Hey all — no newsletter today. I was sick yesterday. Migraines, who need ‘em? To make it up to you all, let’s do a chat today. We’ll start at 9:00 AM PST and go for about an hour, hour and a half. If you can’t make it, we’ll miss you — and the thread will be there for you to read, forever. Any and all questions are fair game! See you then.
I've been watching more classic matches lately. You should do a column on the biggest moments in football history that VAR would've changed. The Hand of God is the obvious one. A less obvious one: John O'Brien absolutely straight-legging the shit out of Jared Borgetti in ~ the 6th min of the 2002 USA/Mex match (to say nothing of the handball to come later on). We would've been robbed of our own VAR gripe on the Torsten Frings goal line "clearance." The butterfly effect on these decisions is fun to flesh out.
Ha! I like this idea. We talked about it on the Italy-Korea pod a little bit. So many potential VAR decisions in that match. Really made me wistful for the pre-VAR era.
I still need to listen to that - I just watched the match. I assume there is lots of discussion around del Piero's facial hair, which I did not at all remember but thoroughly enjoyed
Is the current pool of US U-20s actually significantly better/deeper than in the past, or are we all being delusional? And who are your favorite up and coming US prospects?
It should at least be deeper, right? There are more kids playing overseas, there are more nationalized prospects, and the MLS academies are (were?) in full gear. I'm not sure it's better than anything before, though. We once had a team with Michael Bradley, Jozy Altidore, and Freddy Adu (when he was still Freddy Adu) all in the starting XI.
Well, the UK govt has seemingly made the return of the league a nationwide priority, so that clears one hurdle that stopped the Dutch and the French. But I have a really hard time seeing how this early June re-start will actually happen. The vast majority of people still HAVEN'T been infected with coronavirus yet, and even televised, behind-closed-doors matches are still gonna require like 300 people to be at the stadium. Multiply that by 10, and then mix all those people up every few days, and I just have a really hard time seeing how that's a safe situation or how the league is able to push through it without anyone testing positive and the whole thing having to be shut down again. If you absolutely HAVE to play games, then the most realistic way to do it, to me, would be to have a handful of playoffs for all the financial choke-points in the table. Fewer games would limit the chance of a spread. This isn't based on any reporting whatsoever, but if I had to guess -- just based on how the pandemic is progressing everywhere -- then I think the league is eventually gonna just decide to award things based on the current table, and the path of least-resistance re: relegation would be to promote Leeds and West Brom, and not relegate anyone.
Ok then I must add, how are the fixtures going to work next year if they follow that path of least resistance? How will the season even start on time? And will they now have to play 42 games? What happens with the Champions League for 20-21?
You can cancel the League Cup, you can play an unbalanced schedule; there are a bunch of ways to save games if you want to. I'm not convinced the next season starts on time. In fact, I'm pretty convinced that it won't. As for the CL, I also have no idea, but I do have a hard time picturing how we're gonna pull off all of that intra-country travel any time soon.
How're you feeling about the Jets after the draft? I'm weirdly optimistic after watching Joe Douglas maneuver, but then I remember Adam Gase is the coach.
Loved all the trades, and they scooped up a bunch of guys that Pro Football Focus had really high on their board in the later rounds. Wasn't a fan of the Becton pick. As far as I'm aware, he never really had to pass-block in college, and when he did, it was mainly on play-action or screen plays, so not a true sample of what he's capable of. Plus, tackle is just not a super-valuable position, despite the conventional wisdom around the position. I wish they took a receiver in the first round, too. Gotta figure out whether or not Darnold is actually good. Some nerdy reading if you're bored: http://www.sloansportsconference.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Eager_PFF_WAR.pdf
Thanks, I'll give it a read. I was generally pleased with the Becton pick. Wasn't aware of the thinking on tackle value, but the line was just so bad (side note: one of my high school coaches now works for Sports Info Solutions and he approved). I do wish they had come away with another receiver.
