By Chris Ballard
American sports fans adore stats, the more the better. We revel in points per game and games per home run and home runs per home stand. Stats provide context; they empower us. You tell me Kobe is better than LeBron? I tell you 30.4, 8.0 and 7.3.
Which leads me to the problem with soccer, or at least with pro soccer in the U.S.: not enough numbers. For decades the sport's proponents have tried everything to sell it here, from importing legends (Heeeere's Pelé!) to taking the game indoors (human pinball!) to, of course, marketing glamour (David Beckham to the rescue!).
But maybe they've got it all wrong. Maybe we don't need soccer players humanized so much as, like VORPed-out sluggers, we need them dehumanized. Brits may admire Becks for his cunning midfield runs, but Americans want to hear that he has the highest free-kick success rate in the universe, or whatever else we can plug into a fantasy game. Sure, soccer aficionados say that the game is too subtle, too artful, to be reduced to numbers, that it's like trying to put a Wynton Marsalis performance into a box score: Trumpet 1, Synthesizer 0.
Bollocks, I say. But don't take my word for it; take Billy Beane's. That's right, the Oakland A's general manager, the Maestro of Moneyball, is bringing his stat-crunching mojo to the beautiful game, which he got hooked on five years ago after seeing a match in England. He has brainstormed soccer metrics with a Leeds professor and jetted to the 2006 World Cup (during baseball season, no less). He even persuaded the A's ownership group to buy an MLS expansion franchise, the San Jose Earthquakes, for a reported $20 million last July. Since then, Beane has been the team's strategic overseer, working aggressively with Match Analysis, a firm in Emeryville, Calif., that logs, charts and dissects every touch in every MLS game.
"Billy took an aggressive approach, and since then we've had a flurry of interest from other teams," says Match Analysis president Mark Brunkhart. I'll bet. I'm envisioning a dozen soccer G.M.'s frantically printing out reams of data, paranoid that the Oracle of On-Base Percentage has found a new magic formula deep in the numbers.
Stats companies have been calculating all manner of soccer indicators for years, and, upon inspection, they turn out to be fascinating. (Though you'd never know it, as MLS doesn't release or track them for reasons "more technical than philosophical," says deputy commissioner Ivan Gazidis, which in essence means, We're too cheap to pay the stat trackers.) Among other things, players are rated by touches per 90 minutes, possessions won and passing percentage. In Europe, companies even track how far each player runs, with top midfielders logging more than 7.2 miles per game, or 7.19 more than David Ortiz on any given day.
While not as absolute as baseball's, the stats are still telling. Take Beckham's. For years we've been told he's transcendent, but how do we really know that? Couldn't he just be a well-coiffed p.r. stunt, $50 million worth of ridged abs and banana kicks? Not so, say the numbers. For starters, Beckham really does torch those free kicks; according to a 2007 British newspaper study, he has one of the hardest shots in Premier League history, clocked at 97.9 mph. Match Analysis indicates that he not only led MLS with an average of 87.9 touches per 90 minutes last season for the Los Angeles Galaxy (a great indicator of game control), but he also dominated in shot creation (SC) -- how frequently a player is involved in an attack that leads to a shot -- helping to set up 11.2 shots per 90 minutes, or a whopping three more than the next-best player. You may have no idea what any of this means, but trust me, it will sound impressive the next time you're in a pub.
Wait, there's more! Ever heard of Jesse Marsch? Neither had I, but the Chivas USA midfielder led MLS in possession percentage (PP) last year: He got the ball and passed it successfully 81% of the time. Conversely, Yura Movsisyan of the Kansas City Wizards had a 37% rate, which is fine if you're nine years old and wearing an orange-wedge smile for the Little Ladybugs but not so good if you're a pro.
Sure, SC and PP don't sound like sexy acronyms now, but give them a chance. After all, they're no more esoteric than OBP and, in the context of the game, perhaps just as meaningful. Numbers provide a shorthand for greatness. Think of Roger Maris and you think of 61. Think of Wilt and you think of 100. But think of Beckham and you think of -- what? -- fauxhawks and fashion shoots?
Change that, and in time MLS may change other numbers, like attendance, TV ratings and fantasy participation. Or, of course, the league could just try more stunts. Hire Maradona as commissioner! Make hand balls legal! Something's gotta work eventually, right?
New Orleans Saints Camp
Comments (8)
Chris, here is where you get it wrong. I have always been a fan of sports statistics; those baseball cards from my childhood got bent up and destroyed analyzing and re-analyzing comparable players. But in this fantasy-crazed world of sports and sports fanaticism, we too often reduce some of our most hallowed moments into a recitation of numbers...
Wayne Gretzky? Any ardent hockey fan can recite back 894-1963-2857. As you say, Maris is remembered for 61 and McGwire will always be remembered for 70; Lou Gehrig will always have 2130 attached to him. But at the same time these numbers belie a deeper excitement these players brought to the game...
