Japan advanced from the group stages and get to face Belgium thanks to FIFA’s “fair play” tiebreaker. If two teams in the group stages of the World Cup are even on points, even on goal difference, even on goals scored, and then even on three head-to-head categories (result, GD, and goals – which seem ill thought out and likely to produce further ties) FIFA turns to “fair play” to determine who advances. The team with the fewest accumulated cards wins. In this case, Japan, by one yellow card.
What has some people upset is that the result in the Senegal match was communicated to the Japanese players and the final match between Japan and Poland ended in a 0-1 loss for Japan, in which the Japanese side passed the ball around in their own half for the final 16 minutes of the match – they had just one pass into the Poland final third. Japan played keep-ball because they were afraid to pick up a yellow card.
This follows a general trend in the World Cup group stages. The third game in the series is either more boring than watching Game of Thrones characters whisper to each other through their teeth about their court intrigue, both teams intentionally try to scuttle the result in order to get a more favorable draw, or the match actually matters and you get a good match.
That problem with the third game not mattering or being scuppered because one team is afraid of the winner’s bracket is, of course, ignored and the real scourge of football is instead highlighted – fair play. Personally, I see no moral difference between Japan playing by the rules and beating Senegal to the chance to lose to Belgium, than I do to England pretending that they didn’t want to lose to Belgium by warming up Harry Kane. In fact, the way England played that match against Belgium was far worse than Japan playing keep-ball for 16 minutes: England actively tried to lose a match, while acting like they didn’t want to lose that match, and when asked afterward “if you really wanted to win, you would have brought on Kane, right?” Manager Gareth Southgate said “of course.”
But I’m also not a fan of “fair play” as a tiebreaker because it doesn’t reward anything positive. Sure, you say, it rewards teams who commit fewer hard fouls. And I respond with, but referees have different standards as to when they award cards. My problem is that yellow (and red) cards are about as objective a measure as a twitter poll.
We should use (more) objective measures which reward attacking play. That’s accomplished simply: goals, shots, and then corners! Here’s my 6 point tie-breaker system:
- Points
- Goal difference
- Goals scored
- Shots on goal
- Shots
- Corners
Japan wins on shots (31-30, which is because Japan got a penalty).
But as I was sitting here thinking through this I realized that instead of Japan playing keep away for the final 15 minutes you would have gotten the much more comical scene of Japan just pumping in shots every time they got the ball. Like, every single time they got the ball for the last five minutes or so. So, that won’t work.
I guess we will just have to let games like this happen until some super genius can come up with a way to guarantee that the third game in the World Cup will be exciting and full of attacking football. Anyway, that’s four years from now.
On Saturday we have the knockout rounds and I want to give you a couple predictions but first, I need to defend my assertion that England should steamroll Colombia. Colombia was ranked 29th of all teams in terms of shots taken, 8.3 per game. And that was against Japan, Senegal, and Poland. This was the second easiest group in the World Cup stages.
Colombia did have a player sent off very early in their first match and that will lower their shots stats a bit but this isn’t some great attacking team, it’s one which relies on defense. That and they rely much more on aerial duels in this tournament than you might expect, 2 of their 5 goals have come from headers. I don’t expect England to lose a lot of aerial duels against Colombia. Colombia won 58 of 131 aerials, England won 59 of 97.
Colombia do have two big center backs, Mina and Sanchez, and I’m not saying that it will be cake for England. But I know that England is almost entirely Spurs players and the one thing they will know is that Davinson Sanchez is a disaster waiting to happen: just pressure him at all and he will cough the ball up in dangerous places. They will also be fully aware that Dave Ospina is a disaster on set plays, claims, and corners. I think England’s high press, high crosses in to Harry Kane, and cavalier shooting attitude is well suited to taking on Colombia. More on that the day before the match.
For Saturday’s matches Argentina-France and Uruguay-Portugal, I am picking Argentina and Portugal.
My whole system is based on the team’s attacking power and Argentina’s attacking power is 32% Messi. That’s a problem for Argentina because Messi has never scored a goal in a knockout stage of the World Cup!
If Messi doesn’t show up, they should still have enough to win this, but only if they play Dybala. I think France is going to hem Argentina into their own half and they are going to need Dybala and Messi to hit on the counter.
All that said, my system is picking Argentina but my gut says France. I’ve watched Argentina and they play like a collection of individuals rather than a real team. If Argentina can overcome the problems they have had internally, they could very well start to gel as a team and turn into the real dark horse of this tournament. Can you have a dark horse that should be one of the favorites? Such a weird team.
Uruguay-Portugal is so ridiculously close that if this was a league match I would call it a draw. But because we have to have a winner, I have to give the slight edge to Portugal. That’s a 1.7% edge. Yeah… a 0.017 edge. Not much! Probably a penalty shootout after extra time.
That’s it for today. Preview of Sunday tomorrow. I also have an article on Germany getting knocked out of the World Cup ready to be published soon.
