This is the short edition of More or Less.

First broadcast on the BBC World Service.

Thank you for downloading from the BBC.

The details of our complete range of podcasts

and our terms of use go to BBCWorldService.com slash podcasts.

Hello and welcome to More or Less on the BBC World Service.

We are weekly guide to the numbers in the news and in life,

and I'm Tim Harford.

Let's talk about a game of two halves,

where managers and players are either over the moon or sick as a parrot

but always give 110%.

Yes, football. It's all about the cliches,

but are the cliches true.

I'm confident that it is indeed a game of two halves

and just as confident that footballers are not, in fact, in lunar orbit.

But what about this one?

We've seen it often.

It's very difficult sometimes to play against ten men.

It's always difficult to play a eleven against ten away from home.

It's not an easy task when you're playing against ten men and we have won

and we should all be very grateful for that.

When a player has been given a red card and therefore sent off,

...