On May 21st 2008, UEFA announced the latest results of the co-efficient for European leagues, and the English Premier League became the new number one. English fans will surely have shrugged and moved on to another article in their breakfast newspaper. After all, the Champions League had seen three English clubs among the four semi-finalists for the second consecutive year, at least one English finalist for the fourth consecutive year, and an English winner for the third time in a decade.
Such was the supremacy of English football in Europe that both Champions League finalists in Moscow were from the Premier League.
Of course, at that last statistic the Spanish will have sniffed in disdain. Real Madrid and Valencia contested the first final between two clubs from the same league in 2000. Not to be outdone, the Italians will have reminded any English friends that Milan and Juventus followed suit in 2003. The Spanish will tell you about Real Madrid’s nine European Cups, including five on the trot and three in five years. The Italians will mention that they are at the top of the list with eleven trophies and fourteen runners-up.
Statistics, huh.
But how do you really judge which league is the best?
THE SPICE OF LIFE
Earlier this year – in fact, just a couple of weeks before UEFA’s announcement – Peter Scudamore was forced to come out and defend the “boring” Premier League after Kevin Keegan complained about the dominance of the top four. The then-Newcastle manager wasn’t the only one complaining, as many fans feel the same way. Of course, many fans would also love it, just love it if United lost, but that’s beside the point here.
So if English football is getting boring because the same old teams always win, does that mean excitement comes from variety? What about the neutral fan, which means almost everybody if you take into account the fact that come the business end of the season only a couple of teams are in contention. For the neutral, it’s not necessarily about trophies or bragging rights, so surely it’s about excitement too?
One day, sat in bed with a streaming cold, I could find nothing better to do than trawl the stats to find some answers to this question. I looked at what people generally consider to be the top five European leagues – England, Spain, France, Germany and Italy – and tried to judge how much variety there was in each league.
As a starting point I took the 1992-1993 season for the simple reason that it was the first season of the much-maligned or much-vaunted Premier League. Conveniently, it was also the first season in which three teams were relegated in Germany and also only a couple of seasons shy of the introduction of three points for a win in Spain.
In the seasons from 1992 to 2008, the Premier League had seen forty-two different clubs play, exactly the same as Serie A and only one more than La Liga. This may not have been the obvious starting point, but this one statistic appeared at the start of my search:
England 42
Italy 42
Spain 41
France 37
Germany 35
Not much difference there, then. So I looked at how many teams had been ever-present during the same period of time. England came out worse this time, with seven permanent fixtures, the same as Germany:
Italy 4
Spain 4
France 4
Germany 7
England 7
They are also very similar figures. How about different champions? Well, again the figures showed little difference between the top five leagues:
France 7 (8, if you include Olympique Marseille)
Italy 5
Spain 5
Germany 5
England 4
This statistic is again not very good for England, if we consider variety to be an important factor in excitement. Good for France though, with seven champions – it’s just a shame that the last seven titles have been won by the same team. That’s hardly exciting.
Next I looked at the proportion of promoted teams that were immediately relegated (I’m a Sunderlandnil fan, I know about these things), with the idea that perhaps seeing clubs come up and survive a fight would be more unpredictable and therefore more exciting than just watching them slip straight back down. Here are the figures:
Italy 30% (19 from 63)
France 34% (16 from 47)
Germany 35% (16 from 46)
Spain 40% (19 from 48)
England 47% (23 from 49)
So nearly half of all teams promoted to the Premier League went straight back from whence they came, leaving the same old clubs. Not good in terms of excitement. And yes, the cold was really bad and no, I wasn’t getting out much.
GOOOOOOOOL!
Of course, as has often been said, the currency of football is the goal. Who cares who’s playing as long as there are bucket-loads of goals? So I checked out the number of goals scored each season in each of the five leagues, although I had to reduce the result to an average scored per team per season because of the varying number of clubs in each league (from eighteen to twenty-two):
England 51 goals per team per season
Spain 51
Germany 49
Italy 46
France 43
Unfortunately, there is little difference again between the countries, in spite of the fact that England are back at the top of the table. The other problem with this statistic is the fact that goals are all very well when it’s your team knocking them in, but a different matter entirely when your defence is away with the fairies. First speak to the Barcelona fans about being the last top-flight club to score 100+ goals in a season, and then speak to any Derby fan. Actually, don’t say anything to the Catalans. That season they lost the league to Real Madrid. And you probably shouldn’t remind the Derby fans about last season either, come to think of it.
