Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Is your Club or National team Under Achieving?

Sourced from the book , published by  HarperSport (6 Aug 2009). ISBN-10: 0007301111 ISBN-13: 978-0007301119









There are always plenty of reasons to think your local Club / team, A League Club, W League Club, Matildas or Socceroos are "under-achieving". I'll wager that this question is being asked in a few Premier League Clubs here in the ACT, as thoughts begin to turn to how things will be organised for season 2012. Too early you say? Not a bit a bit of it.


But before you start to tear the Club or team apart, sack the coach or start chasing new players, make sure you get your facts together. Now is when the thinking and planning for season 2012 takes place. So base decisions on evidence and do the analysis. Otherwise, 2012 might just look a bit like 2011 or worse!


This program is an extract from the superb Football book "Why England Loses and Other Curious Phenomena Explained" by Simon Kuper and Stephan Szymanski. 


They examine the question - Is England Under- Achieving? You think you know the answer? Well, perhaps you do, but if you haven't done the analysis, you may just be wrong. The answer to this question provides us with some food for thought and a little inspiration to proceed carefully when asking ourselves the same question about our Club or Team, at any level.


When expectations and results collide during a season, we often abandon analysis. Then good decision making often goes right out the window and the season is as they say "blowing in the wind".


The data used to analyse England's situation include:



  • Home game advantage
  • Population
  • Wealth (Gross Domestic Product)
  • The Coach Effect
You could easily substitute not dissimilar data to assist in contemplating whether your Club / Team is "under achieving". It might help to identify the way ahead.


The unit of measure used is "Goal Difference". Interesting choice, a set of data that is often overlooked, focused as we often are only on Win/Loss/Draw. Some Coaches I know could profit from watching this statistic more closely throughout the season. Below is the Mens Premier League table at the conclusion of all round games. Interesting.






 Print Ladder   Print Ladder with Results

Ladder After Round 18

POSTEAMPWFFDLFAGDPTS
1Canberra FC PL161400277205742
2Canberra Olympic PL161202259184138
3Belconnen United PL16902563303329
4Canberra City PL16803547252227
5Cooma SC PL1680174338525
6Woden Valley PL1640484638816
7Monaro PL1640393035-515
8TUFC PL1640392539-1415
9Goulburn Strikers PL16000168155-1470

Download Podcast here:

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