Football Champions

It's an off year for English football. Despite all the money and hype, amid all the allegations of racist abuse and "handshakegate"s and other drama, English teams have consistently come up short in international competitions.

Take Arsenal. Here is a team that sit fourth in the English Premier League, which is good enough to make the UEFA Champions League next year. Other than one embarrassing display at Old Trafford in late August, Gunners have looked fully capable of hanging with the best teams in England.

Today, against AC Milan in the first elimination round of this year's UCL tourney, Gunners looked more like a youth side taking on the senior club -- or if you prefer a U.S.-centric comparison, the JVs facing the varsity. Either way, it wasn't pretty. Arsene Wenger's men were outplayed, outhustled and overwhelmed by the rossoneri, going down 4-0 in a game that frankly didn't look that close. The teams really didn't look like they belonged on the same pitch at the same time. Milan's pace was far faster, their passing crisper, their marking tighter. They made better runs in attack. Their goalkeeping was better. This was Arsenal's worst-ever defeat in European competition and one that, barring a miracle in the return leg, will leave them with nothing but the FA Cup and fourth place in the Prem to play for.

And it's not just Arse, either. Neither Manchester club (currently 1-2 in the Premiership) made it out of the group stage of this year's Champions League. That's just embarrassing considering the payroll disparities between the Mancunians and their group stage opponents, particularly in Man U's case (Otelul Gulati and FC Basel? Really?).

Or take the Europa League. Tottenham Hotspur were drawn into a group with teams from Ireland, Russia and Greece (Greece!) and couldn't even finish second. This is a club, Spurs, that are supposed to have a realistic shot at winning the league in the first time in (what might as well be) centuries. Birmingham City and Fulham didn't make it out of their groups either. I know there's a big gap between those clubs and the ones at the top of the Premiership table, but come on. Interestingly enough, the team with the toughest Europa League draw, Stoke City, actually qualified for the elimination round.

All of which begs the question: is this just a one year anomaly we are looking at? Or is the sun finally setting on the Premiership empire? Time will tell, but the signs are ominous. Last year's Champions League finale showed us just how far the gap has widened between the best team from Spain and its English counterpart. This year's Champions League and Europa League group stages demonstrated that English clubs at the very least play down to the level of inferior opponents, if they can indeed be called that. Today we saw that the fourth-placed Premiership side were little more than target practice for the top team in Italy.

What is the cause of this? That is another topic for another day but suffice it to say that it can't be economic, given all the petro and oligarch cash that has flooded the Premiership in recent years. That would mean that the players are certainly still world class. What about the coaching? We can sing the praises of Sir Alex and Arsene Wenger and Harry Redknapp and others, and deservedly so, but maybe, just maybe their counterparts on the continent have overtaken them. Arsenal especially just seem to lack something this season that could suggest Wenger has lost his magic touch. Do English teams maybe have a handicap when it comes to fitness levels? Have they gotten sloppy with their defending? These things deserve a look. Stay tuned.

Yes I called it football, which I assure you has absolutely nothing to do with my desire to attract search engine traffic from outside the U.S.

Anyway, it is clear that the era of the "big four" in the English Premiership is over almost as quickly as it started. In its wake a three-tiered structure has emerged. Only, it's not quite as clear cut as the previous one. That is largely due to the fact that the new pecking order is still shaking out, which is very much the nature of the beast. Whenever there is a change in power structure, be it political, artistic or in more important areas of life, a period of upheaval is all but inevitable. Such is the situation we find ourselves in at the start of the new decade in the English Premier League.

How has this three-tiered power structure taken hold thus far? Let's take a look:

1. The top tier: Manchester United and Chelsea
This one's pretty easy. Man U and Chelsea have dominated the Premiership the past five years, during which time they have held a stranglehold on the league trophy. During the big four era, which we're defining as 2003 to 2009 (none of the big four finished outside the top five during this stretch), Arsenal and Liverpool figured into the title chase as well. That is no longer the case this season. It actually hasn't been the case in some time where Arsenal is concerned. Since 2005, when Gunners finished second, they have finished fourth three times and third once (in 2008). So Arsenal, though a splendid team, can no longer be viewed in the same class as the "elite two". By contrast, one could make the case that Arsene Wenger's side dominated the Premiership for the period before that: Between 1998 and 2005 Arsenal finished first or second every year, capturing three trophies. They remain the only team to go undefeated over the course of a Premiership season (in 2003-2004). We don't expect anybody to match that feat anytime soon, if ever. Or at least not in our lifetimes. The last team to do it before Arsenal were Preston North End in 1889.

