Soccer World Cup Research Articles

2014 Soccer World Cup in São Paulo: effects on air quality and health

Introduction World Cup soccer matches are one of the most important mass sports events in the planet. In Brazil, 2014 World Cup encouraged mobility of travelers to host cities. The city of São Paulo built one of the biggest stadiums, which hosted matches from June 12 to July 13, 2014. Objective To analyze impacts of 2014 Soccer World Cup on air pollution and on mortality of people over 65, in São Paulo. Some actions to ease mobility could serve as lab for air pollution control. Methods Time series analysis on the months of May, June, July and August of the previous two years, and of 2014. Average daily data of pollutants: PM10, NO2 and Ozone from one CETESB monitoring station per area of the city. Data for respiratory, circulatory and diabetes mortality of elderly over 65 during the studied period were grouped on a daily basis, i.e., daily count of the deaths by causes. To these were aggregated pollutant and meteorological variables and variables indicative of match days and holidays, week days of May, June, July and August of 2012, 2013 and 2014. The analysis consisted of time series using general additive models (GAM) in Poisson regression with dispersion adjustment. Results Descriptive statistics showed daily respiratory, cardiovascular and diabetes mortality were higher for São Paulo game days in comparison with 2014 World Cup period, but not in comparison with 2012 and 2013 for cardiovascular mortality. PM10 and NO2 had lower concentrations in São Paulo game days in comparison with 2014 World Cup period. Relative risks of dead from respiratory, cardiovascular and diabetes mellitus diseases on elderly (people with 65 years or more) for cardiovascular disease deaths the three pollutants had statistical significant relative risks, but for respiratory and diabetes deaths relative risks were not significant. Conclusions

Performance Analysis Tool for network analysis on team sports: A case study of FIFA Soccer World Cup 2014

The study of teammates’ interaction on team sports has been growing in the last few years. Nevertheless, no specific software has been developed so far to do this in a user-friendly manner. Therefore, the aim of this study was to introduce a software called the Performance Analysis Tool that allows the user to quickly record the teammates’ interaction and automatically generate the outputs in adjacency matrices that can then be imported by social network analysis software such as SocNetV. Moreover, it was also the aim of this study to process the data in a real-life scenario, thus the seven matches of the German national soccer team in the FIFA World Cup 2014 were used to test the software and then compute the network metrics. A dataset of 3032 passes between teammates in seven soccer matches was generated with the Performance Analysis Tool software, which permitted a study of the network structure. The analysis of variance of centrality metrics between different tactical positions was made. The two-way multivariate analysis of variance revealed that the strategic position ([Formula: see text]; F = 24.394; p = 0.001; [Formula: see text]; large effect size) had significant main effects on the centrality measures. No statistical differences were found in the phase of competition ([Formula: see text]; F = 0.097; p = 0.907; [Formula: see text]; very small effect size). The network approach revealed that the German national soccer team based their attacking process on positional attacks and not in counter-attack, and the midfielders were the prominent players followed by the central defenders. The Performance Analysis Tool software allowed the user to quickly identify the teammates’ interactions and extract the network data for process and analysis.

TRANSNATIONAL GOVERNANCE AND THE TRILHOS URBANOS: CIVIL SOCIETY'S RESISTANCE TO MEGA-EVENTS IN RIO DE JANEIRO

ABSTRACT Mega-events are urban spectacles that bring together capital, physical materials, symbols, people and organizations, to produce sports and cultural events. Rio de Janeiro hosted the soccer World Cup in 2014 and will shortly host the 2016 Olympics, two such mega-events. This paper discusses these mega-events in terms of a new and influential model of transnational governance that involves market-based alliances between urban leaders, real-estate developers, global corporations and sports-related civil society groups. It begins by defining mega-events and their significance to transnational governance, and then describes the mega-events being held in Rio de Janeiro. In the final section, the implications of these mega-events are reviewed, highlighting the on-going period of contestation within urban visions of transnational governance.

Predicting the Winner of Games in World Cup Soccer Matches

In this research, statistical models were developed that can be used to predict the outcomes of World Cup soccer matches. Least squares regression and logistic regression techniques were used in the development of the models using data from the 2006 World Cup Matches. The models were tested using data from the 2010 World Cup Matches. Predictions were made for the 2014 World Cup Championship assuming no results were known ahead of time.

