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
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.
| POS | TEAM | P | W | FF | D | L | F | A | GD | PTS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Canberra FC PL | 16 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 77 | 20 | 57 | 42 | |
| 2 | Canberra Olympic PL | 16 | 12 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 59 | 18 | 41 | 38 | |
| 3 | Belconnen United PL | 16 | 9 | 0 | 2 | 5 | 63 | 30 | 33 | 29 | |
| 4 | Canberra City PL | 16 | 8 | 0 | 3 | 5 | 47 | 25 | 22 | 27 | |
| 5 | Cooma SC PL | 16 | 8 | 0 | 1 | 7 | 43 | 38 | 5 | 25 | |
| 6 | Woden Valley PL | 16 | 4 | 0 | 4 | 8 | 46 | 38 | 8 | 16 | |
| 7 | Monaro PL | 16 | 4 | 0 | 3 | 9 | 30 | 35 | -5 | 15 | |
| 8 | TUFC PL | 16 | 4 | 0 | 3 | 9 | 25 | 39 | -14 | 15 | |
| 9 | Goulburn Strikers PL | 16 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 16 | 8 | 155 | -147 | 0 |
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