Are you new to German football, and attracted to the much-lauded mix of exciting end-to-end football, standing fans, cheap beer and cheap tickets, not to mention the chance to watch football in a country where the national team can actually amount to something come crunch time?

In that case, the Bundesliga is the right choice for you. Follow the flowcart below (click to enlarge, then squint really hard if you still can’t see it) to find out which Bundesliga club you should be supporting.

Of course, you could skip the above and just get on with supporting Bayern Munich. You might not like them, but you’ll win a title every other year at least.

From Soccerlens.com - Football News

A scoring stat is defined as any goal or assist and through this combination we have so far investigated how reliant certain clubs across Europe are on star individuals. So which players actually contributed the most to the success of their teams in season 2010-2011?

Unsurprisingly, the most dominant forces by way of contributing to their teams forces came from Germany or Italy. In fact, there is a definite “continental” flavour to the players who contribute most to their teams: of the nineteen players who contributed to over 40% of their teams scores with a goal or assist, only one came from England – Manchester City’s Carlos Tevez. This could be a function of his manager’s heritage and tactics or simply more evidence to suggest his vital nature to the Citizens’ attack. Of those nineteen individuals, there were six forwards from Serie A, seven from La Liga and five who played in the Bundesrepublik.

Bologna’s captain Marco Di Vaio was statistically the player most involved in his team’s goals throughout Europe, while relegated Frankfurt were perhaps too reliant on the goals of Theofanis Gekas. The full table can be found at Balanced Sports’ Scoring Stats page. All nineteen players who contributed to over forty percent of their team’s goals can be found in the table below:

While very few of these numbers have changed significantly since first sight, the greatest surprise is seeing FC Cologne forward Novakovic so high in the rankings. The Slovenian scored twenty goals in a contract drive which saw him named the league’s third highest scorer.

Koln’s forward press

In April when we first evaluated how important individuals were to their clubs by this admittedly simple measure, there was another representative from the Cathedral city who made the top fifteen most important, forward Lukas Podolski. That Novakovic unseated him first as Koln’s statistically most important forward isn’t necessarily suprising – Podolski contributed to 43.4% of his club’s scoring only six weeks prior to these readings, while Novakovic was involved in in 42.6% at the end of the season. This could be due to one of three reasons – a slow (read: injured) start to the season by Novakovic, a remarkable finish by the same player, or a spectacular drop-off from Podolski.

What it can’t be is one providing assists for the other to finish – they totalled seven assists between them. What it does starkly indicate is how little scoring the Billy Goats received from their midfield – Podolski and Novakovic managed between themselves to contribute to 78.7% of all FC Koln’s goals.

Which leads us to ask – as we did in April – what the breakdown is between scores and assists across Europe. The following table lays out the differences between the leagues over the period of six weeks. As you can see, forwards playing in Germany and Italy took on increased passing responsibilities while team leaders in La Liga started to look more for the goal than the assist.

In Part three of our investigation into Scoring Stats, we’ll look at which players are the most effective in Europe – who provides the largest boost to their club not over the course of a season, but per game. In the meantime, for all the raw data, visit Balanced Sports Scoring Stats page.

Matthew Wood contributes regularly to Soccerlens.  He writes at Balanced Sports and you can also follow him on Twitter @balanced_sports.

From Soccerlens.com - Football News

It is fallacy that a goalkeeper’s worth is measured in statistics. They can be measured only through very few statistics – goals conceded, shots faced, clearances or saves made or finally, a combination of all of the above. Numbers can only tell us so much. What they do tell us though, is in some measurable areas, Iker Casillas and Petr Cech are fading slightly.

With NHL goalkeepers, quality is assessed according to two numbers: GAA (goals allowed average) and Save Percentage. Though often used to crucify allegedly-underperforming netminders, GAA reflects a team’s tempo and defence as much as it does the quality of a goalkeeper. The more a team attacks and takes chances, the more possessions result with the results being increased shots at both ends – inevitably leading to more goals. Save percentage indicates a goaltender’s ability to stop a puck travelling towards him at speed – often highly dependent again on clarity of vision and lead-up play.

The same applies in football. A goalkeeper can only be expected to make so many saves per game as the goalmouth is larger and they have more duties than just acting as backstop. Football custodians need to be able to sweep the ball, come off their goal-line just so and finally, like their frozen brethren command and organise their defence.