El juego estratégico de Rusia en el Cáucaso Sur: Sochi 2014

La propuesta de la ciudad de Sochi como sede de los Juegos Olímpicos de Invierno y de la 16° fecha del Gran Premio de Fórmula 1 de 2014, y como una de las sedes de la futura Copa Mundial de Futbol 2018, son una ratificación de la importancia estratégica que representa el Cáucaso para Rusia. Asimismo, el anclaje en el Cáucaso y en las costas del Mar Negro, con toda la inversión en infraestructura y en seguridad que representa la organización de eventos deportivos mundiales, implica la puesta en juego de una estrategia geopolítica que expresa la importancia de Rusia como potencia regional.En el calidoscopio de poder e intereses que se despliegan en la región caucásica, la sombra de Rusia se proyecta con fuerza. Abordar el rol que ejerce este país en el Cáucaso Sur, permitirá comprender las perspectivas actuales de la política exterior de Rusia en esta región, así como conocer de qué modo se despliega en el territorio el juego estratégico del poder a través de eventos deportivos que se observan desde todos los lugares del mundo.

Crawl and crowd to bring machine translation to under-resourced languages

We present a widely applicable methodology to bring machine translation (MT) to under-resourced languages in a cost-effective and rapid manner. Our proposal relies on web crawling to automatically acquire parallel data to train statistical MT systems if any such data can be found for the language pair and domain of interest. If that is not the case, we resort to (1) crowdsourcing to translate small amounts of text (hundreds of sentences), which are then used to tune statistical MT models, and (2) web crawling of vast amounts of monolingual data (millions of sentences), which are then used to build language models for MT. We apply these to two respective use-cases for Croatian, an under-resourced language that has gained relevance since it recently attained official status in the European Union. The first use-case regards tourism, given the importance of this sector to Croatia’s economy, while the second has to do with tweets, due to the growing importance of social media. For tourism, we crawl parallel data from 20 web domains using two state-of-the-art crawlers and explore how to combine the crawled data with bigger amounts of general-domain data. Our domain-adapted system is evaluated on a set of three additional tourism web domains and it outperforms the baseline in terms of automatic metrics and/or vocabulary coverage. In the social media use-case, we deal with tweets from the 2014 edition of the soccer World Cup. We build domain-adapted systems by (1) translating small amounts of tweets to be used for tuning by means of crowdsourcing and (2) crawling vast amounts of monolingual tweets. These systems outperform the baseline (Microsoft Bing) by 7.94 BLEU points (5.11 TER) for Croatian-to-English and by 2.17 points (1.94 TER) for English-to-Croatian on a test set translated by means of crowdsourcing. A complementary manual analysis sheds further light on these results.

Deconstructing automatisms: Milicia practices and neopentescostal formations in Rio de Janeiro

