₦airaland Forum

You have gone cause trouble. I have no idea why you posted that. You cannot answer a simple question regarding the article FIFA based its decision. Sorry, this conversation only continues when you actually answer that. I am not doing this unfruitful back and forth with you on this topic. On other topics, I may.

MainJoe:

My account got banned. This is my alternate account. Nice seeing you.

Is this GoodJoe?

MainJoe:
cc: komekn and benji93

Results.
The mean chronological age of the players was 15.4 years (standard deviation ±0.7; range 12 - 17). The study showed that 43.0% of the MRI images were grade 6 (≥17 years) in relation to the degree of fusion of the distal radius, and 93.0% of the grade 6 players were aged 15 - 16 years chronologically. There was no significant correlation between the chronological age and the degree of fusion (r=0.075; p=0.493).

Conclusion.
Ghanaian U17 soccer players seem to be more biologically mature than a normative population of the same age category. The lack of correlation between age category and degree of fusion supports the suspicion that most Ghanaian players may not know their true age.

It is false to say 20 and 21 years old are passing. Not true at all.

If my younger brother tells me it doesn't make any sense to him, I'll refer him to the article and continue the conversation when he understands it. Very simple.

TheGoodJoe:
Teach the prerequisite and explain how you came to the conclusion. If your younger brother or nephew heard you make that statement and wondered how you came to such a conclusion, what will you tell him?

I cannot make that argument if you don't understand the details of the article. It will just fly over your head. That's rather simple. Do you know what a prerequisite means? Knowing what the article is about is the prerequisite for this conversation. If either of us doesn't understand it won't be fruitful. There's no point continuing the conversation.

The article says they conducted examination protocols on some players from four countries. Did they say that or not? Confirm this then we can move on to the next step.

TheGoodJoe:


Just teach us why you feel 21 years old sub-Saharan African men will pass a highly accurate MRI wrist scan.

I do not need to be on the same page with you for you to teach me. In a nutshell, why do you think 21 years old will pass the wrist MRI scan?

That was a joke, I may learn something from this too. If you are having a supposed intellectual conversation with someone, both of you need to indicate that you do understand what you are talking about. The 20/21-year-old argument is my argument. You cannot find it directly in that article. To establish that it is a reasonable argument, I would have to demonstrate I understand the study detailed in that article in the first place. You cannot provide an informed opinion if you cannot process the science that lead to the adoption of the MRI scan. I am saying I can consider that submission quite reasonable from that article and the articles they reference. So you and I have to be on the same page regarding what the article is saying first before the extrapolation can be addressed. A useful article would tell the samples they considered in their study.

So again my question is do you know anything about the samples they considered in their study as detailed in the article?

Leave my conclusions for now. Let's talk about what the article actually says.

TheGoodJoe:

There is nothing like being scared. If you have a teachable mind, you will always be eager to learn. What you are saying now does not relate to what you stated.

Just make your point. Show us how you came up with the idea that 20 to 21-year-old sub-Saharan Africans will pass the test. It is quite bogus. Tell us. We are eager to learn.

My point is to ascertain if you understand the study detailed in that article.
I am yet to draw any conclusions. I am just referring to the method employed by the study.

Very simple. Does the article detail an examination protocol conducted on a sample of players from four different countries? It's there in the article. You can pull up the article to check the details of the snippet. No need to rush to reply. Check the snippet against the article and confirm if that's what the study is about.

Don't be scared. . I will be gentle.

TheGoodJoe:

I do not know how this relates to your point. So, I can't say correct.

Great. Now let's get into it. This article https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2465138/ entails a study(examination protocol) of a number of players between 14 and 19 in 4 countries Switzerland, Malaysia, Algeria, and Argentina as shown in the figure.

Is that correct?

TheGoodJoe:

I disagree. So what is the specific article you referenced this idea from?

Ok. I will start again. And pls pay attention.
This is my submission.

Many 20/21-year-old Sub-saharan African players would pass the MRI test.
By many I mean if you randomly select 100 20-year-old players, over half of them would pass the test.

Is this far from accurate?

TheGoodJoe:

Sorry. Do not vex.

Let us start again.

What is your stance?

Do you see why I say you are not serious? All you do is deflect. I ask you one question, you answer a different question, and you ask a question quite distant from my question. I suspect this is intentional. What is this? Again, what did I say that you believe is far from accurate? Or you did not mean to say that? Take your time, It's not that hard to copy and paste.

TheGoodJoe:


I have made my points. You have posted data. Make your point. Do not not tell me the data. Show how your data makes the point.

You are literally still hanging.

