Playoffs

Following on from the group stages, I was able to import in the data required to build the playoffs. The complications with these games is that they can have extra time and penalty shootouts. Once these small problems were solved, the rest of the page started to fall together.


I'm almost ready to start building some stats, but next is a team page, (to display the teams results and stats), and importing in the players.

Importing Data

Over the weekend I imported in enough data into my database to start to build the actual World Cup website. I did this using Excel and some nifty formulas that imported in each team and their flag, and then, with some copying from Wikipedia and BBC.co.uk, I created another script to import in the details for each game.

Once this was created it was easy enough for me to throw together a simple page that shows each group's details. This page only has a dropdown list for the groups, a datagrid for the group table, and then another datagrid to display each game in the group.


Next: The playoff stages...

First Steps

I had a lot of ideas about how to display the results, how to import in the data and how I would store all the results. I had to make a couple decisions.

1. I'll use Visual Studio 2010 to create an ASP.NET website and SQL Server 2008.
2. I would start with the FIFA 2010 World Cup. The database would be designed to capture teams, scores, games, results, and in future, players, goal scorers, yellow/red cards and substitutions. I will be ignoring (at least for now) some stats such as passes, tackles, and assists.
3. I would import the data using a combination of various football websites (Wikipedia, BBC.co.uk, Soccernet.com, FIFA.com). I know that in the past there is some 'discussion' about facts, so I will be using official FIFA decisions (e.g. in the 1930 World Cup, there is still discussion between official FIFA documentation and independent researchers over who scored certain goals)

Taking this into account, I did a few rough sketches of what I thought the website would look like, and then I designed a rough database, loading it into my SQL database. The result of this is below.



What's next? Importing in some basic data...

A New Project Begins

As I was watching this years 2010 edition of the Fifa World Cup, I realized how much I love the statistics. I couldn't get enough and wanted more. I wanted to get at the raw data and process it to make my own charts, but it just doesn't seem to be available. After briefly (about 10 minutes) looking for jobs at a sports statistics company, I decided to throw together this project, a"World Cup Project". The idea is to compile all the results from all World Cups and produce some cool results. This blog will document the development process, and then I will hopefully have some interesting stats to show...

First interesting stat:
New Zealand was the only undefeated team at the 2010 World Cup, with 3 draws (even the winners Spain lost their first game).