AND THE NUMBER NINE…
Trophies and statistics are all very well, but any football fan will tell you that going to the match week in, week out is the bread and butter of the game, following your team come hell or high water, travelling up and down the country in all sorts of weather. So what better incentive is there to go to the match than a star player?
Now here is where there are going to be some problems. We all know that the most expensive players are not necessarily the best – ask Benitez about that one – but there are as many opinions on who is a good player as there are fish in the sea. Any fan of any mid-table club will swear blind that one of their midfielders is the closest you will ever see to Maradona on a muddy Midlands park, and the fact that said clogger is not considered world-class may well be down to a question of marketing.
I had a peek at the winners of the European Footballer of the Year awards for the relevant years, and here is where the Premier League really comes unstuck. I looked at which leagues the respective winners of each year’s trophy played in at the time. The following figures include the fact that some players were awarded the trophy for their work in two leagues:
Italy 9 winners in playing in Serie A
Spain 7
Germany 1
France 1
England 1
Oh dear. Michael Owen is the only Premier League player to have lifted this coveted trophy (the impending crowning of Cristiano Ronaldo notwithstanding). In fact, even if you consider the top three players in the years that I have been looking at, the Premier League has fared only marginally better:
Italy 19 top three players playing in Serie A
Spain 15
England 10
Germany 4
France 1
Back on Planet Earth, though, I have just two words to say to that. Eric. Cantona.
Here’s two more. Thierry. Henry.
So that’s that one sorted.
SILVERWARE
Trophies equal bragging rights. How have Premier League clubs fared in Europe since they broke away from the rest? Here are some figures for the Champions League, which is coincidentally as old as the PL:
Italy 4 times winners 2 different teams
Spain 4 2
England 3 2
Germany 2 2
France 1 1
What about the UEFA Cup?
Italy 5 times winners 3 different teams
Spain 3 2
Germany 2 2
England 1 1
France 0 0
So we have come full circle. However, UEFA coefficients are all very well, but they take into account teams that fall halfway, and at the end of the day they mean nothing to fans. I even had difficulty finding reliable figures for the coefficient. One website told me that England had interrupted a run of eight years of Spanish dominance, which in turn had stopped nine years of Italian superiority. However, another website claimed that UEFA’s top league in 2006 was Romania. Whatever, these figures mean nothing. A trophy is a trophy, and an open-top bus is always better in idyllic Italy or sunny Spain.
Statistics, huh.
THE THEORY OF RELATIVITY
Everything in life is relative, and on the subject of which league is the best even Einstein couldn’t have come up with a coherent theory.
As much as the Premier League would like to ignore its poorer cousins, it cannot be denied that the quality of the top flight is to a certain extent affected by the quality of the Championship and the teams that are promoted.
Seeing smaller clubs like Hull reach the top flight is part of the spirit of football, but could mean smaller crowds in smaller stadiums. On the other hand, a new whipping-boy could mean a glut of goals. Although looking at Hull so far this season, I could be just as wrong there as I have been with everything else.
Everywhere I have travelled, local fans and the local press have all agreed that English fans are the most passionate and English grounds have the best atmosphere. And passion is something that you can’t measure.
GET OFF THE FENCE!
So I have dragged you through a mire of statistics for nothing – maybe it’s time I got off the fence and measured things with my heart instead of my head.
France and Germany? Joint last, with maybe Germany shading it because of their fan-friendly prices and grounds.
I remember the early days of Italian football on the telly with great fondness, but let’s face it, a large proportion of any Serie A game can be pedestrian. Third place.
So I’m left with England or Spain. United-Chelsea or Atletico-Barcelona (the highest goals-per-game average in Spanish football)? Hmmm. Bolton-Wigan or Numancia-Osasuna? Ahh. Sunny stadia or freezing grounds?
And that, my friends, is the answer. Sitting in the sun is great when you’re on holiday, but it’s not real life. And nothing brightens up your winter more than stamping your feet in an English stand. Cold winter evenings coming back from the game listening to the results service on the car radio. Boxing Day matches.