What are you trying to say?

Are you saying the data supports that the MRI helps prevent overage players from making the cut or it does not.

I need to know your stance.

This was in the middle of a back-and-forth that wasn't going anywhere. Pls, address my mention of your assertion that I was far from the truth. then we go from there. We will probably come back to this stat again, but I would rather avoid going down a rabbit hole.

TheGoodJoe:
From the below data, it shows that people below the 17 years can have complete fusion. It is not talking of players above passing the test.

You are not serious. I have posted snippets in good faith, but you have not responded in good faith. When I talk about one thing you talk about another thing. You started with, "oh your submission is far from accurate". So I will ask, what argument did I make that was far from accurate? If you can, quote it again.

TheGoodJoe:
You are the one jumping up and down. If there is a point you disagree with, highlight it and paste.

I have taken time to breakdown the article you posted then you are saying whether I understand study figures.

Use your study figures and present your point.

My friend, you are not being reasonable here. Answer my question. Have you read it? And do you understand it? I don't want us to be flying past each other. If you can answer this, i would be willing to go the mile. I am just not going to be wasting my time.

TheGoodJoe:
Give us your stance from it. Then I will tackle it as I did this article.

No No No, don't be dismissive of my questions . They are fair. Answer the questions. Have you read the study on which FIFA based its decision to adopt the MRI? And do you understand their interpretation of the data presented or their conclusions on other studies? I should have done this in the first place. That should have been the first step in this conversation. So pls Sir, answer the question.

TheGoodJoe:
Don't be eager. Let us take it a step at a time.

Before I continue this conversation, I will ask you some questions. Have you read the study I referenced? And do you have an understanding of the conclusions therein? If you don't have a good feel of what they are saying, that's ok. I only want to know who i am dealing with here.

TheGoodJoe:
Among 16-year-olds, for example, roughly the same number of kids were at stages 1, 3, 4 and 5, representing a spectrum of growth at that age. “There is so much overlap that you may have a person who is 18 who could have only minimal fusion to complete fusion, and there are people who are already fused going from ages 20 to 16,” says Vicente Gilsanz, a professor of radiology and pediatrics at the University of Southern California. Although only one player in the 16-year age group was graded as completely fused (stage 6), the standard deviation in that grouping is also pretty telling.

---

I will start with this excerpt.

I do not think Fifa did not say there isn't a chance of a player of 18 having minimal fusion. It was never the point. The point was a large chunk of Over 17 players will have close to complete fusion. The article in this case does not contradict the point in any way.

The one player who had complete fusion, is the case like Obinwa.

FIFA has never said it is accurate but the accuracy is high. At this point, there is nothing concrete disproving the accuracy but you may.

1st point: Skeletal maturity differs from one race to another. The article in question, which apparently FIFA based their decision to adopt the MRI on suggested this in the first picture, in which case they were referring to a study in Malawi. They didn ot ocnduct studies of their own in the Sub-Sahara. They only sampled Algeria in North Africa. Scientific American suggested FIFA based their decision on this study, and they are very likely correct, because at least the first author on that paper Jiri Dvorak was on Fifa's medical team.

In one of your later posts you suggested that FIFA considered every race, but how do you know this? The most important study that informed their decision didn't sample and Sub Saharan country. For a decision as important as this by a governing body such as FIFA, you better be sure you have colelcted data across board. Besides the sample size although reasonable, is quite small, reasonable becos the correlations are not that different from those published by the studies they referenced.

The only way to account for the delay in maturity observed in a sample of Sub-Saharan African countres is to use different standards for Europeans and Subsaharan Africans. Nothing shows that this is the case. FIFA is clearly applying the European standard to Sub-saharan Africans.

Figure 2 shows the average age for each grade, Grade VI being complete fusion. Even for their small sample size they recorded a mean of 18.3 for complete fusion. This is based on their study on 4 countries, none of which is in Sub-sahara African. If complete Fusion is over 18(Standard deviaiton of approximately 1) for these countries, anyone who can do some statistical analysis and knows that skeletal development is delayed in Sub-saharan would guess that the mean for Sub-saharan Africans would be around 20. It's not so hard.

So it's quite easy to conclude that Sub-saharan players around 20/21 would most probably pass the test. The study across Algeria, Malaysia, Algeria, Switzerland is not accurate, not to talk of Sub-saharan Africans with delayed skeletal maturity.

A further study published in the South African Journal of Sports Medicine concluded that there's no correlation between chronological age and grade of fusion for a sample of Ghanaian players(3rd Figure), meanwhile the study FIFA depended on reported correlation for the countries they sampled. Very interesting. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dear-fifa-there-is-no-scientific-test-to-prevent-age-fraud/

Meanwhile the sample size across board although reasonable is quite small honestly.