As for Liverpool, they only finished second two times last decade. And we all know what's been going on this season (though at the time of this writing they were somewhat miraculously back in fifth place).

The argument that Arsenal and Liverpool have lost touch because of economics holds no water in my view. Yes, Reds are saddled with debt and Gunners might not flash the cash as often or with as much gravity as Chelsea. But both clubs have spent impressive sums on acquisitions in the past year, as the names Andrey Arshavin and Alberto Aquilani attest. Besides, who did Chelsea sign in the January transfer window? What about Man United, who have been sellers (Cristiano Ronaldo, Carlos Tevez) more than buyers the past year?

The decline of Liverpool and Arsenal is not a result of economics but of mismanagement. With the North London side it appears a case of Wenger being a bit too full of himself and his methods. Sure, Arsenal's style of play is entertaining but it's also finicky. Better defense is needed and a little brawn to go with the finesse would do wonders. With the Merseysiders, it's a clear case of Rafa Benitez' incompetence. Not so much in managing a game (though there too) but more in putting the talent he acquires to proper use.

So Reds and Gunners are no longer in the top tier. But as we'll see they aren't in the second tier either.

2. The middle tier: Aston Villa, Everton, Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester City.
Under its new owner Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Man City can outspend literally anybody, but it hasn't done them much good yet. That is finally starting to change after Mark Hughes was justifiably shown the door in December. Since Roberto Mancini took over from the Welshman, Citizens have won eight of 10 games and moved up to sixth in the standings. They are equal on points with fifth-placed Liverpool but have two games in hand. So Manchester City could make a move for fourth place, the spot currently occupied by Tottenham Hotspur. Spurs have had a solid season after two traumatic campaigns that saw them fall out of the Champions League contention they previously occupied. But Spurs are not an elite team by any means. They have a terrible record against the top three teams in the league and are probably at least two big signings away from being able to contend. Then again, so are a lot of teams. Like Aston Villa, who flirted with third place for a long time last season before falling off the pace. Or Everton, who have not lost a league match this year. Villa and Everton lack the financial resources of City or even Spurs, but they make up for it with two of the best minds in the game. If either David Moyes or Martin O'Neill were English one of them would have gotten the call to manage the Three Lions a long time ago. But England's loss is the Premiership's gain. If Everton had Man United's money, David Moyes would be Alex Ferguson. Come to think of it, he's kind of the obvious heir apparent to Sir Alex at Old Trafford should the old boy step down (dude's 68 years old. It can't be that much longer now).

Together, the Man City-Villa-Spurs-Everton quartet occupy a type of purgatory in the EPL. They aren't good enough to compete with the big boys but aren't bad enough to have to worry about relegation. They may make forays in one direction or the other, and may manage a top three finish one of these years if everything goes exactly right. But mostly, this is who they are. The one possible exception is Man City, who could be seen as favorites to finish third next season now that they have proper leadership.

3. The lower tier: Everybody else (except Liverpool and Arsenal).
Speaking of purgatory, Liverpool and Arsenal aren't in this group either. They're better than that, obviously. They're probably better than the mid-tier clubs as well, though they may not always show it. For now, the fates of these two teams can simply not be determined. It may be another year before they take their spots in the pecking order.

There isn't really much that can be said about the lower tier teams. They are almost without exception wholly uninteresting. Even Fulham, who have been the best of the bunch the past season and a half or so, can be painful to watch sometimes. Each of these clubs may have one or two players who stand out. But once they are fully established, a richer club in England or Europe snatches them up. Though that too is increasingly rare. For the most part these teams trade players with each other. Unable to afford the big talent, they are forced to settle on the bargain bin. Which explains why, no matter how skilled their manager, they are doomed to the Premiership's equivalent of the third estate.

Sure, some will make forays into the top eight from time to time. Others will be relegated. They're essentially interchangeable parts, though every now and then somebody will come around and really stink it up (like Derby County a few years ago or Pompey earlier this season). But for the most part there is very little that separates these teams. On any given day any one of them could beat another one.