If I may comment, while they did not take a wide receiver in the first, from this incredibly deep class, is it fair to say they took one of the 4 best tackles and then got Mims in the second, a highly ranked receiver who might have been a top 3 wr off the board most years and probably could have gone before some of the receivers actually taken in front of him.
No it isn't. I'm not a Jets fan but for the first time ever, or at least in the last 6-10 years, I had to tip my hand to a Jets draft. While I could argue that the tackle pick was the weakest pick, that might not be saying much considering how strong of a draft they had. In predraft I had Mims as a top 3 wr and to be able to get him after Shenault and Van Jefferson and get one of the top level tackles seems really good.
I know your fandom is barely hanging on after years of abuse and many years of drafts that resulted in players who could never make their second contract, but for the first time in a long time, I think you need to rekindle some hope.
As long as they keep Douglas around and give him permission to fire Gase when necessary and dare I say find a new Qb if Darnold does not pan out, you have some hope. I would argue that what Douglas did actually gave Darnold more help, considering the fall off at tackle after the top 4 and the incredible depth of a receiver class that had 37 off the board, most since the 7 round draft came to be.
I've just been churning through Le Carre books. Those are ... spy novels, not what you're looking for. Have you read The Undoing Project? Really, any Michael Lewis book would fit what you're asking for.
I think the multi-country league structure is a good idea, both here and elsewhere in Europe. I have a really hard time seeing LigaMX/MLS approaching Big Five status in my lifetime. The financial structure of MLS would have to be totally turned on its head for it to ever catch up. The cartel structure has been good for sustained growth, but not the kind of hyper-charged leap you'd need to take to challenge, you know, the sovereign wealth fund of Qatar.
Should Ligue 1 try to incentivize another uber rich entity to buy a team in their league to make it competitive? Wouldn't it be beneficial to Ligue 1 to try to get UEFA to relax FFP regulations to help make the league more competitive and eliminate PSG's procession to the title each year?
Also I always wonder about Germany. The league have their rule about the 50+1 ownership and the fans hate Leipzig for supposedly violating it, but does the average German fan really enjoy just watching Bayern march to the title every single year? Shouldn't they also be in support of FFP being relaxed and a rich owner coming in and presenting some real financial competition to Bayern?
What a world we've created for ourselves, one in which the choice is between competitive soccer or financial stability but no parity whatsoever. I think you're probably over-estimating the impact of one more team: first, what about all of the fans of other teams? What do they get out of this, other than a decreased chance of ever finishing in second? And is La Liga really that much more interesting than Germany and France on a yearly basis? I'm not sure it is. If you wanna increase competition, then you need to implement a more aggressive form of revenue sharing -- I am ethically opposed to the idea of a salary cap; they just put more money in owners' pockets -- and you probably also need to change the structure of the season. The home-and-away set-up does an OK job of sucking the randomness out of the sport on a yearly basis. I'd love to see leagues experiment more with playoffs and other structures like that.
Agree I'd rather have competitive balance, and I don't necessarily agree with this idea I threw out, I just think back to when Chelsea first really burst onto the scene and in the long run you'd have to say it made the EPL a better league to watch. I don't like Man City, but I understand what they've done also made the league more exciting because it took the contenders from 2-3 up to 4. Now it may be going too far, but I guess that's the problem. But I look at leagues like Germany and Italy and France where the same team has essentially won for the last 7 years, and do people really enjoy that? Germans in general seem to pride themselves on Bayern somewhat, but they must just hate watching them win every year. I know the Italians generally don't enjoy Juve winning every year. And since it appears the leagues don't push anything to do with revenue sharing, why not open the floodgates and let more money come in but somehow protect the clubs from going bankrupt if the owner loses interest and bails (aka don't allow the owner to foist a bunch of debt on the club like the Glazers have).
Yeah, I do wonder what that world would look like. Ultimately, the way to create the next great European superpower would be to buy a team in France/Italy/Spain, right? There's less competition for the Champions League spots. And yet, the richest entity on planet earth that could conceivably own a soccer team ... is about to buy Newcastle United. The prestige, global fanbase, and TV money of the PL just doesn't exist elsewhere.
