The English have a reputation for producing soccer players that are not afraid to make hard challenges to win the ball. They refer to this as getting “stuck in.” But could it be that because England’s players all play in the same league, they are also more likely to get “stuck” as well.

University of Michigan professor Scott Page wrote an interesting book in 2007 called The Difference where he makes a provocative, argument about the benefits of diversity to institutions. The genesis of his book began as a young professor at CalTech:

One winter evening in 1995, to have a little fun I constructed a computer model of diverse problem solvers confronting a difficult problem. Put aside for now what counts for fun at Caltech; “fun” at Caltech rarely makes sense to the outside world. In my model, I represented diversity as differences in the ways problem solvers encoded the problem and searched for solutions. I referred to these ways of solving the problem as tools. In working through the implications of my model, I stumbled on a counterintuitive finding: diverse groups of problem solvers—groups of people with diverse tools—consistently outperformed groups of the best and the brightest. If I formed two groups, one random (and therefore diverse) and one consisting of the best individual performers, the first group almost always did better. In my model, diversity trumped ability.

In follow up experiments, Page found that a random group of problem solvers consistently outperformed high ability groups. Why? Here is Page in a New York Times interview describing the general findings in his book:

People from different backgrounds have varying ways of looking at problems, what I call “tools.” The sum of these tools is far more powerful in organizations with diversity than in ones where everyone has gone to the same schools, been trained in the same mold and thinks in almost identical ways.

The problems we face in the world are very complicated. Any one of us can get stuck. If we’re in an organization where everyone thinks in the same way, everyone will get stuck in the same place.

But if we have people with diverse tools, they’ll get stuck in different places. One person can do their best, and then someone else can come in and improve on it. There’s a lot of empirical data to show that diverse cities are more productive, diverse boards of directors make better decisions, the most innovative companies are diverse.

Does this finding apply to football/soccer teams? One proposition would be that teams with players for that play is different leagues around the world bring a diverse set of experiences, training habits, tactics, norms, etc. that would be beneficial in game preparation and in making split second decisions on the field. By extension, players who all ply their trade in the same league would all have the same general set of experiences and would see off-field and on-field problems the same way.

If Page’s logic applies to winning at soccer, then that does not bode well for England’s changes at the upcoming 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Here’s a look at the preliminary 30 man roster coach Fabio Capello named yesterday:

Goalkeepers: David James (Portsmouth), Robert Green (West Ham United), Joe Hart (Manchester City).

Defenders: Ashley Cole (Chelsea), John Terry (Chelsea), Rio Ferdinand (Manchester United), Glen Johnson (Liverpool), Ledley King (Tottenham Hotspur), Jamie Carragher (Liverpool), Matthew Upson (West Ham United), Michael Dawson (Tottenham Hotspur), Leighton Baines (Everton), Stephen Warnock (Aston Villa).

Midfielders: Steven Gerrard (Liverpool), Frank Lampard (Chelsea), Michael Carrick (Manchester United), James Milner (Aston Villa), Theo Walcott (Arsenal), Gareth Barry (Manchester City), Joe Cole (Chelsea), Tom Huddlestone (Tottenham Hotspur), Scott Parker (West Ham United), Aaron Lennon (Tottenham Hotspur), Adam Johnson (Manchester City), Shaun Wright-Phillips (Manchester City).

Forwards: Wayne Rooney (Manchester United), Peter Crouch (Tottenham Hotspur), Emile Heskey (Aston Villa), Darren Bent (Sunderland), Jermain Defoe (Tottenham Hotspur).

Every single one of these 30 players plies their trade in the Barclay’s English Premiere League. Of course this is almost universally accepted to be the best league in the world. And the 30 on this team (with the possible exception of the goalkeepers) are among the best players in the best league in the world. With Wayne Rooney, they have a player that is arguably the best player in the world, or at least one of the top three. As a result, pundits expect England to waltz through their qualification group and to possibly win the World Cup for the first time since 1966.

