Lliga | Round 26: Real Madrid - FC Barcelona 2-0

[JackaL]

[MENTION=5226]Wolfe[/MENTION]

I'm sorry but I'm very skeptical of the merits of these publications.

Chance has an impact factor of 0.09.
Applied Economics has an impact factor of 0.50.
European Journal of Operational Research doesn't even appear to have an impact factor, lol.

Not all published literature (even supposedly peer reviewed) is of robust quality. There's a difference between publishing in PLoS one and NEJM/JAMA/Nature/Science/Cell in the biomedical sciences, for example. To put it into a quantitative comparison, NEJM impact factor is 75 and the others I referenced range from 30-50, lol.

I looked at the Bruinshoofd et al. paper and it's rife with confounding issues.

EDIT: I'll do a detailed breakdown later of some of the issues with one of these, as example.

Yes no research is fully perfect. As for the Impact Factor, that is not the only metric that is important for journals and researchers. General journals have higher impact factors than specific ones etc.

There is little chance a football (sports) related study will be published in Nature. However, sports have been used as a lab for good research that was published in top research journals in economics and management. I am talking about QJE, AER etc. for Econ and AMJ and Management Science etc. for Management. According to your IF argument, these would be laughable journals, but they increase a researchers probability of tenure manifold. These journals will never achieve IFs of Nature.

EJOR publishes studies that use sports, it's quite specific: https://www.scimagojr.com/journalsearch.php?q=22489&tip=sid&clean=0
Ian Mchale, a statistician by training (these days buzzword lovers would call this data scientist) recently published a good paper on plus-minus ratings in football (an admittedly harder issue in football vs. other team sports).

Kharrat, Tarak, Peña, Javier López and McHale, Ian G (2019) Plus-Minus Player Ratings for Soccer. European Journal of Operational Research

Again, most leading economist that also use sports for their economics and econometrics agree that coaches have not a huge influence on the performance of teams.

 

[El Gato]

There is little chance a football (sports) related study will be published in Nature. However, sports have been used as a lab for good research that was published in top research journals in economics and management. I am talking about QJE, AER etc. for Econ and AMJ and Management Science etc. for Management.

I sometimes wish I could find football anecdotes when reading around my subject in Nature

Why did Zidane succeed with more or less the same squad Rafa Benitez failed with?

It is an interesting question, but it's pretty conceivable that a manager with history of football in the noughties is 10x more relatable for a well rounded team than a past-it dinosaur. Having a club legend in the management seat is almost a fad he started (United, Chelsea, Arsenal wanting to choose from Vieira/Ljungberg/Arteta/Henry), but Zidane success is a bit of an accident because clearly, there is nobody like him and hence, most other coaches would suffer the same results Benitez did. That is why I rate Solari so highly because even though he lost everything in a week, we were doing so fucking well that madridistas to date don't think he should have been sacked based on what our squad is. He is the B level legend who could definitely succeed at Madrid and actually does not have nearly the same nepotism of Zidane showing he can bench a fatass Isco and Marcelo while Zidane is able to suffer weeks of their shit because they look up to him and can play respectable roles. Lopetegui for instance is a good La Liga coach who is nearing 4th place vs an exceptional Sociedad and Getafe despite having a stinker of a frontline. Him and Benitez are 90s personalities, but by league standards they're not bad managers. Just not modern enough to lead elite teams. They would probably both be far more successful as NT mediators who get to manage a team of personalities from a plethora of different clubs and convincing them to fight for a common goal. And the only way to do that is by accepting a NT coach system. Hence no relatively young NT managers actually. Other than a young Southgate who is absolutely exceptional for England because he has a young side to manage.
Those long term managers who stay and reinvent like SAF or Wenger are huge outliers. These are the guys that outlast an era as they modernised with each successive 2 to 5 year period they've spent in their respective team. Even Simeone ball is mildly different as he realises he needs to score goals in a different way given the strikers are a different breed, and even though he's not having much success communicating offensive ideas, I don't think he's nearing a sack as evidenced by several big money renewals.