In fact, who's to say this pertains just to the bottom 12 Premiership clubs? Are the likes of Hull City and Pompey and Burnley really that much (or at all) better than Newcastle or West Bromwich Albion or Nottingham Forest? I'd have to watch more of the Coca Cola Championship to say for sure, but I have a feeling the difference is negligible.

So there you have it. The new power structure in English football. Get used to it, because it will probably be here for a while.

Photo taken from Independent.co.uk without permission.

Don't get me wrong, the book Soccernomics by Simon Kuper and Stean Szymanski is a quick and entertaining read and teaches a few solid lessons. It provides some pretty compelling insight into England's woes in particular and manages to shatter a few myths about the business of soccer. But the book falls short of its ultimate goal, to uncover new, "data-driven" truths that will revolutionize the way the sport is coached, scouted and managed. If you're looking for soccer's version of Bill James' Baseball Extracts, this ain't it. In fact, perhaps more than anything else the book demonstrates the perils of trying to turn soccer into a statistical, data-centric sport; it simply tries to do too much with too little. You're left with a lot of extrapolation, most of which is likely to be disproved before the end of the next World Cup.

The book's main points are this: Rich, prosperous countries and municipalities have more success than poor ones, though there are two notable exceptions (England and Brazil). The transfer market is very inefficient because people who manage soccer clubs, despite their success in other endeavors--or perhaps because of them--do not make good decisions when it comes to managing their clubs' resources (again one notable exception: Lyon). Soccer is not only not big business, but actually rather small potatoes. England are crap and will probably never win another World Cup.

The chapter on England that opens the book is also its best. Hopefully England supporters will read it before the World Cup. Then, when we (the U.S.) beat them in the opening match it will be less of a surprise--and also less of a catastrophe--for the sport's mother country and its bloodthirsty press. So why are England crap? Simple: It has never "developed resources" beyond its working class roots. The English national team is still largely made up of proletarian yobs. To illustrate, the book provides a table with members of England's last three World Cup teams and their fathers' professions. Besides the ones whose dads were professional soccer players or coaches, only David James, Peter Crouch and Gareth Southgate appear to have middle class backgrounds. "When you limit your talent pool, you limit the development of skills," Kuper and Szymanski write. Yes indeed.

Okay, then what about countries like Nigeria, Russia and Mexico, all of whom have soccer-mad populations north of 100 million but none of whom ever appeared in a World Cup semifinal? The same reason, really: managing resources. "People all over the world might want to play [organized] sports, but to make that happen requires money and organization that poor countries don't have."

Here is where the authors' thesis starts to get a bit dicey. How do they explain Brazil, a poor country that has won more World Cups than anybody? Or Argentina, which wasn't exactly rich when it won World Cups? They acknowledge Brazil is an anomaly, but say Brazilian players are overvalued on the transfer market. Then they laud the success of Olympique Lyon, who have somehow managed to "buy low/sell high" almost exclusively with Brazilian imports.

They also have high praise for Arsene Wenger. It's hard to argue that the Frenchman hasn't done great things for Arsenal and that his methods haven't reinvigorated the game in England. But despite being one of the richest clubs in the world, Arsenal has won little silverware in England and none in Europe since Wenger's arrival. Manchester United, par contre, have had unparalleled success the past two decades even though the team's (Scottish) manager does not have an advanced degree in economics and presumably employs none of Wenger's new-age methods.

It just doesn't add up. The Soviet Union had a run of almost 50 years with a highly organized system of more resources than anybody else but didn't win anything. When its clubs did win, it places like Tbilisi and Minsk, not population centers like Moscow and Leningrad. Mexico may not be rich but its clubs have more money (and resources) than anybody outside Western Europe. The first African nation to make inroads internationally (Cameroon) does not even have the 10th-largest population on the continent and is certainly not its richest.

The authors' curious choice of Iraq as an "emerging" soccer nation is even more questionable considering it is right next to Saudi Arabia. The countries are comparable in population size, but one would think the Saudis have more money and organization dedicated to soccer these days. Another country they tapped for soccer greatness, China, has very limited success with team sports of any kind (despite its resources). South Korea has both resources and the know-how to manage them and made the semifinals of the World Cup to boot, but the book barely mentions the Taeguk Warriors.

