post #1

Today's question of the day comes from Martin, aged 48.

Interesting question.

Do we still need walls in front of free-kicks?
Shouldn't we just let them have a free-shot at goal, you know, more like a long-range penalty?

We set our team of boffins to Googling something that might be the answer...

AND LO AND BEHOLD

Last season 33 goals in the EPL came from direct free-kicks.

That's out of 577 attempts.

Giving an overall conversion rate below 6%. 

Let's not just take that as an answer. 

Let's see how he got there.

He saw Chris Eriksen take a freekick.
Let's call this Event A. 

Then he noticed the goalkeeper didn't save it.

Let's call that Observation A. 

So. 

Event A leads to Observation A. 

Then where does he go?
He has an event, a freekick, and an observation, that it went in. 

He now needs to explain it.

Why didn't the keeper save it.

He needs another observation.

He scans the environment, and comes up with Observation B. 

This is the big one.

Observation B, is that there was a wall, which the ball went over. 

It went over the wall, and in.

Now he delves deep into his memory...

He realises that sometimes people are unsighted by things.

 Goalkeepers, they are unsighted often by WALLS. 

If the goalkeeper is unsighted, maybe he concedes a goal.

Somewhere in the vacant crack den that is his brain, he knows that very few direct free kicks go in, and that having a large obstacle between the forward and the goal makes it tough to direct a sphere of leather into a given space that is guarded by said large obstacle, and a moving unit with permission to use his hands. 

Now, armed with Observation B, he constructs something new - a "Narrative". 

Using the narratives Martin can take his Observations, and transform them into something which allows him to make sense of the Event. 

So. Observation A - the goalkeeper didn't save it, Observation B - the goalkeeper was positioned behind a wall. The jump he's made between the two, is that people are sometimes unsighted by things, he has retrieved this knowledge from the memory that we mentioned earlier. 

He has recognised, from experience presumably, that when people cannot see something that is coming from behind a large obstacle, they are impaired in their ability to react appropriately.

Now he gets round to constructing this narrative. 

It goes something like this.

CHRIS ERIKSEN SCORED A FREEKICK.

THE GOALKEEPER DID NOT SAVE IT.

THE GOALKEEPER WAS BEHIND A LARGE OBSTACLE.

THE LARGE OBSTACLE WAS PLACED THERE DELIBERATELY.

LARGE OBSTACLES OFTEN IMPAIR PEOPLES ABILITY TO SEE THINGS WHICH ARE ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THEM. 

HAVING AN IMPAIRED ABILITY TO SEE PERTINENT OBJECTS IS NOT A POSITIVE THING. 

THEREFORE,

Perhaps we don't need walls at free-kicks anymore.

But oh wait.

Fewer than 6% of direct free-kicks were successfully converted last season.

Oh well.

That doesn't seem important.