But Page’s key insight is that merit based groups don’t perform as well as diverse groups because merit based groups see problems in similar ways and are disposed to get “stuck” in the same place and in the same way. A team with less talented players but more diversity of experience (playing in different leagues) might make up for their lack of ability with an enhanced range of experiences that gives them a greater ability to get “unstuck” when the group encounters a problem.

it just so happens that England’s first game is against the USA, a team that fits this bill nicely. Let’s look at the USA’s 30 man roster:

GOALKEEPERS (3): Brad Guzan (Aston Villa), Tim Howard (Everton), Marcus Hahnemann (Wolverhampton)

DEFENDERS (9): Carlos Bocanegra (Rennes), Jonathan Bornstein (Chivas USA), Steve Cherundolo (Hannover), Jay DeMerit (Watford), Clarence Goodson (IK Start), Chad Marshall (Columbus Crew), Oguchi Onyewu (AC Milan), Heath Pearce (FC Dallas), Jonathan Spector (West Ham United)

MIDFIELDERS (12): DaMarcus Beasley (Rangers), Alejandro Bedoya (Örebro), Michael Bradley (Borussia Mönchengladbach), Ricardo Clark (Eintracht Frankfurt), Clint Dempsey (Fulham), Landon Donovan (Los Angeles Galaxy), Maurice Edu (Rangers), Benny Feilhaber (Aarhus), Stuart Holden (Bolton), Sacha Kljestan (Chivas USA), Robbie Rogers (Columbus Crew), José Torres (Pachuca)

FORWARDS (6): Jozy Altidore (Villarreal), Edson Buddle (Los Angeles Galaxy), Brian Ching (Houston Dynamo), Robbie Findley (Real Salt Lake), Herculez Gomez (Puebla), Eddie Johnson (Aris Thessaloniki)

The 30 players on this roster come from twelve different leagues: (England, USA, France, Spain, Germany, Sweden, Italy, Scotland, Denmark, Norway, Mexico, and Greece). While the USA has some influential players in global soccer, they are in large part not among the best players in the world. They are serviceable players for mid-level teams (Edu and Beasley excepted) in both high and mid level leagues. Nine of the 30 on the roster play in Major League Soccer – a good, but not great standard.

If Page is right, the USA should do better than England. But it can’t be right? If it was, then a random sample of 30 people from around the world would give England a game! And we all know that wouldn’t happen (although it would be funny to watch).

Page’s key point is that in problem solving, both diversity and ability matter.

Diversity and ability complement one another: the better the individual fruits, the better the fruit basket, and the better the other fruit, the better the apple. So while we might equally proudly affix “my other child’s different” bumper stickers to our vehicles (anyone with two kids can claim that to be true), ideally, our children would be individually able and collectively diverse.

If you could find a team that merged both ability and diversity then you would have a force of nature. Here’s Brasil’s preliminary 23 man roster:

Goalkeepers – Julio Cesar (Inter Milan), Doni (AS Roma), Gomes (Tottenham Hotspur)

Defenders – Maicon (Inter Milan), Daniel Alves (Barcelona), Michel Bastos (Olympique Lyon), Gilberto (Cruzeiro), Lucio (Inter Milan), Juan (AS Roma), Luisao (Benfica), Thiago Silva (AC Milan)

Midfielders – Gilberto Silva (Panathinaikos), Felipe Melo (Fiorentina), Ramires (Benfica), Elano (Galatasaray), Kaka (Real Madrid), Julio Baptista (Roma), Kleberson (Flamengo), Josue (VfL Wolfsburg).

Forwards – Robinho (Santos), Luis Fabiano (Sevilla), Nilmar (Villarreal), Grafite (VfL Wolfsburg).

Brazil’s 23 play in 9 different leagues: (Italy, England, Spain, France, Brazil, Portugal, Greece, Turkey, Germany). The difference between Brazil’s nine and the USA’s 12 is that Brazil’s 23 are superstars in 9 of the top league in the world whereby the USA’s 30 are good players in 12 different leagues (10 actually since Jozy Altidore was loaned from Spain to England and Oguchi Onyewu has been injured and actually hasn’t played for AC Milan, but I digress).

Brazil has the best of both worlds — ability and diversity of soccer experience. So they are my pick to win the world cup.

But take heart England fans, the all might be nonsense. England’s first division is much more international than it was just a generation earlier. In 2008, only 34% of the players were from England, about half the percentage of English players in the previous generation. Therefore, the 30 on England’s roster have been exposed to a wide assortment of players and playing styles. The Premiership is a prime destination for players from all over the world and many of the top talent on display at the World Cup will either be playing or hope to be auditioning for a chance to play in England.

England also has an increased diversity of coaches. Of the top seven teams in England’s top flight, five six were from other countries: a Scot (Freguson), a Northern Irishman (O’Neil), two Italians (Ancelotti, Mancini), a Spaniard (Benitez), and a Frenchman (Wenger). Further, most of the players on the English roster play in European tournaments gaining further exposure to a wide range of soccer experiences. And finally, England’s national team is managed by an Italian, Fabio Capello, one of the best soccer minds in the world. So they might have a better chance than ever because they have introduced more diversity into their league and into their national team.