The attacking three is most important, and the order depends on the team. After that, I think it's center backs, then fullbacks, then keeper, then midfield. If you have a KDB/David Silva-style free 8, then I'd slot that position right behind the front three in terms of value, but most teams don't have those players.
Yep! Basically what we used to think of as a "number 10" -- lots of passing into the box and creating, plus some goal-scoring. Or, in Bruno's case, LOTS of long-range shooting.
I'm just happy Man United bought a decent player ranking somewhat high in the Positional Value Rankings. We will save the savvy stats-conscious purchases for the post-Glazer/Woodward era
Is there such thing as a midfield being too young? Does a good/effective lineup generally need a veteran stalwart somewhere in the middle? (e.g. USMNT projected starters ~ Tyler Adams, McKennie, etc.)
My current working midfield hypothesis is that midfield doesn't matter as much as we think. So, working off of that: it probably doesn't matter that much if there's a veteran in there or not. It's mot about the play styles of the players you pick and what they allow the rest of the team to do.
If you were to rank non-attacking players (CM, CB) using only data from FBREF (via StatsBomb), what data would you use and which would you give the most precedence to?
The stats that I KNOW have the most value are xG, xG assisted, and passes into the penalty area. Basically everything else is team- and situation-dependent. That's not to say that you should just rank the CBs and CMs by those attacking numbers, but if there is someone who pops off the page in any of those categories, then he's almost definitely providing value to your team. Of course, there's always someone like VVD, who is absurdly dominant in the air and who also completes a ton of forward passes into the attacking third. That's obviously a valuable combination, but he's a once-in-a-generation dominant kind of player. In other words ... it all depends on what you're looking for. The only time I find numbers really useful for ranking players is when identifying the truly dominant players -- Thiago, Verratti -- who stand out in just about every category. Most players, though, have more specialized roles and skillsets. We still don't have a really good handle on what defensive and midfield actions contribute to winning.
I've been thinking about this all wrong, huh? My mind has been focused on guys like Keita and Kane, who could theoretically see big leaps in fitness. But this is real story. Can we get some money down on Milner for 2021 Ballon d'Or?
Is Naby Keita's failure to live up to expectations thus far 99% about injuries, 100% about injuries, or something else? It seems like his absurdly good (small sample size) per 90 minute numbers seldom enter into conversations like James Pearce's most recent piece for the Athletic. It also seems like there's a general failure to acknowledge that he's going to complete a lower percentage of passes than Gini or Hendo when he's routinely attempting higher-risk, higher reward passes (which, why sign someone from a Red Bull club if you want to drill that out of them?).
I think it's pretty close to 100 percent. When he's been fully healthy, he's been a first-choice starter. He's been a fantastic contributor whenever he's been on the field. For Liverpool, one tiny silver lining amidst all this might be that Naby is finally getting an extended period of rest that might allow him to heal up.
I really like him; who doesn't? He can play a bunch of different positions throughout the midfield and even in the attack, which does seem really City-esque. David Silva and Gini Wijnaldum pop up in some of the similar-player searches I've done. I think Pep would take that.
When Newcastle buys Mbappe, will he be forced to play out wide due to Joelinton having the number 9 spot locked down?
Kai Havertz won't get to start, but he'll learn from the best: Jonjo Shelvey.
Dwight Gayle baby
All right! That was fun, as always. Loved the thoughtful questions, as always. And we'll do it again soon. Hope you're all hanging in.
Any more questions? We're gonna wrap up in a little bit.
Do you have any thoughts on the Last Dance? And will we ever get a re-watch of Liverpool-Watford?
