The Hindu Business Line : Bend it with economics

My friend and I were recently watching a recording of the 2006 World Cup Soccer quarterfinal between England and Portugal. My friend loves to watch England lose, as it did in that match against Portugal. But what has soccer got to do with economics?

You may have observed that goalkeepers were the stars of the 2006 World Cup. In fact, the grand finale was settled with penalty shootouts with Italy beating France 5-3. Our relation between soccer and economics starts with goalkeepers.

If you play soccer, you will appreciate the difficult task that goalkeepers face during penalty shootouts; there is little time for goalkeepers to judge the flight of the ball and save the penalty.

So, how would an economist play ball if he were a goalkeeper? Tim Harford, the author of Undercover Economics, provides some clues on this.

In an interesting article in Slate.com, he suggests that game theory may come in handy while keeping goal. Game theory is a study that uses mathematics and economics to help people take actions that maximise their returns.

Using game theory, the economist-goalkeeper would follow an unpredictable strategy. That is, he will not always dive in one direction when the ball is kicked from the spot. Instead, he will follow a random strategy to confuse the penalty shooter.

Of course, the penalty shooter will also want to do the same — not always shoot to his stronger side. It essentially comes to the smart brains of the best penalty shooters against that of the goalkeepers. Gianluigi Buffon came on top in the 2006 World Cup for Italy. Not for nothing is he is the costliest goalkeeper in the world. That, perhaps, makes him a good game theorist as well!

(The author is based in Toronto, Canada.)

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