The Numbers Game: Why Everything You Know About Football is Wrong by Chris Anderson & David Sally

Author:Chris Anderson & David Sally [Anderson, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi
ISBN: 9780241963630
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2013-05-29T16:00:00+00:00

Going For It on Fourth Down

That analytics remains a source of suspicion for some is testament to the power of convention. There is a way that things are done – i.e. without analytics – and doing them differently, at least initially, is not tolerated. That is true off the pitch, in terms of how football has confronted the emergence of Big Data, and on it.

It is strange that two of the most competitive arenas in life – war and sport – should be dominated by so-called norms of behaviour. In an essay in The New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell saw the same force at work in the story of David and Goliath.

‘David initially put on a coat of mail and a brass helmet and girded himself with a sword,’ Gladwell wrote. ‘He prepared to wage a conventional battle of swords against Goliath. But then he stopped. “I cannot walk in these, for I am unused to it,” he said … and picked up those five smooth stones. What happens when the underdogs likewise acknowledge their weakness and choose an unconventional strategy? When underdogs choose not to play by Goliath’s rules, they win.’9

Gladwell argues this is true not just for battles for biblical supremacy but in any area of human competition where the weak face the strong. The best way for David to survive is to be innovative and do the unexpected. Their advantage, as Gladwell notes, ‘is that they will do what is “socially horrifying” – they will challenge the conventions about how battles are supposed to be fought’. As importantly, to thrive, Davids have to work harder than the Goliaths. Wigan’s insurgent football certainly fell into that category in 2010/11.

Though Martínez is one of the heroes of this book, he is far from unique. He is just the latest in a long line of clever managers who have found a way to unearth the value in his squad. These are the men who have changed the face of football for ever, by challenging prevailing wisdom and developing innovative approaches.

More often than not, these innovations were developed by teams that were not winning as much as they should, or simply were not winning at all. The strong do not need to innovate; it is the weak who must adapt or die. And it is to the managers of these weak teams that responsibility falls for finding the ways to innovate, to gain an advantage. If they fail to, it’s their jobs that will be in peril.

It’s these managers who have given us all of football’s great innovations: the W-M – reportedly invented by Arsenal manager Herbert Chapman after losing 7–0 at Newcastle – catenaccio, zonal marking, the long-ball game. They are all attempts to upend convention and surprise the opposition. Knowing more, knowing better, knowing something new and knowing something different can help engineer wins or avert defeats. Aside from talent, hard work and swift feet, intelligence and innovation – on the pitch and off it – are key ingredients in success.

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