West Brom’s miraculous survival. Derby’s ordeal. Spurs’ quest for points. And Eric Cantona’s collar. That’s why the Premier League is the best.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Monday, November 3, 2008
Boyd for England!
In 1947 a young – and highly gifted – Argentinean turned out for his country for the first time, and according to his autobiography it was a moment of great pride for him and his family. Unfortunately he only ever achieved six caps for his country, yet his career had not been cut short by either horrific injury or an unsympathetic coach.
In 1949 the same young, talented player turned out for Colombia, and played for them for a total of four games. He failed to add to his six goals on the international stage.
By 1957 this still excellent player was earning his first cap for Spain, for whom he played thirty-one times and scored twenty-three goals. He has never made any attempt to deny one important thing – he was earning much more money playing for Franco’s two teams (Real Madrid and Spain) than he ever had anywhere else.
Move forward fifty-odd years, and it appears that the Nacho Novo case is attracting unusual amounts of attention, as well as the usual knee-jerk cries of “racist!”
SIMON OR SIMONE?
Even for people who don’t remember di Stefano’s playing days, there are many examples of people playing for other countries including Owen Hargreaves, who was born in Calgary, which is apparently in Alberta (my knowledge of Canadian geography is sketchy at best) and Simone Perrotta, who was born in Ashton-under-Lyne, Greater Manchester. Ashton-under-Lyne could never even be described as cosmopolitan, and is as English as they come. And if you need any more convincing, take a look at wor Jackie’s Irish team.
Of course Hargreaves is the son of an English couple, and Perrotta was the son of Italian parents and grew up in Italy from the age of six.
This issue certainly isn’t confined to football. If you look at the table tennis teams entered in the Olympic Games, it seems that almost every one has a Chinese name. Funny that. Johann Muehlegg – as Spanish a name as any I’ve ever heard – was a gold medal-winning cross-country skier who was revered by the Spanish. Until he failed a drugs test, that is, at which point he was comprehensively shunned. As Brenda Fricker once said, “When you win the Oscar you’re British, but when you’re lying drunk in an airport you’re Irish”.
SPANISH BLOOD, SCOTTISH HEART
I totally agree with the many complaints about the fusty suits and ties that govern a game which should belong to the people. I imagine that the SFA is the same archaic old boys’ club as the English FA or the famously incompetent FAI. I also sympathise with the worries about racism and the relevance of laws such as those created because of the Bosman ruling.
I am aware that the years of unbroken residence would give Novo a British passport as opposed to a Scottish one, and I understand that the respective national associations don’t want to give FIFA any excuse to start on about a British team. (We obviously need to continue with the present England-Scotland-Wales format in preparation for the inevitable and well-deserved devolution of power. We’ll talk about the Six Counties some other time.)
And I certainly don’t care where people come from or where they ply their trade.
However, let’s set aside the law and political correctness and look at football.
Surely the point of an international – national – fixture is having eleven home-grown players against eleven of the same. You want to be able to identify with your players, who could have grown up in your town and speak the same lingo (figuratively) as you. In these modern times of multi-cultural societies it doesn’t matter if they are black when the Scottish are traditionally white and it doesn’t matter whether they are Muslim when the Scottish are traditionally Christian – but I reckon the fans will want the players to at least be Scottish.
Any doubts about that – look at how Brazilian Deco is treated by the Portuguese.
GALIZA – UNHA NACIÓN, UNHA SELECCIÓN
And as for Nacho Novo – sit him down in front of a Spain-Scotland match (or a Galiza-Scotland, which is much more to the point in this argument) and see what happens. I’m sure that he’ll be cheering the Irmandiña on before the game has even started. After all, he’s never played for Spain any more than he has for Scotland, but he has played for the Galician national team.
And now that we’re at it, put an Englishman in the Scottish team and see what happens!
The fans already complain about the lack of commitment of the players – how is a Spanish person expected to sweat a Scottish shirt as much as the fans want him to? How could Almunia or Cudicini ever give their all for England against Spain or Italy? I admit that they would want to try their best in order to impress the coach that never picked them, but at the end of the day, blood will out. Unless it’s true that modern players really are the mercenaries that people believe them to be, and will give their all for the same wad of cash that so motivates Ashley Cole.
