Football as in soccer, that is. Here is proof that Europeans take their football very seriously. A little too seriously, perhaps.
In other football news, Patric Andersson of the Center for Economic Psychology at the Stockholm School of Economics (and a collaborator with Anders Ericsson in the Expert Performance Movement) has written to let us know about an upcoming conference about the economics and psychology of football, to be held at the University of Mannheim.
“This workshop,” Andersson writes, “offers a state-of-the-art review of economic and psychological research on various phenomena in and about soccer. Economists’ and psychologists’ interest in soccer stems from the fact that it involves various judgment and decision-making tasks that have theoretical implications. Soccer has also a vast amount of available statistics permitting rigorous analyses of phenomena and the rationale for beliefs and behavior.”
I hope they are aware of Levitt’s very good paper on penalty kicks (co-authored with Pierre-Andre Chiappori and Timothy Groseclose), with the super-sexy title “Testing Mixed-Strategy Equilibria When Players Are Heterogeneous: The Case of Penalty Kicks in Soccer.”
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You might also be intersted in Soccernomics, some work done by ABN AMRO economists with much too much time:
“World Economy Would Bennefit the Most from a World Cup Win”
http://www.abnamro.com/pressroom/releases/2006/2006-03-22-en.jsp
“Globalization should make for a more Exciting World Cup”
http://www.abnamro.com/pressroom/releases/2006/2006-05-11-en.jsp
Also a post of ours on football, globalization and development:
— Pablohttp://psdblog.worldbank.org/psdblog/2006/04/globalization_f.html
Take football too seriously?!!! I should say not! It’s impossible to take football too seriously.
I saw a fella get fired for suggesting that when God gives the world an enema he should insert the nozzle at Anfield (home grounds of the Liverpool football club, and sacred territory to Liverpuldians everywhere).
Though the jokes about airliners missing their wheels at Liverpool Airport might have contributed. Liverpuldians (aka scousers) are defamed in the UK for their fondness for the wheels of cars. The manager was a Liverpuldian….
— Don