I've been watching more classic matches lately. You should do a column on the biggest moments in football history that VAR would've changed. The Hand of God is the obvious one. A less obvious one: John O'Brien absolutely straight-legging the shit out of Jared Borgetti in ~ the 6th min of the 2002 USA/Mex match (to say nothing of the handball to come later on). We would've been robbed of our own VAR gripe on the Torsten Frings goal line "clearance." The butterfly effect on these decisions is fun to flesh out.
BTW if you end up doing this, I will oblige with a donation - I am not trying to skirt the donation-for-column process!
Ha! I like this idea. We talked about it on the Italy-Korea pod a little bit. So many potential VAR decisions in that match. Really made me wistful for the pre-VAR era.
I still need to listen to that - I just watched the match. I assume there is lots of discussion around del Piero's facial hair, which I did not at all remember but thoroughly enjoyed
Is the current pool of US U-20s actually significantly better/deeper than in the past, or are we all being delusional? And who are your favorite up and coming US prospects?
It should at least be deeper, right? There are more kids playing overseas, there are more nationalized prospects, and the MLS academies are (were?) in full gear. I'm not sure it's better than anything before, though. We once had a team with Michael Bradley, Jozy Altidore, and Freddy Adu (when he was still Freddy Adu) all in the starting XI.
Do you have any idea what will happen with promotion and relegation in the Prem, and can the tentative plans to bring the league back actually work?
Well, the UK govt has seemingly made the return of the league a nationwide priority, so that clears one hurdle that stopped the Dutch and the French. But I have a really hard time seeing how this early June re-start will actually happen. The vast majority of people still HAVEN'T been infected with coronavirus yet, and even televised, behind-closed-doors matches are still gonna require like 300 people to be at the stadium. Multiply that by 10, and then mix all those people up every few days, and I just have a really hard time seeing how that's a safe situation or how the league is able to push through it without anyone testing positive and the whole thing having to be shut down again. If you absolutely HAVE to play games, then the most realistic way to do it, to me, would be to have a handful of playoffs for all the financial choke-points in the table. Fewer games would limit the chance of a spread. This isn't based on any reporting whatsoever, but if I had to guess -- just based on how the pandemic is progressing everywhere -- then I think the league is eventually gonna just decide to award things based on the current table, and the path of least-resistance re: relegation would be to promote Leeds and West Brom, and not relegate anyone.
Ok then I must add, how are the fixtures going to work next year if they follow that path of least resistance? How will the season even start on time? And will they now have to play 42 games? What happens with the Champions League for 20-21?
You can cancel the League Cup, you can play an unbalanced schedule; there are a bunch of ways to save games if you want to. I'm not convinced the next season starts on time. In fact, I'm pretty convinced that it won't. As for the CL, I also have no idea, but I do have a hard time picturing how we're gonna pull off all of that intra-country travel any time soon.
How're you feeling about the Jets after the draft? I'm weirdly optimistic after watching Joe Douglas maneuver, but then I remember Adam Gase is the coach.
Loved all the trades, and they scooped up a bunch of guys that Pro Football Focus had really high on their board in the later rounds. Wasn't a fan of the Becton pick. As far as I'm aware, he never really had to pass-block in college, and when he did, it was mainly on play-action or screen plays, so not a true sample of what he's capable of. Plus, tackle is just not a super-valuable position, despite the conventional wisdom around the position. I wish they took a receiver in the first round, too. Gotta figure out whether or not Darnold is actually good. Some nerdy reading if you're bored: http://www.sloansportsconference.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Eager_PFF_WAR.pdf
Thanks, I'll give it a read. I was generally pleased with the Becton pick. Wasn't aware of the thinking on tackle value, but the line was just so bad (side note: one of my high school coaches now works for Sports Info Solutions and he approved). I do wish they had come away with another receiver.
If I may comment, while they did not take a wide receiver in the first, from this incredibly deep class, is it fair to say they took one of the 4 best tackles and then got Mims in the second, a highly ranked receiver who might have been a top 3 wr off the board most years and probably could have gone before some of the receivers actually taken in front of him.
We sure this isn't "Joe Douglas's Burner"?