CLUB OVER COUNTRY
I actually don’t care about international football. I rarely watch England games, and never watch other countries. The European Championships bore me to tears. The World Cup only interests me as long as whichever minnow I happen to be supporting is still playing.
These matches have totally lost the magic they had when I was a kid. Perhaps it’s because I hate rivalry between countries and flags and the inevitable skinheads and their archaic drivel about “the war”. Maybe it’s because of the succession of awful England teams and worse England managers over the last twenty years. I used to believe the hype. Not any more.
Maybe it’s simply the result of my growing disillusion towards football in general. Why should we follow a bunch of ignorant millionaire prima donnas? Why should we continue to follow teams that have very little connection either with their working-class roots or indeed the communities which have nurtured them for over a century?
And what’s the use of supporting “England” if the players aren’t English. Come to think of it, what’s the use of supporting Manchester United if the players aren’t Manc?
Come back the Lisbon lions!
In 1949 the same young, talented player turned out for Colombia, and played for them for a total of four games. He failed to add to his six goals on the international stage.
By 1957 this still excellent player was earning his first cap for Spain, for whom he played thirty-one times and scored twenty-three goals. He has never made any attempt to deny one important thing – he was earning much more money playing for Franco’s two teams (Real Madrid and Spain) than he ever had anywhere else.
Move forward fifty-odd years, and it appears that the Nacho Novo case is attracting unusual amounts of attention, as well as the usual knee-jerk cries of “racist!”
SIMON OR SIMONE?
Even for people who don’t remember di Stefano’s playing days, there are many examples of people playing for other countries including Owen Hargreaves, who was born in Calgary, which is apparently in Alberta (my knowledge of Canadian geography is sketchy at best) and Simone Perrotta, who was born in Ashton-under-Lyne, Greater Manchester. Ashton-under-Lyne could never even be described as cosmopolitan, and is as English as they come. And if you need any more convincing, take a look at wor Jackie’s Irish team.
Of course Hargreaves is the son of an English couple, and Perrotta was the son of Italian parents and grew up in Italy from the age of six.
This issue certainly isn’t confined to football. If you look at the table tennis teams entered in the Olympic Games, it seems that almost every one has a Chinese name. Funny that. Johann Muehlegg – as Spanish a name as any I’ve ever heard – was a gold medal-winning cross-country skier who was revered by the Spanish. Until he failed a drugs test, that is, at which point he was comprehensively shunned. As Brenda Fricker once said, “When you win the Oscar you’re British, but when you’re lying drunk in an airport you’re Irish”.
SPANISH BLOOD, SCOTTISH HEART
I totally agree with the many complaints about the fusty suits and ties that govern a game which should belong to the people. I imagine that the SFA is the same archaic old boys’ club as the English FA or the famously incompetent FAI. I also sympathise with the worries about racism and the relevance of laws such as those created because of the Bosman ruling.
I am aware that the years of unbroken residence would give Novo a British passport as opposed to a Scottish one, and I understand that the respective national associations don’t want to give FIFA any excuse to start on about a British team. (We obviously need to continue with the present England-Scotland-Wales format in preparation for the inevitable and well-deserved devolution of power. We’ll talk about the Six Counties some other time.)
And I certainly don’t care where people come from or where they ply their trade.
However, let’s set aside the law and political correctness and look at football.
Surely the point of an international – national – fixture is having eleven home-grown players against eleven of the same. You want to be able to identify with your players, who could have grown up in your town and speak the same lingo (figuratively) as you. In these modern times of multi-cultural societies it doesn’t matter if they are black when the Scottish are traditionally white and it doesn’t matter whether they are Muslim when the Scottish are traditionally Christian – but I reckon the fans will want the players to at least be Scottish.
Any doubts about that – look at how Brazilian Deco is treated by the Portuguese.
GALIZA – UNHA NACIÓN, UNHA SELECCIÓN
And as for Nacho Novo – sit him down in front of a Spain-Scotland match (or a Galiza-Scotland, which is much more to the point in this argument) and see what happens. I’m sure that he’ll be cheering the Irmandiña on before the game has even started. After all, he’s never played for Spain any more than he has for Scotland, but he has played for the Galician national team.
And now that we’re at it, put an Englishman in the Scottish team and see what happens!