The 2012 elections for governor in Rio de Janeiro gather special attention from national and international media analysts. The city politics was under scrutiny with the mega events hosted Brazil, like the Summer Olympic Games and the Soccer World Cup. In this sense, the strategies of the candidates for the organization of the city - mainly for public safety issues - were dissected and analysed for months leading up to the election day.In this context, as the disputes were being centralized in the candidates best placed in the pools, Luis Carlos Pezão (PMDB) and Marcelo Crivela (PRB), talks about the supposed contenders’ governance mechanisms began to be galvanized. In the mainstream narrative, the first one would gather support, along other segments, from the “milícias”, parastatal organizations that uses extortion of some communities to gather control of entire neighbourhoods. The ‘milícias’ would be one of the greatest contemporary security issues of Rio, accused of violent actions and recurrent cases of murders and violence. In turn, Crivela would be mainly supported by the neo-Pentecostal religious groups (The Guardian, 2012; O Globo, 2012). This binary narrative, reinforced by accusations from both politicians in televised debates, strengthened the discourse of an ‘ militia assault’ against the State, building the image that evangelical sectors could serve as an opposition movement to these groups. Both would operate on a complete and antagonic mechanism of governance and social organization.The objective of this paper is to critically deconstruct these two premises. First, through a genealogical analysis of milícias groups in Rio de Janeiro, we will establish a reflection that these agents never behaved as "parallel states", as often described. Far from "invading the State,"such actors establish enmeshment processes with government sectors, redefining practices and legitimacy in a complex system - involving elections and political support. We support this discourse with the concept of "parastatal" (Amar, 2014) to better represent these agents, believing that these considerations sophisticates the analysis, moving away from the narrative that the State, an isolated and sealed actor, would - and could - be attacked by external agents.The second objective is to demonstrate that the relationship between neo-Pentecostal communities and milicia groups in Rio de Janeiro is also more complex than the speech presented at the elections. Through qualitative analysis of polling data in areas controlled by the armed groups - but with strong evangelical presence – we seek to relativize the discussions that these two actors would intrinsically and automatically possess antagonistic models of social organization. The data collection rearticulates these relationships and propose a different mechanism of explanation – dissimilar from the "zero sum game" between these two elements.This specific deconstruction of the binary narratives galvanize the complexification of the milicias and the evangelical groups, demonstrating that a less absolute interpretation sheds light to a new framework of practices. We believe that these arguments promotes a potent reflection on the processes of power and legitimacy of violence in Rio de Janeiro, reinforcing how these actors can function on multiple and overlapping movements.

How Fragile Is Conditional Cooperation? A Field Experiment with Smartphones during the 2014 Soccer World Cup

AbstractWe conducted an experiment in a highly cooperative environment to find out how a disruption, similar to a broken window, affects behavior. A centipede game was framed as a game of soccer and run with smartphones during a soccer public viewing event, that is, a Bavarian beer garden with a large screen displaying a soccer game. We provided some subjects with information that was supportive to cooperation and others with disruptive information, aimed at inducing a broken window effect. The disruption reduced the willingness to cooperate at the final stage of the game. But expectations regarding teammates remained unaffected such that cooperation at earlier stages remained high. Cooperation is thus not as fragile as one might fear. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Abolishing Child Labor: Some Overlooked Ethical Issues

In preparation for the 1998 soccer World Cup, France banned the use of soccer balls made with child labor. As a result of that ban, Baden Sports, the company that supplied the soccer balls, closed down its Pakistani soccer ball operations, which used child labor, and moved production to China, where adult labor was employed. Many of the children who lost their jobs as a result of that decision became prostitutes or beggars. This paper discusses what ethical principles should be applied when determining whether child labor should be abolished or regulated.

Epidemiology of injuries sustained by players during the 16th Under-17 South American Soccer Championship

ObjectiveWe performed an epidemiological study of the traumatic injuries during the XVI South American U-17 Football Championship, 2015. Material and methodsObservational surveys submitted by the 10 teams’ medical services of 220 players. Thirty-five games were held and 116 goals (3.31 per game) were recorded. Results103 lesions, i.e., 2.94 per game or 32.7 injuries per 1000min, were recorded. Fifty-six were from direct contact and 66 required treatment. 36% were punished by the referees and 26% of injuries led to a yellow or red card. Injuries were most common in the ankle (15 cases), Achilles tendon (14 cases) and thigh (14 cases), followed by trauma to the knee and foot (7 cases each), face and the lumbar region (6 cases each), being rare in the upper extremity. ConclusionInjuries during Soccer World Cup are difficult to predict and prevent, but serious injuries are rare. It is necessary to establish protocols that get adequate health care at all levels to solve problems arising, both in training and during the competition, and be prepared to solve the serious problems that may arise.

