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There's a subreddit called r/toprightmessi which is a collection of graphs showing how much Messi excels in so many respects. Crazy how in the biggest sport in
by quirino 4y ago
There's a subreddit called r/toprightmessi which is a collection of graphs showing how much Messi excels in so many respects. Crazy how in the biggest sport in the world there can be a player so far above and beyond the rest.
- ndsipa_pomu 4y agoAlternatively, is it due to the ubiquity of soccer that particularly gifted individuals can be developed into their full potential? Someone that has a one-in-a-billion level of skill in something like frisbee-golf is less likely to be spotted and made into a professional player.
- Jenk 4y agoThis is so true when looking at the distribution of top olympic athletes Vs distribution of countries that invest in developing said athletes in their chosen sport.
- derbOac 4y agoDo you know of any sites offhand that discuss this? I can look it up but wasn't sure if there were some you'd recommend. The thing you're mentioning seems really important as an example in these kinds of discussions.
- User23 4y agoActually, it's the yams[1]. [1] https://www.firstpost.com/sports/firstpost-explains-how-does-jamaica-consistently-produce-world-class-sprinters-8059061.html https://www.firstpost.com/sports/firstpost-explains-how-does...
- derbOac 4y agoThis is the weird thing for me about some of these discussions. I'm not going to question Messi's ability or ability in general but I've always wondered how much "extraindividual" factors start to play a role in those upper tails that are incentivized. We talk about Messi like he's just a marble sculpture handed down from God but that's not the case. Looking at the figure, for example, one thing I noticed was the gap between the two upper points and the rest. It's hard for me to imagine there aren't some missing points there. In other fields or areas, I think you have to start asking about things like fraud, other vice, or circumstances. As you suggest, there's probably also some unique things about international football that make it difficult to generalize to other things. Everything is probably a little unique in certain ways really, but the incentives are so extreme and the play is very visible.
- Enginerrrd 4y agoOne thing to note is that the stats in the article don't appear to be normalized to me. It's just a lot of "# of X since 2010". So, it makes sense that the best will be played more often and get more play time to help drive the separation greater.
- browningstreet 4y agoAs a fan of disc golf I pained and laughed at “frisbee-golf”. The distribution of talent and accomplishment in professional disc golf .. a relatively young sport .. wouldn’t surprise anyone here.
- ndsipa_pomu 4y agoApologies for any discomfort - I clearly should have put "disc golf".
- tipiirai 4y agoIt’s called ”frisbee golf” in Finland
- Murfalo 4y agoUS I've heard "frisbee golf" too, alternatively "frolf"/"frolfing"
- User23 4y agoSprinting is probably the purest example of no child not having a shot. Kids like to run. In fact, running is probably the most comprehensively sampled sport in the world. It's virtually impossible for anyone with a remotely normal childhood and a gift for sprinting to not know that they have it. Every kid knows who the fastest kid on their playground is. Every kid knows who the fastest kid in their class is, and in their school. And the fastest kids in each school/neighborhood/whatever compete at higher and higher levels until one day the fastest one is eating Chicken McNuggets[1] and signing 30 million dollar endorsement deals. [1] https://olympics.nbcsports.com/2020/04/21/usain-bolt-beijing-olympics-2008-chicken-nuggets/ https://olympics.nbcsports.com/2020/04/21/usain-bolt-beijing...
- 11235813213455 4y ago> fastest one is eating Chicken McNuggets Usain Bolt did so on a special occasion, he explained he just didn't know where to eat It's pretty obvious his average meal is not "fast" food, he would never have reached this level else
- OscarCunningham 4y agoWith fat-tailed distributions, increasing the sample size actually makes it more likely that you'll get one element much greater than the others.
- TreeRingCounter 4y agoThis sounds like nonsense. We're talking about multivariate distributions, and you haven't defined a norm by which ordinal comparisons can be made between sample points.
- brewmarche 4y agoAll norms on finite-dimensional vector spaces are equivalent so the choice of norm shouldn’t matter for tails really.
- hgsgm 4y agoNorms are equivalent in the sense they differ by less than a constant in both directions, not in the sense that outliers are the same in all norms.
- brewmarche 4y agoNorms are for dealing with magnitude not direction (and were brought up by my parent commenter). If you care about direction specify an angle, quadrant, cone or other subregion that allows you to take the limit to infinity which then doesn’t depend on the norm. Note this is the same in the univariate case where we talk about left and right tail if we need to distinguish.
- TreeRingCounter 4y ago> All norms on finite-dimensional vector spaces are equivalent How are you going to tell me that an L1 norm is equivalent to an L2 norm, for example?
- 4y ago
- jacquesm 4y agoIf you were to define some new sport from scratch tomorrow morning by the end of the afternoon the Bell curve would start to assert itself in those that chose to play in it and over time that would become more and more evident. Eventually a 'Messi' would turn up.
- dan-robertson 4y agoYou say bell curve, which I understand as meaning normally distributed, but the point about Messi is that he is better than what one would expect to find from normally distributed ability. I think it is interesting to ask why Messi is such an outlier. But maybe you think the fact that someone has to be best makes it all uninteresting.
- jacquesm 4y agoI think that effect comes from soccer being somewhat multi-dimensional: the ability to run fast, aim well, have stamina and so on. And yes, I think that the fact that someone will be the best makes it uninteresting, or at least a lot less interesting than if a skill could be universally taught to the point where everybody would be very good at it and it would be productive. Professional sports is roughly at the same level of interest to me as a circus.
- emmelaich 4y agoAnd yet Mbappé is better paid - most valuable in the world it is thought. And his WC Final rival and PSG team mate.
- MichaelZuo 4y agoIs there anyone else in the sporting world that's such a statistical outlier?
- Gunnerhead 4y agoDefinitely Gretzky!
- amenghra 4y agoMost athletes who are at the top of their sport when they reach age ~40 tend to be crazy outliers. I’m thinking Michael Schumacher (F1), Tom Brady (NFL), Roger Federer (tennis), etc.
- walthamstow 4y agoThey are outliers because it's a brand new phenomenon. This generation has the first sportsmen to push 40 in a lot of sports, beit Federer, James Anderson, Brady, Ibrahimovic. It will become quite common as time goes on I expect. p.s. Schumacher drove a car, so I'm not sure he is a fair comparison to physical sportsmen
- Daneel_ 4y agoYour postscript is a bit unfair to racing drivers - it's actually an incredibly physically demanding sport.
- walthamstow 4y agoI never demeaned racing drivers. I just don't think they are a fair comparison to physical sportsmen who turn and jink and sprint in an open physical space and the effect this has on their bodies. Going past an opposition player in basketball, football or rugby is very similar. Sprinting to the line to keep a ball in play is something tennis players, footballers and cricketers all do. Driving is entirely different, and not really comparable.
- alvah 4y ago
- macrael 4y agoI highly recommend this old DFW essay about the 79th best tennis player on earth in '95. Big discontinuous jumps in ability exist in many sports. https://www.esquire.com/sports/a5151/the-string-theory-david-foster-wallace/ https://www.esquire.com/sports/a5151/the-string-theory-david...
- JHer 4y agoDFW = David Foster Wallace