No it isn't. I'm not a Jets fan but for the first time ever, or at least in the last 6-10 years, I had to tip my hand to a Jets draft. While I could argue that the tackle pick was the weakest pick, that might not be saying much considering how strong of a draft they had. In predraft I had Mims as a top 3 wr and to be able to get him after Shenault and Van Jefferson and get one of the top level tackles seems really good.
I know your fandom is barely hanging on after years of abuse and many years of drafts that resulted in players who could never make their second contract, but for the first time in a long time, I think you need to rekindle some hope.
As long as they keep Douglas around and give him permission to fire Gase when necessary and dare I say find a new Qb if Darnold does not pan out, you have some hope. I would argue that what Douglas did actually gave Darnold more help, considering the fall off at tackle after the top 4 and the incredible depth of a receiver class that had 37 off the board, most since the 7 round draft came to be.
This really went off during my lunch break.
How did you not make 'Total Football' the podcast intro music? it sounds like another Parquet Courts song, perhaps? But still.
Rights, my man. Couldn't find a clip of Total Football that I could use without getting sued.
what’ve you been reading lately? always looking for something non-fiction/behavioral economics-y
I've just been churning through Le Carre books. Those are ... spy novels, not what you're looking for. Have you read The Undoing Project? Really, any Michael Lewis book would fit what you're asking for.
Thought's on a combined LigaMX/MLS? How long would it take such a league to become a member of the "Big 5" leagues, if ever?
I think the multi-country league structure is a good idea, both here and elsewhere in Europe. I have a really hard time seeing LigaMX/MLS approaching Big Five status in my lifetime. The financial structure of MLS would have to be totally turned on its head for it to ever catch up. The cartel structure has been good for sustained growth, but not the kind of hyper-charged leap you'd need to take to challenge, you know, the sovereign wealth fund of Qatar.
Should Ligue 1 try to incentivize another uber rich entity to buy a team in their league to make it competitive? Wouldn't it be beneficial to Ligue 1 to try to get UEFA to relax FFP regulations to help make the league more competitive and eliminate PSG's procession to the title each year?
Also I always wonder about Germany. The league have their rule about the 50+1 ownership and the fans hate Leipzig for supposedly violating it, but does the average German fan really enjoy just watching Bayern march to the title every single year? Shouldn't they also be in support of FFP being relaxed and a rich owner coming in and presenting some real financial competition to Bayern?
What a world we've created for ourselves, one in which the choice is between competitive soccer or financial stability but no parity whatsoever. I think you're probably over-estimating the impact of one more team: first, what about all of the fans of other teams? What do they get out of this, other than a decreased chance of ever finishing in second? And is La Liga really that much more interesting than Germany and France on a yearly basis? I'm not sure it is. If you wanna increase competition, then you need to implement a more aggressive form of revenue sharing -- I am ethically opposed to the idea of a salary cap; they just put more money in owners' pockets -- and you probably also need to change the structure of the season. The home-and-away set-up does an OK job of sucking the randomness out of the sport on a yearly basis. I'd love to see leagues experiment more with playoffs and other structures like that.
Agree I'd rather have competitive balance, and I don't necessarily agree with this idea I threw out, I just think back to when Chelsea first really burst onto the scene and in the long run you'd have to say it made the EPL a better league to watch. I don't like Man City, but I understand what they've done also made the league more exciting because it took the contenders from 2-3 up to 4. Now it may be going too far, but I guess that's the problem. But I look at leagues like Germany and Italy and France where the same team has essentially won for the last 7 years, and do people really enjoy that? Germans in general seem to pride themselves on Bayern somewhat, but they must just hate watching them win every year. I know the Italians generally don't enjoy Juve winning every year. And since it appears the leagues don't push anything to do with revenue sharing, why not open the floodgates and let more money come in but somehow protect the clubs from going bankrupt if the owner loses interest and bails (aka don't allow the owner to foist a bunch of debt on the club like the Glazers have).