In the end, it comes out to a typical example of over-reaching to make data fit your ideas rather than vice-versa. You can't fault the authors for trying, but it's a losing proposition from the word go. Unlike sports such as baseball and (American) football, soccer simply does not lend itself to statistical analysis. It just isn't wired that way. The game cannot be parceled up and broken apart with numbers or even facts. The story of a soccer match cannot be told in its box score and there is still no statistic that properly measures a player's contributions. This is starting to change with metrics like tackles, passes and distances run, but the sample size is very, very small. Moreover, even the crudest data, goals scored and against, does not always reflect the reality of what transpired on the pitch. In soccer, the best team does not always win. Over the course of a full season, the best team usually (though not always) ends up winning more than the rest, which is why you need a single table and full home and away schedule to determine a righteous champion. But neither the World Cup, nor its qualification pre-tournaments have this, which is one reason why international matches cannot be trusted as a proper metric for statistical modeling. The European club tournaments aren't much better, though they have been more just in the Champions League era (with its group stages) than before, when each round was drawn completely at random. Yet these make up most of the book's data sample.

So Soccernomics has no chance. The data is flawed to start, and the authors do it no favors by extrapolating to make points that aren't there to begin with. It's lose-lose. Kuper and Szymanski (and their editors) deserve credit for producing a work that is easy and fun to read and raises some interesting questions. But soccer will never lend itself to complete statistical analysis for the same reason that films, artists and actors won't. It's just too visceral.

If the English Premier League season is a party, consider us (very) fashionably late. But now that we're six games in, the standings are starting to take shape: who would bet against the top four being the same come May? Not yours truly, that's for sure.

After a series of 1-0 wins, Manchester City proved they're for real by tonking Arsenal and giving neighbors United a run for their money. Can they hold off a challenge from Arsenal? Time will tell but, as ever with Arsenal, there are concerns about how brittle they are. By all accounts, Thomas Vermaelen has proved to be a great signing, but does a midfield of Diaby, Eboue, Fabregas and Alex Song have enough steel? Maybe Wenger should have tried harder to keep certain defensive players.

Meanwhile, Chelsea trundle ominously forwards, the only unbeaten team and with a 100% record. The straw many rival fans might cling to is that the African Nations Cup could derail them, what with Drogba, Essien, Kalou and, possibly, Mikel all set to miss at least a month in January/February to play in the competition.

And what of the other top teams? All have been spotty -- Manchester United losing to Burnley but beating Arsenal, City and Spurs, Liverpool losing to Aston Villa and Spurs, and Villa themselves losing to Wigan on opening day. It'll likely be another month or so before we can judge which of them, if any, will mount a credible challenge to Chelsea.

This week's fixture list shouldn't pose too many difficulties for the top teams, though it should be noted Stoke can be tough to beat at home. The most intriguing game may be Fulham v Arsenal -- Fulham, despite a slow start to the season, are among the best of the non-top six teams.

That said, perhaps Hull will shock us all and take points from Liverpool at Anfield. The beauty of football is that you never really know, do you?

--Smoods

Man City badge image supplied by Wikipedia.

The view here is that Emmanuel Adebayor is nothing more than a poor man's Didier Drogba, which perhaps adds some irony to his recently completed move to the world's richest club. But not everyone feels that way, and even Arsenal's manager couldn't help but rave, even as the player was being unveiled in Manchester:

'Believe me, he's a great player and he'll show that again at Manchester City.

While it's unusual for a manager of a title-chasing big club (are Arsenal still in that category?) to be so kind about a departing player, even more noticeable was Wenger's hint that Arsenal's fans may have pushed the player out:

I don't believe that last season he got enough support. That was playing a part in my mind and in his mind, certainly, as well.

The argument apparently is that Arsenal fans never forgave Adebayor for seemingly pimping himself across Europe last season, but they didn't hold that against Patrick Viera or, indeed, Thierry Henry. Perhaps it was Adebayor's languid style, or maybe fans thought he just wasn't good enough.

But whatever the case, it's interesting that, if the article is to be believed, the Arsenal manager is willing to blame his team's fans for the departure of "a great player." Is this another sign disillusionment with the club? Maybe spectators at The Emirates should think twice before venting at the team, since it's clear Wenger doesn't like it.

--Smoods