Numbers can’t be expected to justify a goalkeeper’s position – Ben Foster of Birmingham City was amongst their best players this season (and statistically very similar to predecessor Joe Hart) yet his numbers barely reflect that and the Blues went down ignominiously. But where we can evaluate Xavi by the number of passes and completions he makes – notwithstanding his leadership – so can we get some small statistical undersatnding of goalkeepers through GAA and Save Percentage.

Who, of Europe’s regular goalkeepers, had the best season by these statistical measures?

The following numbers were compiled using raw data from ESPN Soccernet. For full details, you can visit Balanced Sports’ Goalkeeper Stats page.

The Top Ten in Europe by Save Percentage (minimum fifteen starts):

And the top ten by GAA:

With two numbers assessed in this manner, overlap is desirable as they indicate a surety both of defence and a keeper possessing either remarkable foresight or incredible athleticism. That way, we can suggest that Abbiati, Weidenfeller and the redoubtable Victor Valdes each had, among others, outstanding seasons. Also we can ruminate that both Iker Casillas and Petr Cech either began to display the first signs of age or infirmity, or an alarming predisposition to be “hung out to dry” Jack-Warner style by their defence.

This assertion is backed up – though tenuously, it must be said – by the fact that both appeared in the best GAA table but were only barely above average in Save Percentage. That their GAA scores are so high yet their save percentages are low indicates that when opposing players managed to get through the Chelsea or Real Madrid defence, those clubs’ keepers were either out of position (by their fault or their defence’s) or beaten by a succession of remarkable shots. Either could have happened. The only other possible explanation is that they each made a few howlers – like this Enckelman beauty.

This is further reinforced by the fact that neither faced a particularly large amount of shots. According to ESPN’s raw data (used for their uniform statistic-keeping across Europe), Almeria’s Diego Alves made the most saves per game – an astounding 4.79 per game. The average across Europe was 3.31 per game; Casillas made the second fewest saves per game (behind Weidenfeller) at 2.31 while only 13 custodians made fewer saves than Cech’s 2.61. This may seem harsh given both allowed less than a goal per game, but both may face increased scrutiny next year – for their performance, though very good, did not match up either to their reputations nor the exceedingly high standards both have set for themselves.

Both contribute so much to their teams it would be unthinkable to bench them – especially were Ross Turnbull to be given a start in Cech’s stead. While their on-field performance may not have suffered much, each of these legendary goalkeepers’ metrics are falling slightly. Look for a bounce-back season next year from each.

You can see the full list of European Goalkeeping Statistics at Balanced Sports’ Goalkeeper Stats page.

For more analysis and commentary, shoot across to Balanced Sports.  You can also follow Matthew Wood on Twitter @balanced_sports

From Soccerlens.com - Football News

101 goalkeepers made over ten starts in Europe’s four major leagues during season 2010-12. Another fifty-six made at least one start in either the English Premiership, La Liga, the Bundesliga or Serie A. So after thirty eight games (thirty-four in Germany), which goalkeeper is best?

Of course evaluating custodians purely by stats is a fraught and inaccurate business. Goalkeepers, by their demeanour and wits bring more to a team than simply stopping shots, as per NHL netminders. They also command and organise their defence as well as arrange their players in best positions to defend set pieces. Also, they are often not at fault for the goals conceded, being beaten by lackadaisical or poor defending.

That’s not to say that quantification of a goalkeeper’s performance is useless. For one thing, we can evaluate definitively the differences across leagues.

GAA = Goals Allowed Average. Note the term “Start” has been used rather than “Games”. Due to the data available, we weren’t able to evaluate when goalkeepers conceded after coming on as a substitute. This also means that all the goals scored in a league throughout the course of the season may not be included in this table.

Perhaps as a result of a slower game tempo, of a reliance on a star individual, miserly defence or even plain and simple goalkeeping ability, Serie A produced consistently the best goalkeeper metrics across the board. That is, Goalkeepers in Italy conceded less goals per game, had a higher save percentage and produced a high level of saves per start.

Italian football has been notorious in the public sphere for it’s slower pace – unless you’re Napoli or Udinese this season – and infamous for low goalscoring. That isn’t necessarily borne out here – while the GAA was lower than in the other three major leagues, the increased Save Percentage counteracts that. This could also be a tactical measure, where Italian defenders are more “pigeon-holed” as defensive stoppers, eschewing forward play in favour of stolid defence.