Coping with dilemma: How German sport media users respond to sport mega events in autocratic countries

In recent years, sport mega events have been frequently awarded to autocratic countries whose regimes violate democratic values and human rights. Based on the theory of cognitive dissonance, we assume that this is a potential source of internal conflict for viewers, especially for sports enthusiasts and politically aware recipients. Special attention rests on the consequences of the recipients’ strategies of addressing this predicament for important stakeholders of these events, namely the reporting media, the host country and sponsors. We conducted an online survey among 711 German respondents to examine how recipients cope with this dilemma using the forthcoming FIFA soccer World Cup 2018 in Russia as an example. Our results show that while recipients are strongly interested in soccer and politics, most of them do not necessarily perceive these two spheres as inextricably connected. Their awareness of sociopolitical issues in the context of sport events—and thus the decisive factor to explain cognitive dissonance—is arguably low. Still, when recipients experience cognitive dissonance they rely on certain strategies to reduce or avoid dissonance. They do not elude this dilemma by preferring sports broadcasting without coverage of the event’s negative circumstances, but are actually willing to pass on parts of the tournament. They also do not denigrate the credibility of the media or emphasize positive aspects of the host country Russia. In fact, the recipients would prefer if the World Cup had not been awarded to Russia in the first place. However, respondents experiencing cognitive dissonance are also more likely to engage in political consumerism, by deliberately deciding against or in favor of products and sponsors depending on whether or not those are associated with the event.

The Visualization of the Official Data for Soccer World Cup

The Visualization of the Official Data for Soccer World Cup

Beach Soccer: Analysis of the Goals Scored and its Relation to the Game Physiology

The beach soccer is currently one of the fastest developing sports in the world. It is characterized as a modality of intermittent character of high intensity, requiring high demand of energy and of the anaerobic system with intensities above 90% of maximum heart rate. The objective of this study is: (i) to analyze and quantify in absolute and percentage terms, the incidence of goals in Beach Soccer FIFA World Cups matches, checking in which periods of games the goals happen; (ii) to identify the team that scored the first goal of the game and check the final result obtained by this team: win, draw or defeat; (iii) to relate the results to the physical performance, technical, tactical and psychological. We analyzed all the matches in 5 Beach Soccer World Cup organized by the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), totaling 148 matches. The data were collected at the FIFA website database through the official summaries of the games. According to the data of the goals timing, it was found that most of the goals (37.21%) are scored in the last period of games. Regarding the influence of the first goal for the final result of the match, the team that scores the first goal of the game features average probability of winning approximately 60%. Thus, it is suggested that the higher incidence of goals in the 3rd period of the games is associated mainly to the interaction of physical and psychological factors. Regarding the influence of the first goal for the final result, it is believed that the psychological aspect appears to interfere with greater relevance.

A GOLDEN GOAL FOR SOUTH AFRICA: Security arrangements for the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup

The 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup has been a major talking point both locally and internationally, and many concerns have been raised over South Africa’s ability to host such a major event. These concerns essentially relate to infrastructural capacity and security. It goes without saying that South Africa is obliged to provide high level security for participating teams and management as well as for the thousands of spectators who are expected to flood South Africa for the duration of the event. This article takes a look at other high level events that have been hosted in South Africa so as to get an idea of what is required and examines planned security arrangements for the 2010 World Cup.

Promoting Terror or Sport? The Case of Qatar’s International Image

Qatar’s successful bid for hosting the 2022 soccer World Cup is regarded as one in a series of attempts to change Qatar’s image as a terror-sponsoring state. To understand the power of hosting megasport events to rebuild a country’s international image, the present study compares the coverage of Qatari sport affairs with concurrent terror-sponsoring allegations, via a sentiment analysis of coverage of Qatari affairs by three international networks (SKY, CNN, and ITV) between August 20, 2013 and December 31, 2014. Surprisingly, the analysis found that terror-related articles contained significantly more positive sentiment than articles on other issues, whereas the tone toward Qatar in sport-related articles was significantly less positive than other topics. The study illustrates the limits of using sport as a soft power strategy, and underscores the superiority of on-the-ground efforts to deflect terror allegations as a strategy for improving a country’s image.

