The most dangerous lead

Over at Dan's place, he's taking on one of the biggest soccer cliches of all: the peril fo the 2-0 lead. Invariably, whenever a team takes a two goal lead, the play-by-play commentator ominously notes that 2-0 is the most dangerous lead in soccer. Bretos did it last night.

I think a lot of the thinking behind the "2-0 is the most dangerous lead" stuff has to do with the psychology of perception. Consider the following two scenarios.

A: Joe Public is beating Real Madrid 1-0 and totally dominating the game. Suddenly, Real score a freak goal in the 80th minute and the game is tied 1-1. Probably Real is relieved to get anything out of the match, so they spend the last ten minutes bunkering. Certainly they won't be threatening Joe Public any more.

B: Joe Public is beating Real Madrid 2-0 and totally dominating the game. Suddenly, Real score a freak goal in the 80th minute and the game is 2-1. Real start to believe that they can do it again, so they start sending numbers forward and the Joe Public defense is under pressure. They aren't dominating any more

Now obviously, if you're a coach, you would rather have scenario B than A. But B sure seems a lot worse somehow. In scenario A you dominate for the whole 90 minutes, whereas in B the perception is of a more even game regardless of what it says on the scoreboard. I think that's why it's a particularly popular trope with play by play commentators who are understandably focused on trying to "read" the play on the field. (That and the fact that they want to stop you from changing channels when you think that the match is over.)

Fun fact: did you know that the Germans have a special name for the goal that makes a match a one goal game? Yes, it's called an Anschlußtreffer. Your homework assignment is to use the word correctly in a non-football context.