Yeah, I do wonder what that world would look like. Ultimately, the way to create the next great European superpower would be to buy a team in France/Italy/Spain, right? There's less competition for the Champions League spots. And yet, the richest entity on planet earth that could conceivably own a soccer team ... is about to buy Newcastle United. The prestige, global fanbase, and TV money of the PL just doesn't exist elsewhere.
People keep trying with Inter and Milan...
Using a standard 4-3-3 formation, rank the positions from most to least important.
The attacking three is most important, and the order depends on the team. After that, I think it's center backs, then fullbacks, then keeper, then midfield. If you have a KDB/David Silva-style free 8, then I'd slot that position right behind the front three in terms of value, but most teams don't have those players.
is that what you would call Bruno Fernandes?
Yep! Basically what we used to think of as a "number 10" -- lots of passing into the box and creating, plus some goal-scoring. Or, in Bruno's case, LOTS of long-range shooting.
I'm just happy Man United bought a decent player ranking somewhat high in the Positional Value Rankings. We will save the savvy stats-conscious purchases for the post-Glazer/Woodward era
Is there such thing as a midfield being too young? Does a good/effective lineup generally need a veteran stalwart somewhere in the middle? (e.g. USMNT projected starters ~ Tyler Adams, McKennie, etc.)
My current working midfield hypothesis is that midfield doesn't matter as much as we think. So, working off of that: it probably doesn't matter that much if there's a veteran in there or not. It's mot about the play styles of the players you pick and what they allow the rest of the team to do.
If you were to rank non-attacking players (CM, CB) using only data from FBREF (via StatsBomb), what data would you use and which would you give the most precedence to?
Given that it is StatsBomb's data, I think it makes sense to go with the data that they put on their radars:
-CM: https://twitter.com/StatsBomb/status/1252267406845763585
-CB: https://twitter.com/StatsBomb/status/1240622886764847104/photo/1
The stats that I KNOW have the most value are xG, xG assisted, and passes into the penalty area. Basically everything else is team- and situation-dependent. That's not to say that you should just rank the CBs and CMs by those attacking numbers, but if there is someone who pops off the page in any of those categories, then he's almost definitely providing value to your team. Of course, there's always someone like VVD, who is absurdly dominant in the air and who also completes a ton of forward passes into the attacking third. That's obviously a valuable combination, but he's a once-in-a-generation dominant kind of player. In other words ... it all depends on what you're looking for. The only time I find numbers really useful for ranking players is when identifying the truly dominant players -- Thiago, Verratti -- who stand out in just about every category. Most players, though, have more specialized roles and skillsets. We still don't have a really good handle on what defensive and midfield actions contribute to winning.
Which player is going to be the most game-ready when the PL restarts, and why is it James Milner?
I've been thinking about this all wrong, huh? My mind has been focused on guys like Keita and Kane, who could theoretically see big leaps in fitness. But this is real story. Can we get some money down on Milner for 2021 Ballon d'Or?
Is Naby Keita's failure to live up to expectations thus far 99% about injuries, 100% about injuries, or something else? It seems like his absurdly good (small sample size) per 90 minute numbers seldom enter into conversations like James Pearce's most recent piece for the Athletic. It also seems like there's a general failure to acknowledge that he's going to complete a lower percentage of passes than Gini or Hendo when he's routinely attempting higher-risk, higher reward passes (which, why sign someone from a Red Bull club if you want to drill that out of them?).
I think it's pretty close to 100 percent. When he's been fully healthy, he's been a first-choice starter. He's been a fantastic contributor whenever he's been on the field. For Liverpool, one tiny silver lining amidst all this might be that Naby is finally getting an extended period of rest that might allow him to heal up.
I really like him; who doesn't? He can play a bunch of different positions throughout the midfield and even in the attack, which does seem really City-esque. David Silva and Gini Wijnaldum pop up in some of the similar-player searches I've done. I think Pep would take that.
(This was in reference to Lyon's Houssem Aouar.)