Epidemiología de las lesiones sufridas por los jugadores durante el XVI Campeonato Sudamericano Sub-17 de Fútbol

ObjectiveWe performed an epidemiological study of the traumatic injuries during the XVI South American U-17 Football Championship, 2015. Material and methodsObservational surveys submitted by the 10 teams medical services of 220 players. Thirty-five games were held and 116 goals (3.31 per game) were recorded. Results103 lesions, ie, 2.94 per game or 32.7 injuries per 1,000 min were recorded. Fifty-six were from direct contact and 66 requiring treatment. 36% of the injuries were punished by fault and 26% of the injuries also saw card. Injuries were most common in the ankle (15 cases), Achilles tendon (14 cases) and thigh (14 cases), followed by trauma to the knee and foot (7 cases each), face and the lumbar region (6 cases each), being rare in the upper extremity. ConclusionInjuries during Soccer World Cup are difficult to predict and prevent, but serious injuries are rare. Is necessary to establish protocols that get adequate health care at all levels to solve problems produce, both in training and during the competition, and be prepared to solve the serious problems that may arise.

Contigo en la distancia by Carla Guelfenbein

about identity and belonging, Peruvian novelist Isaac Goldemberg explores the many artistic possibilities of detective fiction in his fourth novel, Remember the Scorpion. In Peruvian letters, detective fiction has a limited tradition, as compared to that of other countries such as Argentina and Mexico; nevertheless, Goldemberg’s novel overcomes such shortcomings to offer a narrative filled with suspense, melodrama, and social criticism. In May 1970, while dealing with the aftermath of one of the biggest earthquakes in Peru’s history and as the population is enthralled by the national team’s participation in a soccer World Cup, Captain Simon Weiss is charged with investigating two gruesome crimes in Lima. In the first case, a Japanese immigrant is found crucified and beheaded in a pool hall, while in the other an elderly Jewish man is found hanged in his room in a downtown hostal. In both cases, the destruction left behind by World Word II in Europe and immigrant survival in South America haunt the lives of each victim’s past. Such is also the case of Captain Weiss, a Jewish Peruvian detective who was adopted by Jewish immigrants as a boy after spending time in a German concentration camp. In fact, it is Weiss’s sense of justice that led him to a career in Peru’s police force, where he has now reached the rank of a captain and is a respected detective. Weiss at first comes across as an intelligent , courageous individual with an impeccable sense of duty to his institution. While unraveling the many intricate secrets behind these two homicides (not the least of which is the recurring image of a scorpion), Weiss must come to terms with his childhood scars and other ghosts from the past. As the narrative progresses, the reader learns of Weiss’s many human frailties—including his love for Margarita, a mestizo prostitute fifteen years his elder, his addiction to cocaine and opium, and his sentimental temperament. In many ways, such is also the case of his sidekick, Katón Kanashiro, a young lieutenant who accompanies Weiss in his fact-finding mission. Kanashiro, the son of a Japanese immigrant, is in love with Sonia Galindo, a mestizo television journalist whose reporting pretends to keep the public informed of the truth behind the two homicides . However, when the real culprits are discovered, truth (and any possible sense of justice) also becomes a questionable concept . Instead, what emerges from the narrative is a critical portrait of modern Peru as a multicultural but fragmented society where ethnic prejudices are part of the daily social dynamic and corruption permeates the highest spheres of government. As in other works by Goldemberg, Remember the Scorpion is a novel in which national identity is confronted with personal , cultural loyalties. In the end, Weiss’s fate is the consequence of having to face his many ethical conundrums, including a questionable sense of belonging to Peruvian mainstream culture and an elusive sense of justice. Goldemberg’s excellent, fast-paced novel, well translated by Jonathan Tittler, is a reminder of this author’s great talent as a storyteller, someone whose many works deserve more critical attention. César Ferreira University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee Carla Guelfenbein. Contigo en la distancia. Miami. Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial. 2015. 250 pages. Chilean writer Carla Guelfenbein’s Contigo en la distancia is the 2015 winner of the prestigious Alfaguara Novel Prize. The novel takes its title from a popular bolero written in 1946 by Cuban singer-songwriter César Portillo de la Luz, a song that has been interpreted over the years by many international artists. Like Guelfenbein’s previous four novels, this work revolves around the intimate lives of a limited number Naoki Hyakuta The Eternal Zero Trans. Chris Brynne & Paul Rubin Vertical On the surface, Naoki Hyakuta’s novel presents an intriguing mystery as two modern-day siblings try to uncover the character and circumstances of the death of their grandfather, who died as a kamikaze pilot. The expansive narrative, however, does not shy away from polemic questions and concerns of the motivations of kamikaze pilots or the reluctance of present-day Japan to face the past. The novel brings humanity to the often faceless...