Most surprising was the relative decrease in saves across the water in England. The Premiership produced the second-lowest save percentage and the second-highest GAA. Again, tactical considerations could be keeping these averages low or simply that the offensive play is superior. This could both back up and dispel the popular preconception that the Premier League is the most exciting and balanced in Europe, so while it’s interesting data it’s hardly definitive. While this table takes into account goalkeeper performance, it is we have said, impossible to divorce that totally from a defence’s (in)ability.

How would these numbers look then, if we removed the backups? Most clubs have one primary goalkeeper and at least one creditable custodian in reserve – take for example Italian Champions AC Milan who fielded Christian Abbiati thirty-five times during 2010-11 and Marco Amelia during the remaining three matches. The following table has removed all the players with less than ten league starts. The numbers don’t change much at all:

The greatest difference between the two is a minor increase in German Saves per Start and Save Percentage, while Spanish Save Percentage increased mildly as well. The GAAs, though changed in all leagues except Serie A, were minor adjustments. While it was a nice thought that a league’s overall goalkeeping quality could indicate how crucial defences were to the numbers, it is unproveable with the above results.

It’s perhaps telling that the greatest difference in the table above comes from Germany & La Liga’s goalkeeping starts: during the course of the Spanish season, forty-three players got a start between the sticks. Thirty-eight Goalkeepers got starts in the Bundesliga (forty-two, if adjusted for a twenty-team league), thirty-nine Italian league players and thirty-seven in the EPL. While the vast majority of each team’s matches were played by the starting GK (over 90% in all leagues), Germany had the most trust in their backups.

This means that backup keepers, whether for reasons of injury, form or rotation claimed 9.93% of the available starts in Germany while in Italy, starters accounted for an enormous 96.3% of the available starts.

In part two, we’ll go through Europe’s best and brightest goalkeepers by save percentage, Goals Allowed average and by league. In the meantime, you can find all the raw data here at Balanced Sports’ Goalkeeper Stats page.

For more analysis and comment, shoot across to Balanced Sports.  You can also follow Matthew Wood on Twitter @balanced_sports

From Soccerlens.com - Football News

Is your club completely skint? Still waiting for your Arab oil sheikh to sink billions of his black gold profits into your first team? Just like the rest of us, you’ll probably we waiting a long time. As Manchester City fans are going to find out in the next few seasons, money can’t guarantee you long-term success. Just ask Real Madrid. It can, however, buy you the players you want.

Money is increasingly short in the modern game, meaning that clubs are becoming increasingly reliant on the free transfer market, and in turn their scouting network and their luck. At the same time, clubs are retaining fewer players than ever, meaning that there are countless players available on the market at any time for free.

Most of them will never amount to much, but there are some real gems out there for the shrewd manager. It’s certainly possible to assemble an entire team of free transfers. If you were giving it a go this summer and salary was no object, here’s what you might come up with.

Goalkeepers

Brad Friedel is coming to the end of his Aston Villa contract and, given the quality of his performances and of the clubs interested in him, it’s unlikely that he’ll be there next season. Even more pressing is the fact that he was declared bankrupt in January, after his US soccer academies got into financial trouble, meaning that he’s unlikely to turn down any lucrative move which is offered. A return to Liverpool is possible, although Arsenal and Spurs need a decent keeper too.

Also available: Robert Green, Manuel Almunia

Defenders

Sol Campbell and William Gallas missed each other at Arsenal by a season, and having both captained the Gunners, now find themselves possibly without a club in the summer. Gallas is much more likely than Campbell to find work in the Premiership, having been excellent for Spurs whilst Campbell floundered at Newcastle, appearing just seven times in the league. Whilst we’ll probably see Gallas in the Premiership next year, the smart money is on Sol to call time on a glittering career.

Also available: Matthew Upson

Too late for: Phillipe Mexes (Roma to Milan)

Jose Bosingwa was a big-money signing for Phil Scolari at Chelsea, but after a bright start, his career has stalled on the treatment table. With Branislav Ivanovic making the right-back slot his own, the future looks bleak for the pacy attacking full-back, who initially drew comparisons with Daniel Alves for his marauding runs and long-range shooting.

