Yes, and I argued against precisely the opening paragraph, I did not argue against the stats legitimacy. It simply does not follow that because there is a grea

Yes, and I argued against precisely the opening paragraph, I did not argue against the stats legitimacy. It simply does not follow that because there is a great degree of randomness in sports results that sports fandom is based on numerology. Sports fandom is based on the fact that people like playing and watching sports, not reading the result in a paper having never seen the game and making grandiose conclusions about which team is better based on specious reasoning. Everyone knows the better team doesn't always win, it's self evident. What matters are the plays that brought us to that point. The whole thesis that sports viewing is pointless because it's random is an infuriating straw man. Why not just stick to the thesis that soccer is random and leave the value judgement aside? The exact same thing could be presented without pissing people off with an implicit value judgement of something which the author doesn't care to understand. This sort of innocent condescension is a big reason some youthfully exuberant geeks get picked on in school.