Fantasy Football Statistics
They say that, by the end of the season, the table doesn’t lie: the best team will win the league, the worst teams will be relegated, and the middling teams will finish in the middle! So surely, the same philosophy can be applied to the players within these teams? Fantasy football leagues in England have been rating players with reference to objective criteria for nearly 20 years now. So what would the England team look like if we use data from the most popular Premier League player picking portal, fantasy.premierleague.com to choose a team for Capello?
We’ve ranked players by their points per game, rather than overall points to allow for injuries and absences. And, to eliminate statistical outliers, only players with a minimum of ten matches under their belts this season are eligible. (Points in this league are principally based on goals, assists and clean-sheets.) A lot of familiar faces crop up but there are a few surprise inclusions too. These player rankings seem quite representative of England’s selection dilemmas: our top goalkeeper is only the 8th best in the league (behind the non-English keepers), but we could field a midfield of five that feature within the league’s top 10. With regard to the forwards, Rooney (2nd) is up with the best, whilst a cluster of others inhabit a statistical realm slightly below the peak of Premier League talent (Bent, Defoe, Agbonlahor and Zamora are 7th, 9th, 11th and 12th respectively.)
Goalkeeper
Joe Hart would be England’s no. 1, although he is only the 8th best Premier League stopper (according to our interpretation of Fantasy Premier League data). Paul Robinson (9th) would make the bench. Ben Foster ranks higher than Hart under points-per-game but narrowly misses out, having only played nine games for Manchester United this season.
Defence
The backline initially has a familiar look to it with Glen Johnson (2nd=), Ashley Cole (2nd=) and John Terry (8th) making the side. But they are supplemented by the otherwise ignored Jody Craddock (10th) of Wolverhampton Wanderers. Apart from a tongue-in-cheek internet campaign, Craddock hasn’t been mentioned at all with reference to the England squad. Does this mean the stats are misleading, or that he’s been overlooked as a result of being a 34 year old centre-half who has never played for one of the Premier League’s more fashionable sides? Stoke’s Danny Higginbotham (12th) takes a spot on the subs bench.
Midfield
Frank Lampard (1st), James Milner (5th) and Steven Gerrard (8th) could easily feature in England’s starting XI against the USA. They would be joined by David Dunn (7th) in England’s engine room. Aaron Lennon (9th) takes the midfield substitute spot.
Forwards
No major surprises here. Rooney (2nd) partners Bent (7th) in attack, with Defoe (9th) on the bench.
Penalty Shoot-Out!
Roberto Baggio misses Italy's final penalty against Brazil in 1994
The most nerve-racking element of the game! No other moment in football can match it for anticipation - the torturous mixture of expectancy and uncertainty. Football distilled into its component elements.
Football fans cheer when their team is awarded a penalty, yet when two teams are level after 120 minutes of football and have to be differentiated by a penalty shoot-out, the only crowd noise is the low hum of nervous chatter, as fans discuss permutations and expectations, preparing their nerves for an inevitable shredding.
Commentators often proclaim that penalty shoot-outs are a lottery, reducing teams to the fickleness of Lady Luck. This is blatantly untrue. Penalties test the skill of a player to strike a ball from 12 yards; there is little luck involved. Commentators also state that penalties are unfair, inflicting instant villain status on hard-working players based on one errant kick. This proclamation stands up to more rigorous inspection. Are penalties the fairest way of deciding football matches? Why should only one aspect of football be the deciding measure between two teams? Here, we look at some possible alternatives to the traditional penalty shoot-out.
Alternatives within Football
American Style Shoot-Out - Up until the 1999 season, Major League Soccer took inspiration from Ice Hockey and ended ‘tie games’ with shoot-outs. Players stood 35 yards from goal and had five seconds to score past the goalkeeper, taking as many touches as they need. Surely this is a truer test of footballing skill than a penalty?