The experienced John Paintsil is a popular figure at Craven Cottage, but Mark Hughes isn’t convinced. Perhaps his popularity stems more from his one-man laps on honour than from his performances, but there is no doubting that the Ghanaian offers buckets of experience both internationally and in the Premiership, and can be called upon to do a solid, if occasionally erratic, job.

Also available: Pascal Chimbonda

Too late for: Taye Taiwo (Marseille to Milan)

Midfielders

Whilst Mark van Bommel has made it very clear that he wants to extend his six-month contract with Milan into next season and beyond, nothing has materialised as of yet, and this has alerted Tottenham, amongst others, of his potential availability. Tough and dirty, a loose cannon but a winner, van Bommel would literally strengthen any midfield in Europe. With Spurs unable to replicate their qualification for the Champions League, someone with van Bommel’s personality might be just what they need in their midfield (Editor’s Note: As of this morning Mark van Bommel has extended his stay at Milan till 2012).

David Vaughan was lost in the football wilderness just three years ago after a failed spell at Real Sociedad concluded with relegation, and he was snapped up by then-Championship strugglers Blackpool for the paltry sum of £200k. Over 100 league appearances later, and he is one win away from playing a key role in the most unlikely Premiership survival story of them all. Blackpool’s form is uncannily linked Vaughan’s fitness, falling off a cliff whenever he is unavailable, and there should be plenty of suitors this summer. He’s unlikely ever to be lost in the football wilderness again.

Also available: Andrea Pirlo, Patrick Vieira, David Jones, Mahammadou Diarra

Giles Barnes rolled of the consistent but modest Derby County Premiership production line, which also gave us the likes of Malcolm Christie, Chris Riggott, Danny Higginbotham, Rory Delap and, most notably, England midfielder Tom Huddlestone. A tricky and pacy winger, who can also offer thrust and penetration through the middle, his career has stalled significantly since picking up an injury shortly after Derby County last won promotion. If he can be kept off the treatment table and fulfil his potential, he could prove to be a very shrewd signing.

At the opposite end of his career, but with much greater pedigree, Valencia winger Vicente was once the most talked about youngster in Europe. Still only 29, he has also struggled with injury, but has also found time to make over 250 appearances for Valencia and win 38 caps for Spain. Cultured, tricky and with a great delivery, he could find a new lease of life in the Premiership next season.

Also available: Hasan Salihamidzic, Reto Ziegler, Lee Bowyer

Forwards

Michael Owen needs no introduction. 118 league goals for Liverpool, a prolific season in Real Madrid and then very little in six years with Newcastle and Manchester United. When he reached 35 goals for his country in 2005, he seemed destined to comfortably be England’s all time top scorer but has only managed five goals since, and none since 2008. Given his injury record it looks unlikely that he will be offered a new deal by Sir Alex Ferguson, but there’s no chance of him retiring whilst he still harbours international ambitions. Aston Villa could be ideal, as they’re in dire need of a player to partner Darren Bent.

Johan Elmander is a player who performs in spurts, scoring goal after goal for Bolton at the start of this season, before tailing off in the new year. He came to the Trotters attention after a similar spell for previous club Toulouse, where he would often go months without scoring, before suddenly coming to life. He seemed set for a move to Liverpool in the summer, before their moves for Suarez and Carroll seemingly closed the door on that. Powerful and direct, with deceptively good feet, he could prove an ideal target for Stoke, but will surely be aiming higher.

Also available: Marco Di Vaio, John Carew, Kevin Phillips, Eidur Gudjohnsen, Ricardo Fuller

You can also read Red Ben at Five Cantonas, and follow his tweets @FiveCantonas.

From Soccerlens.com - Football News

Castrol EDGE performance data shows that Edwin Van der Sar has saved 93% of shots he has faced this season in the Champions League, compared to 81% for Schalke 04’s goalkeeper Manuel Neuer.

Manuel Neuer v Edwin Van der Sar – Champions League 2010-11

Edwin Van der Sar has conceded just two goals in 720 minutes of Champions League action this term, making 28 saves in total.  The 40 year-old has also been more clinical in his distribution, successfully dispatching 75% of his deliveries, compared to 60% by the German international.

However Neuer has been better than the Dutch master when dealing with opposition crosses, with 100% success, compared to just 78% for the former Juventus & Fulham ‘keeper.

Edwin van der Sar has not been as consistent at domestic level this term, with a 72% saves-to-shots ratio, one percentage point lower than his 25 year-old German counterpart.