Is the method reasonable, yes. Is it able to identify players who are about 20 and above? most probably yes. You are overestimating the accuracy of the MRI test. Before you conclude that FIFA considered everything, ask for the bases of their decision to use. You don't seem to have any idea.

So even though i hate that Scientific American used a picture of one of our youth teams as cover, i don't disagree with them, as in the third picture. it's not foolproof.https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dear-fifa-there-is-no-scientific-test-to-prevent-age-fraud/

TheGoodJoe:
Unfortunately, you are yet to make a point.

What is the point you are trying to make?

What part of parts of the article supports the point you are trying to make?

Still waiting.

I understand what you are saying about the 'latecomer' argument. But I think you are minimizing Nwakali's potential. We should be talking about players like Bruno.

Philosopher1979:
Nwakali case will be like Godwin Saviour, china akpom, Sadiq Umar etc. Players like this hit their potential when they are over 23.
Slow and steady wins the race

Well well, I suppose it's back again.

Maybe you should also pay attention, . I quoted that part of the article for one thing alone. To establish that using FIFA's standard which most probably has an European bias is an issue if you apply it to sub-Saharan Africans. Remember when you complete the scanning you have to measure it against FIFA's standard. Since most European countries make the registration of birth dates compulsory, and have systems such that there's a trail, FIFA's stand would be quite effective for that system. On average it should work for our system, but that uncertainty will be there so that if you deviate slightly you would still be fine. Look at Figure 7 for instance, can you see the uncertainty in age for each grade of fusion? And this is even for the countries that have databases. Granted, my argument is kind of an extra conclusion, but this article and the Malawi article it references indicated that skeletal maturity in Subsaharan Africans is delayed. This is enough to suggest that you better design grade standards specific to Subsaharan Africans. You seem to ignore that a decision on who passes is based on the scan and a grade, and although there's a high correlation amongst the 4 countries sampled, the ages still vary slightly. Besides, that was clearly a question to him, hoping he could provide data that suggest how accurate they are.

2lola:
Kindly read the result of the research this time slowly. The last sentence also highlighted a major diffrence.
The table you posted focused mainly on the variation among race but did not rule � out the efficiency of the scan.

Fair enough.

TheGoodJoe:
Show is the excerpt from the article that addressed your point. Not just to post the article.

Copy out the part, paste it and then we discuss.

So far i have only mentioned one point which the article addresses in part. That maturity varies across races, which may be dependent on multiple factors. Scroll down to table 1 and look at their conclusions. then we can go on from there.

TheGoodJoe:
You just posted an article with no deduction from it. What is the point you are trying to make from the article and we will continue from there.

I knew you would come in. We had this conversation a while ago. . Besides why you no go listen first? By accuracy I wasn't even referring to the MRI, I was addressing his point that all our players present correct ages(even the recent ones). I hope you are not trying to be academic about this, but if you are, can you tell us how accurate the system it is? As in, what are the chances a 19-year-old might pass the MRI? What's the uncertainty? Besides some studies indicate maturities differ across races in accordance with TW2 standards. What's the degree of uncertainty? Please present sources too. This article is in good faith.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2465138/
[quote author=TheGoodJoe post=119756782
I will reply you later. But what you are posting here is far from the truth. MRI is highly accurate. The failure comes from young players failing but not old players passing. That is why it is universally accepted.

Keep in mind, it is highly accurate for screening out old players. Just that some young players get caught in that net. [/quote]

Continue deceiving yourself. That is true on average. Only a minority of actual 17-year-olds would fail the test if it's properly calibrated. Besides by previously, i meant pre-2013. In the last 2 tournaments or so we've been more truthful, thanks in part to the MRI system. And no it's not still accurate. Remember accuracy means they were all under 17. I guarantee you the majority of them were 20 and above .

yinkeys:
Stop spreading lies.
Post 2009 u17 tournaments Nigeria has been presenting players with accurate age
Taiwo Awoniyi, iheanacho, Ndidi, Osimhen, chukwueze all using true details
Just look at their faces then and how theyve matured now
Some players who are truly u17 also fail the test.
It’s not 100% accurate

Saudi dey get light problem too? Interesting. . He milk dem so tey money no remain for maintenance.

andrewbaba44:
I feel so sorry for Ronaldo fans

You guys won’t be able to watch your idolo play today because Al nassr game have been postponed due to electrical issues

This too shall come to pass

You are not a correct guy. Fridge over utility any day.

