Relating STCP to soccer
This article discusses the recent transfer regarding Brazil’s top-notch goal keeper, Alisson Becker. Alisson Becker was playing at the Italian club AS Roma until he decided he wanted a change of pace, so he transferred to the English Premier League to Join Liverpool. Alisson revealed with the media, that his international squad teammate, Roberto Firmino, had a hand in getting him to come to the club. So, what does this have to do with networks?
In class we talked about the Strong Triadic Closure property. The Strong Triadic Closure property essentially states that if B and C both have strong ties with A, then there is more likely to be a B-C edge. We can relate this to Alisson’s transfer. Let’s say that the nodes are A=Roberto Firmino, B= Alisson Becker, and C=Liverpool. Because both Roberto Firmino and Alisson Becker played on the same international squad, they traveled to games together, ate together, stayed in the same hotels, we can say that there is an edge between the two, A-B. Furthermore, because Roberto Firmino plays for Liverpool the A-C edge is present. Alisson Becker transferring to Liverpool completes the triangle because it creates the B-C edge which the Strong Triadic Property states will occur in this scenario. This is very common among soccer players. The players are more likely to transfer to another team if there is a member from their country present on the squad. Examples are Neymar transferring to PSG because of international teammate Dani Alves, and Thomas Lemar going to Athletico Madrid with the help of international teammate Antoine Griezmann.