But, if England does lay an egg in one month, the lack of diversity might be a good reason.

Now that my semester is winding down, I can indulge my semi-unhealthy obsession with the global game. In exactly one month, the United States’ most popular team, Mexico, will take on South Africa in Johannesburg in the opening match of the FIFA World Cup.

Just a warning to our dear readers (and to my fellow bloggers) I’ll be hijacking using this blog to geek out about the social and political aspects of the tournament.

First, let’s dispel the myth that no-one cares about this tournament in the United States. In 2006, ABC drew a 5.8 rating for the USA-Italy match (a 1-1 draw for the USA against the eventual champions). This despite the games being telecast in the morning rather than in typical prime time spots (the tournament was in Germany in 2006). The final of that tournament between Brazil France and Italy drew a 7.0 rating, a 180% increase from 2002.

As a comparison, here are the TV ratings for the finals of the four “major” sports in the US.

World Series (Average for all games in the series) — 10.1
Super Bowl — 41.6
NBA Finals — 8.5
NHL Stanley Cup Finals — 1.8

Buoyed by the surprise success of the 2006 tournament (ESPN didn’t even bid for the 2002 World Cup), the network is putting more resources into the event than ever before. John Skipper, ESPN’s vice president of network programming, is expecting this to be the highest rated World Cup in the network’s history. The network has hired famed English broadcaster Martin Tyler for the event and it will broadcast it’s Sports Center news show from South Africa.

The network can also take heart in the fact that non-World Cup international soccer has garnered impressive ratings. In 2009, the U.S. made an improbable run in FIFA’s Confederations Cup, a largely ignored, bi-annual tournament featuring the champions of each of FIFA’s regional confederations. The USA reached the finals of that tournament, losing to Brasil 3-2 but giving them a scare by taking a 2-0 lead on them. The game drew an impressive 4 million viewers in the United States, despite little promotion of the event. Here are highlights of that game (it just sounds better in Spanish):

Whatever success this World Cup garners can be traced back to two key events in US soccer. The 1994 World Cup held in the United States. The event introduced hundreds of thousands of people to the game in the USA (myself included).

The next big event was the USA’s 5th place finish in the 2002 tournament held in South Korea/Japan. Along the way, the little regarded USA beat Portugal, tied the hosts (South Korea), beat arch rival Mexico, and had Germany on their heels before falling 1-0 to the perennial powers. That impressive run brought an entirely new group of fans into the game as well:

To get you in the right frame of mind, here are the promo commercials for the 2010 World Cup:

Here’s an ad that announces the World Cup in the language of each of the 32 participating nations:

The Power of 10

31 Countries will Fall

And of course, Bono’s meta-analysis

Let the geeking out begin!

So the GOP’s rising star, and fellow Cuban-American, Florida Senate candidate Marco Rubio now supports the Arizona immigration bill.

OK, so the modification of the Arizona immigration bill makes it less problematic.  But still, for someone whose parents (like mine) were granted “amnesty” for being on the right side of the Cold War to support this bill is a special kind of chutzpah.

As far as immigrants go, we Cubans got a pretty sweet deal:

Unlike immigrants from other countries, Cubans were granted a special status which made it easier to gain residency. Other immigrants had to prove that they were fleeing for political reasons so that they could be granted the status of a refugee. On the other hand, upon entry onto United States soil, Cubans were automatically given refugee status along with other privileges. Some of these special privileges were introduced in 1966 and included gaining permanent residency status if the Cuban immigrant had resided in the U.S. for at least one year. For Cuban immigrants that had stayed longer than the time period granted on their visitor visas, they were still granted permanent residency.

We didn’t have to “pay a fine” or “go to the back of the line.” But Rubio think that options shouldn’t be extended to mostly Mexican undocumented immigrants:

Rubio also rejected the notion of a “path to citizenship” or “amnesty,” despite “the human stories.”

“There are going to be stories of very young kids that were brought to this country at a very young age who don’t even speak Spanish that are going to be sent back to Nicaragua or some other place. And it’s gonna feel weird and I understand that,” he said, suggesting that those hardships would be a price worth paying.

I understand the politics this guy is facing.  If he ever aspires to national office in this Republican party, then he better be tough on “illegals.” 

I admit that the rule of law and the right of a sovereign people to define membership through a democratic process is important. Fine, but at the very least acknowledge the irony when you advocate closing the door behind you. Otherwise you’re being what we call in my parent’s native tongue “un mal-agradecido.”

via Ben Smith: Politico

Here’s a great talk by Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Adichie. A wonderful narrative on the frustrations with misrecognition — telling a single story about a people. Play it for the next person that refers to Africa as a country!

