting their predictions.

One other suggestion that I would like to throw into the group for discussion: predicting who goes through to the next round. Not just for the CL groups like we did this year, but for every match in the UEFA Cup and the Quarter and Semi Finals in the CL. So if Celtic plays Liverpool in the UEFA Cup, you would not only predict the scores of the home and away games (e.g. 2-1 and 1-3), but also who wins the aggregate score (e.g. Liverpool goes through), or possibly even what the exact aggregate score will be (e.g. 3-4 or 4-4, Liverpool goes through). You would have to submit this prediction at the same time as the prediction for the first match of course.
One problem with this might be for Paul to manage this, as I see no easy way to implement this in Excel...

It should not be more difficult than what I already do with the group winners and CL winner and topscorer. If we do this we should probably also change the way we deal with the group stage of the CL. This year we predicted only the group winners, but if we implement this system we should predict the two teams that go to the next round from each group, perhaps with bonus points for correctly predicting which team will be the winner and which team will be second place.

But I'm not a big fan of predicting aggregate scores. We already predict the scores for the matches and I think this would be a bit too much.

[Locutus]

I really like this idea. Of course, we would have to find some way to let me also make my predictions. I would suggest that I pm my prediction to one or more of the other people. We could use pm send tracking to make sure that I don't read other people's predictions before I make mine. Or we could have a neutral outsider who collects our predictions and posts them after the deadline.

I for one would be more than happy to help you out (that is, as long as I don't need to stay neutral -- I wanna play! )

[MikeH]

Paul: PM your prediction to one or more of the people in the prediction game who can't possibly win.

[Paul]

I have found next season's schedule on the UEFA site. The first qualifying round starts on 16-07-2003 and the draw is on 20-06-2003.

Now you can all start planning your summer vacations in such a way that they won't interfere with posting your predictions.

[Paul]

I would like to get some votes for the ideas that were already posted. I will post all the suggestions and then you can vote yes, no or abstain. You can also have a "yes, if..." vote. You can use that if you like an idea, but only if some change(s) were made to it. Here are the suggestions that were made so far:

1. Applies to: CL and UC final. Predictions for the final should be made in a private message so that we won't know each other's predictions.

2. Applies to: UC and knockout stages of CL. Before the first leg we predict which teams go to the next round

3. Applies to: CL group matches. Instead of predicting the group winner, we predict which two teams go to the next round.

4. Applies to: CL group matches. If suggestion 3 is accepted, we get bonus points for predicting which team finishes first and which team finishes second in the group.

5. Applies to: all matches. Zopperoni's "pool of points" suggestion. All the points that can be earned in a week are put in a pool and you can say how many points you want to bet on each match, with a minimum and maximum of points allowed per match.

You can still post other suggestions if you have any. I will count the votes for these 5 suggestions next weekend and then I will also see if there are any new suggestions.

[Paul]

My own votes:

1-4: yes
5: no

[Zopperoni]

1) Y
2) N
3) Y
4) N
5) Abstain