1901 UM Football team, practicing on DIAG before leaving for Tournament of Roses Game

[New Medical Building under construction in the background]

South Africa and the global game:football, apartheid and beyond

Firmly situating South African teams, players, and associations in the international framework in which they have to compete, South Africa and the Global Game: Football, Apartheid, and Beyond presents an interdisciplinary analysis of how and why South Africa underwent a remarkable transformation from a pariah in world sport to the first African host of a World Cup in 2010. Written by an eminent team of scholars, this special issue and book aims to examine the importance of football in South African society, revealing how the black oppression transformed a colonial game into a force for political, cultural and social liberation. It explores how the hosting of the 2010 World Cup aims to enhance the prestige of the post-apartheid nation, to generate economic growth and stimulate Pan-African pride. Among the themes dealt with are race and racism, class and gender dynamics, social identities, mass media and culture, and globalization. This collection of original and insightful essays will appeal to specialists in African Studies, Cultural Studies, and Sport Studies, as well as to non-specialist readers seeking to inform themselves ahead of the 2010 World Cup. This book was published as a special issue of Soccer and Society. 1. Introduction Peter Alegi and Chris Bolsmann Part 1: Past is Prologue – History of Football in South Africa 2. Football as Code: The Social Diffusion of ‘Soccer’ in South Africa Lloyd Hill 3. White Football in South Africa: Empire, Apartheid and Change, 1892 – 1977 Chris Bolsmann 4. A Biography of Darius Dhlomo: Transnational Footballer in the Era of Apartheid Peter Alegi 5. Women and Gender in South African Soccer Cynthia Fabrizio Pelak Part 2: Football Culture after Apartheid: Local and Transnational Dynamics 6. "You Must Support Chiefs: Pirates Already Have Two White Fans!" Race and Racial Discourse in South African Football Fandom Marc Fletcher 7. "It wasn’t that I did not like South African Football": Media, History, and Biography Sean Jacobs 8. Soccer in a Rugby Town: Restructuring Football in Stellenbosch Sylvain Cubizolles 9. Differing Trajectories: Football Development and Patterns of Player Migration in South Africa and Ghana Paul Darby and Eirik Solberg Part 3: The 2010 World Cup: Challenges and Opportunities 10. Football's Tsars: Proprietorship, Corporatism and Politics in the 2010 FIFA World Cup Scarlett Cornelissen 11. Sports as Cultural Diplomacy: The 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa’s Foreign Policy Sifiso Mxolisi Ndlovu 12. World Cup 2010: Africa’s Turn or the Turn on Africa? Ashwin Desai and Goolam Vahed 13. The 2010 FIFA World Cup: Critical Voices From Below Percy Ngonyama.

Applied physiology and game analysis of rugby union

Increased professionalism in rugby has elicited rapid changes in the fitness profile of elite players. Recent research, focusing on the physiological and anthropometrical characteristics of rugby players, and the demands of competition are reviewed. The paucity of research on contemporary elite rugby players is highlighted, along with the need for standardised testing protocols. Recent data reinforce the pronounced differences in the anthropometric and physical characteristics of the forwards and backs. Forwards are typically heavier, taller, and have a greater proportion of body fat than backs. These characteristics are changing, with forwards developing greater total mass and higher muscularity. The forwards demonstrate superior absolute aerobic and anaerobic power, and Muscular strength. Results favour the backs when body mass is taken into account. The scaling of results to body mass can be problematic and future investigations should present results using power function ratios. Recommended tests for elite players include body mass and skinfolds, vertical jump, speed, and the multi-stage shuttle run. Repeat sprint testing is a possible avenue for more specific evaluation of players. During competition, high-intensity efforts are often followed by periods of incomplete recovery. The total work over the duration of a game is lower in the backs compared with the forwards; forwards spend greater time in physical contact with the opposition while the backs spend more time in free running, allowing them to cover greater distances. The intense efforts undertaken by rugby players place considerable stress on anaerobic energy sources, while the aerobic system provides energy during repeated efforts and for recovery. Training should focus on repeated brief high-intensity efforts with short rest intervals to condition players to the demands of the game. Training for the forwards should emphasise the higher work rates of the game, while extended rest periods can be provided to the backs. Players should not only be prepared for the demands of competition, but also the stress of travel and extreme environmental conditions. The greater professionalism of rugby union has increased scientific research in the sport; however, there is scope for significant refinement of investigations on the physiological demands of the game, and sports-specific testing procedures.

Dynamical Stability and Predictability of Football Players: The Study of One Match

The game of football demands new computational approaches to measure individual and collective performance. Understanding the phenomena involved in the game may foster the identification of strengths and weaknesses, not only of each player, but also of the whole team. The development of assertive quantitative methodologies constitutes a key element in sports training. In football, the predictability and stability inherent in the motion of a given player may be seen as one of the most important concepts to fully characterise the variability of the whole team. This paper characterises the predictability and stability levels of players during an official football match. A Fractional Calculus (FC) approach to define a player’s trajectory. By applying FC, one can benefit from newly considered modeling perspectives, such as the fractional coefficient, to estimate a player’s predictability and stability. This paper also formulates the concept of attraction domain, related to the tactical region of each player, inspired by stability theory principles. To compare the variability inherent in the player’s process variables (e.g., distance covered) and to assess his predictability and stability, entropy measures are considered. Experimental results suggest that the most predictable player is the goalkeeper while, conversely, the most unpredictable players are the midfielders. We also conclude that, despite his predictability, the goalkeeper is the most unstable player, while lateral defenders are the most stable during the match.

Pervasive decision support to predict football corners and goals by means of data mining

Football is considered nowadays one of the most popular sports. In the betting world, it has acquired an outstanding position, which moves millions of euros during the period of a single football match. The lack of profitability of football betting users has been stressed as a problem. This lack gave origin to this research proposal, which it is going to analyse the possibility of existing a way to support the users to increase their profits on their bets. Data mining models were induced with the purpose of supporting the gamblers to increase their profits in the medium/long term. Being conscience that the models can fail, the results achieved by four of the seven targets in the models are encouraging and suggest that the system can help to increase the profits. All defined targets have two possible classes to predict, for example, if there are more or less than 7.5 corners in a single game. The data mining models of the targets, more or less than 7.5 corners, 8.5 corners, 1.5 goals and 3.5 goals achieved the pre-defined thresholds. The models were implemented in a prototype, which it is a pervasive decision support system. This system was developed with the purpose to be an interface for any user, both for an expert user as to a user who has no knowledge in football games.