DECONSTRUCTING AUTOMATISMS: MILICIA PRACTICES AND NEOPENTESCOSTAL FORMATIONS IN RIO DE JANEIRO

The 2012 elections for governor in Rio de Janeiro gather special attention from national and international media analysts. The city politics was under scrutiny with the mega events hosted Brazil, like the Summer Olympic Games and the Soccer World Cup. In this sense, the strategies of the candidates for the organization of the city - mainly for public safety issues - were dissected and analysed for months leading up to the election day.In this context, as the disputes were being centralized in the candidates best placed in the pools, Luis Carlos Pezão (PMDB) and Marcelo Crivela (PRB), talks about the supposed contenders’ governance mechanisms began to be galvanized. In the mainstream narrative, the first one would gather support, along other segments, from the “milícias”, parastatal organizations that uses extortion of some communities to gather control of entire neighbourhoods. The ‘milícias’ would be one of the greatest contemporary security issues of Rio, accused of violent actions and recurrent cases of murders and violence. In turn, Crivela would be mainly supported by the neo-Pentecostal religious groups (The Guardian, 2012; O Globo, 2012). This binary narrative, reinforced by accusations from both politicians in televised debates, strengthened the discourse of an ‘ militia assault’ against the State, building the image that evangelical sectors could serve as an opposition movement to these groups. Both would operate on a complete and antagonic mechanism of governance and social organization.The objective of this paper is to critically deconstruct these two premises. First, through a genealogical analysis of milícias groups in Rio de Janeiro, we will establish a reflection that these agents never behaved as "parallel states", as often described. Far from "invading the State,"such actors establish enmeshment processes with government sectors, redefining practices and legitimacy in a complex system - involving elections and political support. We support this discourse with the concept of "parastatal" (Amar, 2014) to better represent these agents, believing that these considerations sophisticates the analysis, moving away from the narrative that the State, an isolated and sealed actor, would - and could - be attacked by external agents.The second objective is to demonstrate that the relationship between neo-Pentecostal communities and milicia groups in Rio de Janeiro is also more complex than the speech presented at the elections. Through qualitative analysis of polling data in areas controlled by the armed groups - but with strong evangelical presence – we seek to relativize the discussions that these two actors would intrinsically and automatically possess antagonistic models of social organization. The data collection rearticulates these relationships and propose a different mechanism of explanation – dissimilar from the "zero sum game" between these two elements.This specific deconstruction of the binary narratives galvanize the complexification of the milicias and the evangelical groups, demonstrating that a less absolute interpretation sheds light to a new framework of practices. We believe that these arguments promotes a potent reflection on the processes of power and legitimacy of violence in Rio de Janeiro, reinforcing how these actors can function on multiple and overlapping movements.

Zika Virus Controversies: Epidemics as a Legacy of Mega Events?

The current knowledge of the Zika Virus epidemic clearly lacks a comprehensive understanding of its determinants and clinical outcomes. Until recently regarded as a “simple” dengue-like infection, it nowadays turned into a real challenge to Public Health around the world. The Zika Epidemic shows a quick spread, affects unprepared health systems, and presents with severe neurological complications of newborns—a concrete threat to pregnancies. This re-emerging infectious disease is a source of deep doubts and harsh debates regarding Public Health and even bioethical issues. Several doubts still remain on how to deal with the various possible transmission ways of the disease, the surge of a generation of thousands of microcephalic newborns (and questions on how to handle them within limited health systems), and severe malformations concentrated so far in Northeastern Brazil. Finally, a debate is raised about how the “Endemic State” of Brazil, deeply merged in a health care crisis for almost 40 years now, currently confronts 3 current epidemics of the arboviruses Dengue, Chikungunya and now Zika, all associated with a lack of basic sanitation. Brazil must deal with these biological threats in the context of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, since Chikungunya has probably been brought to Brazil during the FIFA Soccer World Cup (2014) and Zika Virus spread is associated with the Soccer Confederations Cup (2013).

English

English