One of the best public affairs talk shows in the country, WAMU’s Diame Rhem show is based out of Washington, DC. This gives it access to a whole host of public officials and advocacy groups. The result is an informative, engaging, discussion of policy issues.

This show is a regular on my Zune (I know, don’t laugh…I actually think it’s a really good MP3 player). Examples of the policy discussion goodness includes shows on Arizona’s Immigration Law and Financial Regulatory Reform.

This is a good tool for those who teach a Social Problems or Public Policy course. It’s a sober discussion of current issues. I’ve assigned this show’s podcasts to my policy students. It’s a good way to engage students and to give them a break from reading when necessary.

Here’s where you can donate to the show if you’re so inclined 🙂

Matt Yglesias points us to a great illustration of how much “middle class welfare” exists in American society.

From a social justice perspective, there’s little reason why a homeowner should get a tax-break from the federal government at the expense of non-homeowners or why those who can place money in an IRA get a break at the expense of those who cannot do so. Of course, these are not “hand outs” because they are presumed to have been “earned” in some form.

This is what made the Earned Income Tax Credit in the 1990’s such good policy. It is not perceived as a subsidy when in actuality it means the same thing to the federal government’s bottom line. The public is supportive of matching what poor people earn through a credit rather than providing them with direct assistance. Similarly, we wouldn’t be too happy with the federal government handing us money for buying a home, but that’s what we essentially do.

Mark Blumenthal breaks down attitudes towards the public option. It shows the challenge for the Democrats in 2010 — the “floating voter” population seems to be more supportive of health care, but are less likely to express that support in the polls. What remains are those voters that do not need high salience elections to turn out. So the question for Democrats is how you turn those “slack resources” in the electorate towards the polls in November?

via Andrew Sullivan

Via Johnathan Chait,  six states are considering legislation inspired by the claim that our current president was not born in the United States.

Chait points us to Arizona’s proposed legislation in their House that stipulates:

if the secretary of state has reasonable cause to believe that the candidate does not meet the citizenship, age and residency requirements prescribed by law, the secretary of state shall not place that candidate’s name on the ballot.

Why is this particular brand of public “nut-job-ism” gaining traction in state legislatures? Because according to a new New York Times/CBS poll, 42% of Americans either do not believe or are not sure that President Obama is a U.S. citizen…this percentage is no doubt higher in places where the public mix of ideology, education level, and attitudes towards race make this particular myth more appealing.

I understand that wacky conspiracy theories are significant part of our politics.  Remember, Clinton was a drug dealer? Bush was a cocaine addict? Loose change? A 2006 Scripps/Howard poll found that 36% of Americans thought that the federal government knew about the 9-11 attacks.

Great.  Fine.  Have at it.  Normally, I’d give little thought to “fringe” opinion in the U.S. polity.  But when a “fringe” opinion coalesces into a movement and is taken seriously by mainstream media, then I think there’s room to worry.  In a liberal, democratic society, nut-jobs should add comic-relief to public discourse, not drive legislation!

Our oceans are full of trash. So says photographer Chris Jordan who visited the Midway atoll, took some disturbing pictures, and presented it at the 2007 PopTech conference.

Chris Jordan: Polluting Plastics from PopTech on Vimeo.

This begs the question, if trash accumulates in the oceans and no one is there to experience it, do enough people care? At least enough to affect policy/social change?

via PopTech Blog.

Erik Hayden at Miller McCune links to a study done Alan Mislove of Northeastern University and his colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems
that reveals how easy it is to create a profile of you from your Facebook contacts. Using alogrithmic magic, the team was able to create profiles for thousands of students at Rice from their profiles and the profiles of those they had “friended.”

the algorithm accurately predicted the correct dormitory, graduation year and area of study for the many of the students. In fact, among these undergraduates, researchers found that “with as little as 20 percent of the users providing attributes we can often infer the attributes for the remaining users with over 80 percent accuracy.

Hayden sees this as a problem:

Not to seem alarmist (“privacy” on the Web has always been overrated), but if these researchers could develop a limited algorithm that can infer rudimentary attributes off locked profiles, the possibilities seem endless for others to harness advanced software that could render current privacy controls completely useless.

This poses a paradox…if people freely give this information to a web site in exchange for the pleasures of friendship/connection, then are we obliged to regulate how the information is used by others? Isn’t a central element of connection the fact that you’re “putting yourself out there” in public. Being public poses risks. Can we have the pleasures of the public with the protections of the private?