Do you guys remember Ibrahima Bakayoko?
I used to play A LOT in Premier Manager 98, and Bakayoko was one of the best players there. He was definitely in the top 10, alongside Maldini and the original Ronaldo.
Check out his stats from that game:
Not sure if Ibrahima Bakayoko or Lionel Messi.
After a lot of people asked me that in the past week, after the lack of activity on the blog, I feel that I need to dispel some wild rumors circulating on the web.
No, Putin did not order me to shut down this blog.
No, I did not die.
No, in no way did I abandon this precious project of mine. Continue reading
I admit – this wasn’t my original intention. For my next Hall Of Fame induction I was planning to introduce an athlete in a sport which is not track & field – because despite the evidence for the contrary, this is not a track & field Hall Of Fame. It embraces all sports without considering their race, age, religion, sexual orientation, etc. But Borzakovskiy just recently announced his retirement from the world of sports, and I decided to make a change of plans. Yuriy was one of my all-time favorite track & field athletes, and his place in the Hall Of Fame was guaranteed, but I used this opportunity to honor him and induct him now instead of sometime later.
So… Yuriy Borzakovskiy! One of the greatest 800m runners of the past 15 years. Never a world record holder or a world champion, but he has been an Olympic champion, a four time medalist in the Athletics World Championships, a European champion, a mainstay in the discipline’s elite for the past 15 years, but perhaps more than anything – like Kajsa Bergqvist, he possessed a style which probably made him a favorite of the neutral sports fans. Continue reading
Ok, so despite my disappointment with this year’s all-star game, it still supplied us with some nice numbers. In this part I’ll try to put my bitterness aside, in order to return to the previews I wrote before the game about the leaders (you can see part I and part II here). I’ll go over each category in turn. Let’s start with…
Games Played
Mirror mirror on the wall, which category was the most predictable of them all? This was! It’s like the Academy Awards category for “Best Actress” in 2011, when Natalie Portman was nominated for “Black Swan” (one of my all-time favorite movies, BTW. One of the 14-movies in my top 10). Timmy climbed to second place all-time, with 15 games, and there’s really nothing interesting to say about it apart from that. Continue reading
The All-Star weekend is behind us. It’s weird, I waited a year for this event, and now that it’s over I cannot feel not-disappointed. What is felt cannot be unfelt! Many of the events were really disappointing, although definitely not all of them. In the first part of my all-star summary, I will look back at what we had. In the second part I want to look at how I fared with my reviews and predictions of the leaders in the various statistical categories. I don’t want to mix the stats stuff with the non-stats stuff. Damn, saying that last sentence aloud is really difficult, at least for me it was. All those s’s… try it yourself!
Rookies and Sophomores Game
Or, as they like to call it officially: “Rising Stars Challenge”. Jesus, doesn’t “rookies and sophomores” sounds more intuitive? Anyway, I don’t watch this event every year on a regular basis, just from time to time, when there are some interesting rookies that I look forward to watch in action. I believe the first time I watched this game was in 2004, when LeBron, Carmelo and Wade lost to Amar’e Stoudemire. Yes, it was a 3-on-1 game. Continue reading
Well, it’s time for part II of our holiday special (and here’s a link to Part I). The concept for part II is the same simple one that was in part I – let’s have a look at the leaders (top 5) in the various statistical categories in the history of the all-star game, and see which current players might have a chance to move up the rankings, and even break the record one day.
Any further introduction is redundant. Let’s get down to business!
Ho ho ho, we’re nearing the NBA all-star game, and it’s a great opportunity to have a look at the records book in order to keep a close watch on the players who can make a splash in this year’s game and who might move ahead in the all-time leaders lists in the various categories.
Several years ago, I compiled an Excel file with stats about all the players who ever took part in the all star game. While I was at it, I also compiled a list of the leaders in each category. Continue reading
What was the biggest and the most important boxing fight held in 2013? If one asks the average person on the street, the responses will probably vary between “Klitchko-some random Russian guy”, “Mayweather – Saul Alvarez”, and some might probably mention Pacquiao’s comeback fight, in which he beat Brandon Rios. However, the real boxing enthusiasts, the ones who truly understand the noble sport, will all say without a doubt that THE fight of 2013 was “Kimbo Slice – Shane Tilyard”, which was held in January. In this fight, which Kimbo obviously won convincingly by a devastating KO in the 2nd round, Kimbo proved once again that nothing will stop him on his quest to conquer the boxing world, similarly to what he did to the MMA world only a few years earlier. No one who is in his right mind thinks it’s a coincidence that Vitali Klitchko suddenly retired to politics, and his brother Vladimir will probably follow in his footsteps very soon – no one wants to stand in Kimbo’s way… It’s Kimbo time! Continue reading
Well, I have to concede that I didn’t get ALL of my picks right… In fact, I picked right only 1/5 of the Eastern conference starters (LeBron), and 3/5 of the Western conference starters (Kobe, Unibrow, Steph). But never mind that. My percentage is still better than Kobe’s this season (oh snap!). Now let’s see what we have to say about the actual starters… Continue reading
From Wikipedia: “Annus mirabilis is a Latin phrase that means wonderful year, “year of wonders” or “year of miracles”.” This is a term more often used for Isaac Newton’s amazing 1666 year, or Albert Einstein’s astonishing 1905 year. But yeah, we can definitely apply it to football as well. After all, “Football is not a matter of life and death… it’s much more important than that” – Bill Shankley.
Growing up as a sports fan and sports stats fanatic, I couldn’t not notice that there seemed to be these magical cohorts in sports. These wonderful years, in which a disproportional number of great athletes were born. Like the magical 1963 in basketball, a year which gave the world (let’s take a deep breath) – Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, Karl Malone, Chris Mullin, Hakeem Olajuwon, Joe Dumars, and those are just the major stars. One can also mention Charles Oakley, Detlef Schrempf and Spud Webb.
It seems un-fucking-believable that all of those players were born in the same year, within 12 months of each other. I mean, one can produce an all-time great team just based on this cohort alone. A starting five of Hakeem, Malone, Sir Charles, Michael and Dumars/Mullin – are you fucking kidding me?! Is there any other year that can compete with that?! Continue reading
Michael's Sports Statistics 