What could have been
Juan Sebastian Veron (34) was once transfer target #1 for DC United. Maybe part of the reason Manchester United overpaid for him was because he looked like a total badass.
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Moneyballing soccer
I've finally gotten around to reading the much-talked-about Moneyball, a Michale Lewis book about how the Oakland A's revolutionized baseball with the use of statistics. I had already spent a lot of time reading and thinking about whether the same thing might be done for soccer. The traditional argument-- that soccer is a more dynamic game, one that is harder to quantify-- has some truth to it. The biggest obstacle is the paucity of data. Companies like Opta are changing this, but most of best data remains unavailable to fans. Even with data, people have little idea which stats are the most important (interestingly, Arsene Wenger is supposedly very keen on the Opta data which tells how long his players keep the ball at their feet before passing.)To get a sense of just how difficult it is to quantify soccer consider the case of long shots. My belief is that players shouldn't be taking these shots unless they have a reasonable record of scoring from distance. The traditional justification for wildly-optimistic attempts on goal is that 1) they force the defense to come out of its shell, 2) they alter the goalkeepers positioning and mentality, making him less inclined to serve as a sweeper, and 3) they generate rebounds and corners. Now I'm sure rebounds and corners are valuable, but I think the other two points are weak excuses for players to take a wallop. However, it would be very difficult to test this quantitatively. You would need large amounts of data about goalkeeper positioning, the speed with which defenders close down opposition, and the utility of corner kicks and rebounds. In other words, its certainly not I question I'll be answering any time soon.
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