Manuel Neuer v Edwin Van der Sar – league 2010-11

Manuel Neuer has saved two of the five penalties he has faced this season in the league and is one of three Bundesliga goalkeepers who have managed to save two penalties this term. Edwin van der Sar has been beaten by all three penalties he has faced in the Premier League during 2010-11.

Also See:

Manchester United’s Passing Game Sees Them 90 Minutes From Wembley
Saved: Manuel Neuer only reason Schalke still have a chance against Manchester United

From Soccerlens.com - Football News

Player transfer fees and their larger than life wage bills are a common topic of discussion for a football fan of today. From Wayne Rooney threatening to quit to oil-rich owners going on shopping sprees, the footballers have now become spoilt and they now know that their high demands will be met at their current club or the next.

It is especially easy to get a huge wage offer for those who possess skill and/or experience. Yaya Toure moved from Spain to England with a wage demand that even England’s best Rooney was not getting at the time.

For the smaller clubs, it has become far more difficult to move into the top-flight and pose a threat to the top teams in their own country, let alone go on a Euro trip.

We have taken the liberty to skim out the football clubs out of the ESPN’s 200 best-paying teams in the world and present a list to you of 66 best-paying football teams in the world.

If you’re gifted with football, this is who will show you the money:

The Leagues and Countries: Bundesliga (Germany), EPL (English Premier League, England), La Liga (Spain), Serie A (Italy) & SPL (Scottish Premier League, Scotland).

Also see: Best Paid Footballers By Country

From Soccerlens.com - Football News

2008/2009 Bundesliga winners VfL Wolfsburg held a competition for the fans to decide what shirt they will wear in the 2012/2013 season. 706 participated, made 1308 proposals and one jersey was chosen.

With 34% of the votes, a 14 year old student’s design was selected and he did a mighty fine job with the shirt.

It is a normal green shirt with black trim and black collar with the club logo, the adidas logo and the sponsor logo. But what makes this shirt distinct is this: under the sponsor logo, a black silhouette showing a howling wolf standing on a rock.

Very simple and very smart!

The managing director of VfL, Thomas Rottgermann said:

“We were surprised by the variety of excellent ideas. In the end the design with the wolf silhouette was right at the top – an excellent design, which now serves as the basis for our partner adidas [to design] the shirt for the season of 2012/2013.”

Captain of the club, Marcel Schaffer, was also present at the presentation of the winning design. He added:

“I am particularly pleased that the wolf design has won because it is a super simple proposal. It would be something special.”

Wolfsburg 2012/2013 Home Shirt

However, this shirt might not be exactly the same shirt that Wolfsburg will wear in 12/13 but the overall idea will be the same. The designers at adidas follow certain guidelines which make a shirt look good on the football pitch.

As a reward, the 14 year old was given two season tickets for the upcoming season and he will meet his favorite professional footballers, the Wolves.

Source

From Soccerlens.com - Football News

In part one of our examination into European Scoring Stat leaders, we examined some of the differences between the four major European football leagues. What that revealed was an Italian and German propensity to use “spearheads”, where one player contributed to (goal or assist) nearly forty percent of a team’s goals. In Spain, this percentage was reduced somewhat, and in England, reduced again – and artificially inflated by Carlos Tevez’s remarkable scoring record at Manchester City.

To briefly run over a couple of definitions, we measure a player’s influence via “scoring stats”, or the player with the highest total number of goals + assists. The player with the highest number of scoring stats is dubbed the “team leader”. See Part 1 for more details on terminology.

Individual Scoring Stat Leaders across Europe

We can see from the table below that there are nine players in Europe who directly contribute to half (or more) of their teams’ goals; four from Serie A, two from the Bundesliga and La Liga and Manchester City’s Carlos Tevez. The next highest Premiership player after Tevez is Sunderland’s Asamoah Gyan, who ranked twenty-first, directly contributing to 39.39% of all Mackem goals.

Figures and League Position are valid to Tuesday morning April 5th.  Balanced Sports has the full list of contributions by team leaders across the four major leagues.

This confirms suspicions that Italian and German tactics (or injury lists) value a spearhead more than their Spanish or English cousins. What’s interesting is that, Zlatan Ibrahimovic aside, most of the Serie A contributors tend to be finishers, rather than creators. The same can be said of Germany – excepting Gerald Asamoah and Diego who are both midfielders for relegation-threatened clubs, and if each team had a fully-functioning centre-forward may not make this list. Germany in fact seems to have more designated shooters – Gekas and Cisse especially – who have yet to rack up an assist this term.