More penalties! – Counterintuitive, but when deciding which team is better, why do we only test half of them? Why not have all 11 players take a penalty? This would eliminate the need for players to ’step up’ and reduce the burden of pressure, as every player would be taking one. This could also penalise teams who have had a man sent off – they would only have 10 penalty kicks!
And what methods do other sports use to decide tied games?
Hockey – Probably the sport with the greatest similarity to football in terms of aims and objectives. Hockey uses the drop-off system, whereby additional periods of golden goal extra time are played, but with more and more players ‘dropping off’ the pitch, leaving fewer players on the pitch, the theory being that the increasingly open playing field will eventually result in a goal being scored. This could easily be translated to football, but could lead to matches lasting inordinately long stretches of time – and previous experiments with ‘golden goal’ and ’silver goal’ extra-time periods were unsuccessful.
Cricket - On the rare occasions that cup cricket matches are tied, or on the frequent occasions where they are rained off, cricket matches are decided by a bowl off. Five players bowl two balls each at an unguarded wicket – a test of accuracy. This could be easily translated to football. Five players could shoot at an unguarded goal from the half way line with extra kicks or an increased distance being used if the scores are level after all kicks had been taken.
Rugby - When cup games of rugby end with the scores tied, the players take a sequence of penalty kicks, but from different positions around the pitch. In football, instead of five penalties, you could have one penalty and then four free kicks from across the length of the edge of the penalty area.
What are your thoughts on football’s present penalty shoot-out system? Let us know in the comments.
I might not know Art, but I know what I like
Everybody knows what constitutes a good goal! A shot from distance, a lengthy sequence of passes, a mazy dribble or some acrobatic contortions…However, football, like art, isn’t merely about technical excellence, but about the emotions it stirs in fans and players across the globe. The worlds of Football and Art nearly collided in 1994 when Eric Cantona was nominated (but not considered) for the Turner prize, for his “three dimensional propulsion of a spherical ballistic into a limited receptacle”. But what are the more intangible qualities that differentiate the pedestrian from the exhilarating?
Here are a few of my favourite footballing accompaniments that fire the brain’s pleasure neurons. The goals they accompany were brilliant, but it is because of these additional flourishes that they became firmly lodged in the head of this football fan.
The crossbar/goal-line/roof-of-the-net triumvirate
The explosion of power, the kineticism of the ricochet and the extra, tantalising, split-second where you are not sure the ball has crossed the goal line until it hits the roof of the net. The Guardian’s Rob Smyth describes it as “the best pre-goal foreplay a man can experience” which I think sums it up pretty nicely.
If you ask any football fan who grew up in the 90s about these types of goals, they will usually all mention the same player – Tony Yeboah, who in 95/96, hit two blistering examples, one against Liverpool and this Goal of the Season winner against Wimbledon:
Lobs/chips that land on the goal-line
Lobs, chips, lofted volleys etc all take a deftness of touch and appliance of skill that is as much about confidence and assuredness as it is about technique. So when a shot that has been deliberately lofted over the goalkeeper lands on the goal line, it sends a statement. A statement that says, “I had the whole goal at my disposal and I didn’t even need it. I could have lobbed you in a 5-a-side goal.”
Here’s Brazilian goal-scoring legend Romario providing an excellent example, lobbing the Real Sociedad ‘keeper with the full 7ft of the goal height to spare:
Goals where the ball rolls across the back of the net
Hard to describe this one – these are the shots that are hit with force and at some indefinable angle, so that they don’t just hit the back of the net, they roll around in it, dance across it, adding an extra slice of dynamism, the proverbial cherry on top of a powerful finish.
Here’s Michael Owen hitting an unsaveable penalty against Argentina in 1998, with the ball gliding across the underside of the roof of the net, before depositing itself at the feet of the thoroughly beaten Carlos Roa:
Michael Owen converting a penalty in the 1998 shoot out against Argentina
Do you have any footballing je ne sais quoi that add an extra bit of spice to a goal? Let us know in the comments.
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