The fans already complain about the lack of commitment of the players – how is a Spanish person expected to sweat a Scottish shirt as much as the fans want him to? How could Almunia or Cudicini ever give their all for England against Spain or Italy? I admit that they would want to try their best in order to impress the coach that never picked them, but at the end of the day, blood will out. Unless it’s true that modern players really are the mercenaries that people believe them to be, and will give their all for the same wad of cash that so motivates Ashley Cole.
CLUB OVER COUNTRY
I actually don’t care about international football. I rarely watch England games, and never watch other countries. The European Championships bore me to tears. The World Cup only interests me as long as whichever minnow I happen to be supporting is still playing.
These matches have totally lost the magic they had when I was a kid. Perhaps it’s because I hate rivalry between countries and flags and the inevitable skinheads and their archaic drivel about “the war”. Maybe it’s because of the succession of awful England teams and worse England managers over the last twenty years. I used to believe the hype. Not any more.
Maybe it’s simply the result of my growing disillusion towards football in general. Why should we follow a bunch of ignorant millionaire prima donnas? Why should we continue to follow teams that have very little connection either with their working-class roots or indeed the communities which have nurtured them for over a century?
And what’s the use of supporting “England” if the players aren’t English. Come to think of it, what’s the use of supporting Manchester United if the players aren’t Manc?
Come back the Lisbon lions!
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Attractive football?
Football fans often prefer to “stay positive” in defeat, claiming that the loss was made less serious by the fact that their team played really well. A clear example of this was the bleating of the Liverpool fans after slumping to an apparently undeserved defeat yesterday to trapdoor club, and everyone’s favourite whipping boy of the moment, Spurs.
More than one team have played incredibly unattractive football this season and have somehow won a load of matches. Benítez’s awful Liverpool side is by far the worst culprit, slumping to undeserved victory week after week. If they carry on doing this all season and win the league, will their supporters worry about how the title was won? I seriously doubt it.
And how little they care will be directly proportional to the number of years they have waited to lift that particular trophy. Liverpool were to win the league title for the first time since the last time, they will conveniently forget how it was achieved. It must be said, of course, that for the seven top-flight clubs who have never won a league title this is as forgivable as it is understandable. For a club like Liverpool, who talk not of history but of heritage, it seems a tad pathetic.
To the neutral observer, it doesn't seem to bode well when the fans start praising the quality of the football in defeat, because it sounds like those fans are preparing for another trophy-less season.
And at the end of the day, the team at the top of the Premier League and the team in third place look good for the title AND play decent football pretty much week in, week out. In the case of league leaders Chelsea, this must seem twice as sweet considering the fact that the charge of playing ugly football has been continuously levelled at them by the Chelski-haters ever since Abramovich took over.
So perhaps the Liverpool fans should be content to cheer for a victory each week and wait for the final verdict on their team’s season before claiming any bragging rights.
Playing attractive football is what keeps you warm at night when your rivals are winning trophies. Or not, when your night is filled with the nightmare of your rival winning the league and in Europe.
More than one team have played incredibly unattractive football this season and have somehow won a load of matches. Benítez’s awful Liverpool side is by far the worst culprit, slumping to undeserved victory week after week. If they carry on doing this all season and win the league, will their supporters worry about how the title was won? I seriously doubt it.
And how little they care will be directly proportional to the number of years they have waited to lift that particular trophy. Liverpool were to win the league title for the first time since the last time, they will conveniently forget how it was achieved. It must be said, of course, that for the seven top-flight clubs who have never won a league title this is as forgivable as it is understandable. For a club like Liverpool, who talk not of history but of heritage, it seems a tad pathetic.
To the neutral observer, it doesn't seem to bode well when the fans start praising the quality of the football in defeat, because it sounds like those fans are preparing for another trophy-less season.
And at the end of the day, the team at the top of the Premier League and the team in third place look good for the title AND play decent football pretty much week in, week out. In the case of league leaders Chelsea, this must seem twice as sweet considering the fact that the charge of playing ugly football has been continuously levelled at them by the Chelski-haters ever since Abramovich took over.
So perhaps the Liverpool fans should be content to cheer for a victory each week and wait for the final verdict on their team’s season before claiming any bragging rights.
Playing attractive football is what keeps you warm at night when your rivals are winning trophies. Or not, when your night is filled with the nightmare of your rival winning the league and in Europe.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