All in all like I said from the beginning 4-5 years ago - if you want this side to overperform, the seniors need to be led by a figure they trust. Valverde was someone they liked, hence they were quite successful. The moment you take away their comfort zone, their limitations become more obvious, be it from Messi shit captaincy tendencies, Suarez being a useless cunt rather than a useful shithouser, Rakitić or Pique sulking around whenever it is not Clasico or Round of 16 CL time.
If you bring in Ten Hag, the backlash would be the same, some might have gotten benched, but all in all, the manager wouldn't have just enough in common with a sufficient part of the locker room. Only De Jong knows him I think so only he would perform well. He wouldn't have a trust mandate.
That is why you need to a coach who has some kind of pre-existing relationship with the players he leads in these big teams. Xavi would almost definitely do better than Koeman with the same current squad for instance IMO although he might not win trophies as he wouldn't engage in perennial conflict and would have sufficient backing from the board to make a semi difficult move. Any random name like Ten Hag would find it difficult to shift even Rakitić without good reason since "I don't like this player" is not a good reason for the board who have never worked with him and have no reason to trust his judgement.

You could even extend this coaching trend through to other sports. NBA - why do Carlisle and Popovich, the two arguably best and longest tenured coaches in the league not get into the Conference Finals more often despite having all the possible say and the best judgement? Not even on the yearly basis, but say, every 3 years when contracts of their desired players from across the league wind down and they're able to sign them?

 

[JackaL]

I sometimes wish I could find football anecdotes when reading around my subject in Nature

Haha, the good thing is, they are not anecdotes in those studies but good data to try to do some social science that is generalizable.

If you are interested, I can send you some stuff on domestic violence and the NFL, career choices of footballers, etc. etc.

 

[KingLeo10]

Yes no research is fully perfect. As for the Impact Factor, that is not the only metric that is important for journals and researchers. General journals have higher impact factors than specific ones etc.

There is little chance a football (sports) related study will be published in Nature. However, sports have been used as a lab for good research that was published in top research journals in economics and management. I am talking about QJE, AER etc. for Econ and AMJ and Management Science etc. for Management. According to your IF argument, these would be laughable journals, but they increase a researchers probability of tenure manifold. These journals will never achieve IFs of Nature.

EJOR publishes studies that use sports, it's quite specific: https://www.scimagojr.com/journalsearch.php?q=22489&tip=sid&clean=0
Ian Mchale, a statistician by training (these days buzzword lovers would call this data scientist) recently published a good paper on plus-minus ratings in football (an admittedly harder issue in football vs. other team sports).

Kharrat, Tarak, Peña, Javier López and McHale, Ian G (2019) Plus-Minus Player Ratings for Soccer. European Journal of Operational Research

Again, most leading economist that also use sports for their economics and econometrics agree that coaches have not a huge influence on the performance of teams.

I wasn't suggesting that I would expect a sports research publication in a NEJM or Nature and instead using those reference journals to highlight the level of rigor I have as an benchmark for something to be very credible (worthy of being considered a causal effect). And yes, as you say, IF is a crude measure but it's a good initial check.

Perhaps (and apparently) I'm not as well versed in what is considered rigorous or non rigorous research in the sports world. I will also admit that I'm always a little skeptical of research in this realm (or in the observational social sciences in general) because there are simply deep-rooted structural confounding issues (that can't be adjusted for by measurement or worse, even measured at all), selection/sampling issues, and measurement error.

 

[El Gato]

Haha, the good thing is, they are not anecdotes in those studies but good data to try to do some social science that is generalizable.

If you are interested, I can send you some stuff on domestic violence and the NFL, career choices of footballers, etc. etc.

Yh do it man. PM me whatever you can recommend. A list of journals could prove useful too, even if the statistics work is not strictly applied to football.

 

[JackaL]

I wasn't suggesting that I would expect a sports research publication in a NEJM or Nature and instead using those reference journals to highlight the level of rigor I have as an benchmark for something to be very credible (worthy of being considered a causal effect). And yes, as you say, IF is a crude measure but it's a good initial check.

Perhaps (and apparently) I'm not as well versed in what is considered rigorous or non rigorous research in the sports world. I will also admit that I'm always a little skeptical of research in this realm (or in the observational social sciences in general) because there are simply deep-rooted structural confounding issues (that can't be adjusted for by measurement or worse, even measured at all), selection/sampling issues, and measurement error.

Yep, issues that are dealt with in different papers and/or journals, but generally I understand your skepticism.