We reduce our heroes into a flurry of stats. And for those sports which don't naturally take to statistics -- like soccer, or cycling, for instance -- we try to come up with convoluted ways of breaking down these athletes into numbers. Possession percentages, free-kick success rates, cadence and heart rate -- these are all the conjurings of an American sports press which has forgotten how to WRITE ABOUT THE GAME...
When we try to force too many stats into a sport, we perpetuate a crutch with which vivid recollections of a sporting event are replaced with cumbersome and self-important number crunching. Grantland Rice would be spinning in his grave to see what sports in America have become...
Bigalke | 04/01/08, 11:06 PM
Report Offensive CommentFor those who look (and to your credit Chris, you did) there are just as many numbers to be found in soccer as in baseball. The games have some similarity in the sense that (generally) a minimum of equipment is needed to put together an informal game--but unlike basketball, there is an "open" feel about both. In baseball, it's in terms of time--measured in innings, not in minutes.
While in soccer, the openness is in terms of space. There is considerable freedom of movement, and a near-infinite possibility for combinations of passes and movement (both with and without the ball). With the exception of the obvious (out of bounds, for example) there is only the offside rule to constrain the free-flowing nature of the game.
Yet combining that *art* with the *science* of number-crunching algorithms (there are soccer equivalents of Bill James, Tony La Russa, etc., and the ProZone system used by many English teams makes its creators lots of money) makes for endless discussions, whether watching the game with friends "down the pub"... at the local bar... or at the stadium.
But of course there's room for both--the number-crunchers and the poets.. and that's what makes sports like baseball and soccer more timeless than other sports... the complexity within the simplicity (or is it vice versa?).
KansasToonami | 04/02/08, 02:43 AM
Report Offensive CommentChris-
Great article. There are so many more stats available to us number nerds who like to use them to interpret our feelings after watching the game. I'm sure as more money is poured into American soccer, we'll start to develop our own statistical methods and guys like Billy Beane are the tip of that iceberg.
Perhaps SI.com can take the lead in statistics available to American soccer fans.
-Drew
Rochester, NY
DrewVT6 | 04/03/08, 11:29 AM
Report Offensive CommentI think this is great. I'm not a fantasy junky, but it really helps me to know when a player is great when there are numbers to back it up. People talk stats too much in baseball if you ask me, but the numbers don't lie... usually. Those Beckham stats were pretty impressive though. I think this would help me get into MLS a little more, but if I'm going to watch club soccer it'll still probably be EPL.
JohnnyPolo24 | 04/04/08, 10:51 AM
Report Offensive CommentI was born and brought up in Scotland and became an ardent soccer fan or as we used to call it football we were used to reading the scores after the games to find out who scored the only thing there was a single name and time scored or if the goal was scored into his own net the poor unfortunate had the dredded (og) after his name but that was it as scoring was concerned.
It was'nt till I came to canada and got interested in baseball,hockey, and "football" and realised howmany stats they kept which made the game that much more interesting.
I am hoping they do find a way to track lots of other stats about soccer,who passed the ball to the scorer who made the saving tackle,who gave away the penalty,how many saves,this could be tracked very much like hockey
archie graham | 04/18/08, 02:05 PM
Report Offensive CommentThe most important measurement is how many times the ball goes crosses over the goal line and how many times the ball has an opportunity to go over the goal line.
Don Nixon II | 04/28/08, 05:21 PM
Report Offensive CommentI completely agree with your story. For MLS to hit mainstream in America, they need stats. It needs a better framework for fantasy games. It needs more for sports programs like PTI (Die in a fire Michael Wilbon), Around the Horn, and Sportscenter to talk about. Stats make it possible for the uninformed fan - who knows nothing about soccer - to talk about the game and get excited about it.
Cuauhtemoc | 05/28/08, 10:40 AM
Report Offensive CommentI'm all for more stats.
Listen, they don't tell the whole story in any sport. The biggest point of them is for fans to have one more thing to hold over another fans head when arguing about their favorite players. Look at Barry Sanders in NFL for example. He had a HUGE rushing average and a ton of yards. Though, the counter argument was that he also had the highest negative rushing yards average of any player ever. Things like that just make the debates even more fun.
Also, let's face it, stats are a sneaky way to get kids to do math voluntarily. Is there anything really wrong with that?
The money ball system does work in soccer too. Aidy Boothroyd used it when Watford was promoted. Of course it doesn't work as well when you have 1/10 the budget of the other teams, but in MLS it could work wonders.
Looking at San Jose so far this yea, you'd have to say that they are doing much better than most expansion teams have done.
Who says we can start tracking a players shots to goal average (shooting average)? I know Eddie Johnson would be shooting about .001 for the national team right about now.
sithomeandrot | 05/28/08, 07:02 PM
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