Expert17:
32 y/o Daley Blind to Bayern.

That mumu Trevor boy prefers Maguire to this world-class utility player

On average a 21-year-old should be able to survive the MRI(Guess). All we need to do is present players 21 and below. . We were previously presenting men who were in their late 20s. They were all at least 25. We'll eventually get to 17. Slow and steady.

AndSunGorilla:
African football matters. Read on BBC that Cameroon U17 are un disarray, of an initial 30 member crew, 21 failure the MRI, another group was invited and 11 of those ones also failed . Africa and cheating!!! I blame it on acute poverty though, it was reported that Eto ordered the tests. Meanwhile they have a game on the 12th of Jan.

I hope we did MRI for the boys who played in the qualifiers. Also since last year's WAFU tourney I hope we don't have boys who have now outgrown U17 or at risk of failing another MRI.

Stop this man. Stop minimizing the importance of stats with big-big phrases like, "not conclusive", "Just indicative" blabla. I mean what in this world is conclusive? If anything accounts for over 70% of your success, it's conclusive enough. You can be all over the place looking for the hidden variables that form the remaining 30%, the rest of us would focus on the larger 70%.

komekn:
You know some statistics are an exercise in irrelevant nonsense , they tell you nothing and indicate nothing.

Haaland has scored 21 goals and he is not on the list and Arnautovich who is next to V.O. in Seria A goals table is not on the list. Salah is on the list but has only scored 7 this season, meanwhile Mitrovic is not on the list and he has scored 12 in the EPL.

If anything it could be seen in the negative as poor marksmanship Salah 120 shots 7 goals.

Statistics are indicative and far from being conclusive depending on the variable.

Thank you for staying off.

BascoVanVeli:
No that's not wat I'm saying ooo. I just found it interesting and decided to share.

I am sorry but why is this information useful again?

steady986:
I don talk am before and I go still talk am again. No era of the NBA has had as much talent as this era. Luka, Jokic, Giannis, KD, LeBron, Steph, AD, Embiid, Ja, Tatum, Mitchell, Sabonis, Zion, Dame, Booker

Even the next tier is an all-star lineup: KAT, Butler, Brown, Kyrie, Harden, Halliburton, Garland, Shai, Siakam, Ingram, CJ, Ant, Gobert, DeRozan, Wiggins, Beal, Trae, PG, Kawhi, Lavine, Bam, Allen, Grant, Middleton, Jrue, Randle, Porzingis

This does not include guys like Klay, Russ, CP3 and Lowry who have passed their prime. This also does not include up and coming guys like Markennen, Bane, Lamelo, Mobley, Maxey, Jalen Green, KPJ. MPJ, Cam Johnson, Barret, Jaren Jackson, Anfernee, Banchero.

These are the people my LeBron had to go through. Poor LeBron. When you consider that he also had to go through guys like Kobe, Duncan, Shaq, Pierce, Garnett dem wey don retire. Baba don try abeg.

What exactly are you trying to tell us? . That our players were telling the truth afterall?

BascoVanVeli:
So former NBA player Kendrick Perkins kind of jokingly accused Serge Ibaka of lying about his age and Serge definitely didn't take the joke at all. He went off on a scathing social media rampage straight up putting Kendrick in check. Big Perk later said it was a joke but the damage is surely done. I totally understand Ibaka's harshness cos if people start believing he is older than he says, he won't be in the NBA next season.

I know this doesn't involve a Naija baller but the age aspect made me think of this thread.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mob71hPSxyE

He had a much better team.He shouldn't even let it get there. Just put them away. If anyone can do it, it should tiki-taka-tactical Enrique. . Unfortunately, he was clueless.

TheGoodJoe:
Enrique lost by penalties and dominated the game. There is nothing to be ashamed of. He lost to a good side.
It takes nothing away from Enrique.

Well, tactical acumen is synonymous with tiki-taka. . Maybe tactical is a derivative of tiki-taka.

Mujtahida:
The same person who will argue to no end that Spain plays spectacular football is the one saying that France plays bland football.

I thought we could discuss objectively but I see he's driven by his preferences. Until yesterday I never liked Mbappe. I saw him more as an athlete than a footballer but yesterday I saw that Mbappe is not just a footballer, he is a great footballer. I put my prejudice aside.

Person reach finals and even though from the onset he got his tactics right, he course corrected and gave us the world cup finals of our lives. Yet a theoretical analyst (yes, we all theoretical analysts) say he lacks tactical acumen but he's a good coach. How person one take be good coach if he lacks tactical acumen?