 

[Devils]

Well that settles it. #ValverdeIn

 

[say_my_name]

Contrary to what people post here, I didn't think the game was that bad. It was high intensity, almost as every clasico and we played at Bernabeu. Given our squads average age, stamina, the inconsistent performances we show, I was not expecting to win there. It was, however, unfortunate, that RM gave us almost no chances in the 2nd half, especially after not scoring those clear chances in the first. Both in the 1st and 2nd half, I thought RM was more structured. They had Messi under control and the rest of our squad did not know what to do to free Messi or take responsibility to create chances.

This opinion piece brings it very nicely to the point:
https://www.espn.com/soccer/barcelo...-cruyffian-ideals-are-no-guarantee-of-success

I have yet to see a board to be reelected with such an awful track record and literally almost 0 management skills.

Valverde was never the issue, usually in football the coach never is (numerous research papers on this), it's the quality of the squad. Squad management is never an easy task, especially with superstars that have won literally everything and the best player in history. Both management and coaches need to be super strong so as not to allow the stars to be too strong. In a sense, management needs to save the stars from themselves and their hubris for the better of the club and the players. Not an easy task, but our board completely fucked it up as can be seen by the numerous scandals and mini-scandals.

Having said that, I don't think th league is over yet, but we'll struggle big time, even if we win the league.

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Liverpool, a team of mediocre players led by a fantastically skilled coach, currently ruling the football world, tend to seriously disagree with you and your bogus reports! Guess who's right? There's a reason sports teams have coaches and not baboons for managers, corporations have CEOs, COOs and CFOs instead of janitors running the business, you probably report to your boss at work and not some cabbage head and countries elect leaders to manage national affairs. Those roles are based on specific skill sets in order to serve a purpose just like you hire an attorney to represent you in court instead of asking your supermarket clerk to do the job and go to a profiled surgeon to remove a heart, fix it and put it back. Who (as in how skilled a person) does your heart surgery or who defend you in court in that murder case makes all the difference in the universe, trust me. To dismiss and invalidate a level of skill set or talent and its impact on the outcome while proclaiming some liberal equality agenda is profoundly moronic.

 

[JackaL]

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Liverpool, a team of mediocre players led by a fantastically skilled coach, currently ruling the football world, tend to seriously disagree with you and your bogus reports! Guess who's right? There's a reason sports teams have coaches and not baboons for managers, corporations have CEOs, COOs and CFOs instead of janitors running the business, you probably report to your boss at work and not some cabbage head and countries elect leaders to manage national affairs. Those roles are based on specific skill sets in order to serve a purpose just like you hire an attorney to represent you in court instead of asking your supermarket clerk to do the job and go to a profiled surgeon to remove a heart, fix it and put it back. Who (as in how skilled a person) does your heart surgery or who defend you in court in that murder case makes all the difference in the universe, trust me. To dismiss and invalidate a level of skill set or talent and its impact on the outcome while proclaiming some liberal equality agenda is profoundly moronic.

Probably not drawing the right conclusions out of my post but yes, I seriously do not have the time to respond to ignirance.

 

[devo901]

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Liverpool, a team of mediocre players led by a fantastically skilled coach, currently ruling the football world, tend to seriously disagree with you and your bogus reports! Guess who's right?

Absolutely, it makes sense, what you are saying - at the same time those papers look at the majority of phenomena (manager/trainer), at a large scale, not individuals.
Liverpool was OK before Klopp and became great with Klopp. To me that means Klopp is an exception (in terms of manager impact) - but not the rule. Otherwise the manager before Klopp would also had a great time. But, how many Klopps are there? Well not that many. So this is why you are right, but at the same time this does not mean these papers are worthless. The club has to search for the gem ... and right fit, because gems are expensive...

Messi is also an exception - not a rule how soccer player can dribble/freekick/pass and so on.

If I research say .... strikers -"how effective is a modern striker?" and I count the scores of Messi (2018), Immobile 2020 and Romario 1994 I might get a very different view, than taking ALL strikers in a la liga 2019. Some of there have a horrible season, others do fine. In my, flawed selection of data/players - the outcome will be clearly there is no place in modern football for strikers because they all perform bad. (compared to absolute top players in a luckiest season) So Pool and Klopp is also an exception, to me it does not say a lot about the mechanics of how influential a trainer can be.

Makes sense, doesn't it?

BTW: Please use a less aggressive tone, it is not considered to be a sign of strength, nor do people like reading this battle-ling ... I do not see that it justifies punishment in form of hard personell writing style, because you think he is wrong - and thus his opinion needs to be obliterated and he as a person drawn as an idiot.

Thanks for reading.