Which counts more, goals or assists?

All four Spanish-based Top 20 entrants are creators as well as scorers, leading us to the conclusion that Spain tends to value not so much a spearhead as a trequartista, someone given a free hand to lead the attack. Looking at the names Messi, Ronaldo and Rossi this rings true but is coloured by the fact that each is the best set piece taker for their club. Do their inflated assist numbers reflect their exquisite talents or a league-wide trend?

Of all the scoring stat leaders, we compiled their total numbers of goals and assists into a table to express what percentage of their total scoring stats were made up of goals.

League	Goals	Assists	Percentage Goals
Premiership	174	105	62.37
La Liga	210	89	70.23
Serie A	204	86	70.34
Bundesliga	193	63	75.39

Percentage goals = the percentage of goals in a team leader’s total scoring stats.

This leads us to the fact that the Bundesliga values scorers more heavily than their Southern or Western counterparts. This could come down to a variety of factors – tactics, injuries and style chief among them. This table offers more proof the English game has a wider variety of scorers and creators as their goals-per-game average remains in excess of all the three other major leagues.  Also, it must be remembered that assists can only make up a maximum of 50% of any scoring stat analysis (ie. If every goal is assisted, then 50% of the Scoring Stats will be assists.  Since not every goal is assisted, this total will always be <50%).  This table also confirms any remaining suspicions as to the roots of Roberto Mancini’s Manchester City gameplan – pulled straight from Serie A. 70% of Carlos Tevez’s scoring stats are goals, exactly what a team leader typically scores in Italy.

When it comes to avoiding relegation, the percentage contribution by a Team Leader wasn’t as significant: though six of the ten teams are in serious danger of the drop, this can be attributed more to their lack of total goals than to the decreased contributions by team leaders. An expected result is the spread of leagues here: three La Liga and EPL clubs, and two each from Serie A and the Bundesliga. There’s also a greater mix of positions here – from out-and-out centre-forwards to midfielders,

We can see from these analyses that the biggest difference between team leaders aren’t between teams in an individual league, but across leagues. The statistical outliers tend to be those who either play in a different style (ie. Carlos Tevez) or those who are the shining light for the entire league (your Messis and Ronaldos). Roberto Mancini has come in for much criticism for the staid manner in which his City team has played. Unfair, perhaps, because he’s only doing exactly the same as his countrymen.

The Complete List of Scoring Stat leaders by team across Europe, is available at Balanced Sports‘ Scoring Stat Leaders page.

For more analysis and opinion, shoot across to Matthew Wood‘s blog, Balanced Sports.

From Soccerlens.com - Football News

On compiling a piece previewing last weekend’s Milan derby, I was surprised to see that Zlatan Ibrahimovic had directly contributed to twenty-five of AC Milan’s 48 goals to that point of the season. It wasn’t so much that he been that influential considering, talent-wise, he’s arguably in the top 1% ever to play the game. What surprised me was in such a talented club as AC Milan – alongside players like Seedorf, Inzaghi, Pato, Boateng and Robinho – Ibra had been credited with direct involvement in over half their Serie A goals this season.

Thinking that a phenomenal ratio (now decreased slightly since he didn’t play in the Rossoneri’s 3-0 derby victory this weekend), I began to explore how reliant each team – and how that compared across the continent – is on one player to score or create their goals.

Part One of this series will broadly compare leagues across Europe, whereas later parts will investigate individual players and leagues.

This is measured only by “scoring stats”, or the number of goals or assists a player is credited with. The player with the highest combined total of goals and assists will be dubbed the “team leader” or “spearhead”. In the case of two players having the same total number of scoring stats, preference was given to the player with the highest total of goals.

Where: Avg GPT = Average number of goals per team for the season, Avg GPG = Average number of goals per team, per game, Avg % = Average percentage of scoring stats contributed by team leader.

This data is accurate to Tuesday morning, 5th April.

Such analysis isn’t in-depth or even a potential indicator of an individual’s importance to their club – it is obviously heavily weighted in favour of forwards. It is easily argued that either Edwin Van der Sar or Nemanja Vidic, for example, are more important to Manchester United than Dimitar Berbatov. The data is sufficient enough, however, to begin to identify some trends in European football.

We can see that within the four major leagues, there are a few statistical outliers – chiefly, Serie A’s lack of goals. Each team in Serie A scores an average of 1.16 goals per game, where the average in the EPL, La Liga and the Bundesliga is closer to 1.4. They also boast the highest percentage contribution from “team leaders” (the player with the highest total of combined goals and assists) – nearly a full 2% higher than next-highest Germany and over 6% higher than the Premiership. In fact eight of the top twnety and three of the top four contributions from team leaders came from Serie A – Bologna’s Marco Di Vaio (received a scoring stat in 63.64% of Bologna’s goals), Edinson Cavani (63.04%) and Udinese’s Antonio Di Natale (57.14%). As a comparison, only one English-based player made the top 20, Carlos Tevez of Manchester City.

Team Leaders can earn their title in many ways. They may be the most talented player in their team (or even league), could be their team’s designated playmaker, may be surrounded by inferior players, the focal point of an offense, or simply may have the free-kick duties for their club. Certainly, some seem to make more of the role than others.  Given we’re dealing with seventy-eight teams across four different countries, it’s reasonable to assume that each player is their club’s team leader for that club’s own reasons.

English Premier League – high scoring but balanced

The Premiership boasts the highest number of goals per game, yet the lowest average percentage contributed by one scorer – ie. they appear to have the broadest spread of players racking up “scoring stats”, while Germany and Italy appear to favour one player assuming primary responsibility for either scoring or creating goals. England’s average totals are also aided by the presence of Carlos Tevez, the free-scoring Man City forward who provides our first anomaly. Every club in England’s top flight’s top goal contributor provides (scores or directly assists) less than 40% of that total number of goals. Except Tevez – he has scored or assisted in 25 of the Citizens’ fifty goals this year, over 10.6% more than the next most vital contributor, Asamoah Gyan of Sunderland (39.39%). City’s reliance on Tevez is thrown into startling relief here.

This is likely a result of both City’s tactics – they are coached by an Italian manager, a point worth noting considering the apparent Italian preference for a spearhead – and Tevez’s outstanding talent. That City often play just one player up front means the primary burden of scoring falls to him, but it would be ungenerous to suggest that is the only reason his totals are so high. If we remove him from consideration as a statistical variant, England’s percentage contribution to goals by their team leader player falls nearly one whole percentage point, from 32.41:

La Liga – Over-reliant on Messi and Ronaldo?

The other confounding factor is Spain’s Big Two, Real Madrid and Barcelona. These two clubs have scored at least 50% more goals than their nearest rivals. Each club in Spain has played 30 games this season. Barcelona and Real have scored 82 and 69 goals respectively; their nearest scoring rivals are Villarreal, who have managed 48. Though these clubs are obviously supremely talented, it’s interesting to note that they are also the most reliant on one player (surprisingly, given their depth) – both Cristiano Ronaldo (50.72%) and Lionel Messi (52.44%) have scored or provided the assist for over half their sides’ respective goals this term. What are unsurprising, however, are the names – those of the two best players in the world.

If we are to remove the Big Two from consideration – for interest’s sake – we’re left with the following results:

A drop of nearly four goals on the season per team – 77 total goals lost on the season if replaced by “average” teams – a drop down nearly to “Italian levels” in the amount teams score on average per game; and a drop of nearly 2% in the average contribution to goals by the team leader. As always the lesson is that Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are awesome. We can draw that both are crucial to both their teams and to scoring in La Liga as a whole; of course should either be injured, other players’ scoring would increase but the point remains: the two players are remarkably important to their clubs, and without those clubs, La Liga would be a much less goal-happy place.

To draw stringent conclusions from such small data samples would be foolish, but what we can suggest is that English-based sides seem to favour a more balanced approach because of form, injury, style or tactical reasons. It may even be a result of more fluid definitions, where perhaps in the Bundesliga and Serie A “forwards score, defenders defend and midfielders link the two” because the further East across the continent you travel, the more reliant clubs tend to be on spearheads players for scoring and goal-creation.

In Part 2, we examine the Top Twenty individual scorers by league, team, league position and percentage contribution.

For more analysis and opinion, visit Matthew Wood’s blog, Balanced Sports.

From Soccerlens.com - Football News