I’ll link to that tomorrow, hopefully.
How about highest XG across all 3 matches.
And then highest net XG across all 3 matches.
I like this.
What would you rather explain to a child? That a team went through because they had fewer yellow cards, or because they had more XG?
Expected Goals.
It’s really not a hard concept, I could even explain it to you: some shots are more likely to score, these receive a higher expected goals value, add up all the shots likeliness to score and you get expected goals. I’m pretty sure my 10 years old understands it.
The “second easiest group” thing jumped out at me because I thought it was quite a competitive group. Is that a statistical assessment?
Maybe instead of any shots it could be shots inside the penalty box.
That way teams have to play at least a somewhat normal version of attacking football to be rewarded.
It would probably be even better than anyone can imagine – your CB who isn’t known for their shooting finds himself in space, in the box, keeper set. He’s never going to score from there but where he has the ball statistically rates as a high xG opportunity. Ordinarily shooting would be a waste (he’ll basically just pass to the keeper or miss) but now there is a huge incentive to shoot.
It’s a cure for the disease known as Hlebitis. Teams should just try to rack up high xG shots even if they doubt they will score from them. They might even score a few!
I think it should be based on the best tattoos, or hottest WAGS or even the most sensible hairstyles.
I would of course be the judge.
Upvoted 😀
It’s funny how my hopes in this WC, more than ever, are about how it best suits Arsenal.
I want Uruguay to beat Cristiano Ronaldo, but actually I want them to lose so that Torreira can sign already and join us for a pre-season.
I detest the England team, but actually I want them to go all the way so that Spurs’ best players return late and lacking match fitness for the opening weeks of the PL season.
I also like Switzerland, but…actually, I don’t really. I’ve been really impressed by this Sweden team, and I’d like them to go through to the QF, and the upshot of that is Xhaka and Lichtsteiner return to the squad earlier.
Etc.
How on earth is fair play not a “positive”? What kind of moral relativist madness is this?
Japan were rewarded for using less foul play than Senegal to get the same results.
In other words, they were rewarded for being more virtuous.
How is that not a good thing?
Because yellow cards are not really standardized I guess.
I can see why it’s an imperfect and ultimately, unsatisfying system. But you are right that it is ‘fair’ to reward fair play as well. (Uefa even have a spot in their competitions for fair play. No one seems to mind this)
Last season’s fair play table:
1. Liverpool
2. Swansea
3. Chelsea
4. Tottenham
Yellows and reds over three matches are far too subjective a measure for the basis of deciding who should advance in a tournament.
Anyone who would argue for an abstract system like expected goals to be used over fair play needs to reflect on their moral priorities.
Tim’s point is that cards are subjective. They are, to an extent, though I’ve watched quite a few matches so far, and I have yet to see any egregious problems with how the refs handed out cards.
But using the subjectivity argument doesn’t really work, in my opinion, because so many other decisions are subjective, and we accept them despite knowing that they affect results and goals scored. That shirt tug isn’t called when your forward is through on goal. That really soft foul on the edge of the box is called which results in a goal, etc.
These are in-game things that happen, and personally, I’m fine with fair play over shots on target and corners. I’d rather reward teams who play within the laws and spirit of the game than those who just take random pot shots on goal and lump the ball forward in the hopes their attacker can kick the ball off the shin of the defender and win a corner.
Actually, I don’t think a lot of supporters (especially me) just accept that shirt-pulling and all manner of shithousery (diving 30 yards from the box to win a free kick) happen. You’re actually making my point more obvious: the problem with saying that cards = “fair play” is that the refs are given so much latitude to decide what’s a yellow card or a red card, foul or not a foul, that it’s pointless. You’re giving someone a pass to the next level because the refs “felt” like that team was more fair.
But plug that into my comment about a foul that leads to a goal, and I don’t see much difference. The ref “felt” like there was a foul on the edge of the box and that led to a goal, the ref “felt” like awarding the penalty (we’ve seen VAR decisions that are subject to how the ref sees it or how the VAR analysts think it deserves another look), the ref “felt” like allowing play when it would have been more advantageous for the attackers thus preventing a goal, etc.
Most of the decisions on the pitch are about how the ref “feels,” and many of those feelings result in the factors that make up the first five of the deciding factors.
If a crappy team gets a winning goal off a dodgy ref decision, did the best team win?
My point is that if subjectivity is the criteria for removing fair play, then it’s also the criteria for removing some other criteria, including, arguably, points tallies and goals when they result (as they often do) on how a ref calls the game. Sport is not objective, even VAR has proven that.
But plug
the goal still has to be scored. not every foul leads to a goal, in fact very few of them lead to a goal. here every card counts like a goal. it’s the referee awarding goals, m8. I sure wouldn’t want Arsenal to be measured by yellow cards.
In fact, last season the top fair play teams were Liverpool, Chelsea, and Spurs.
Cards being sixth down the list is not the same thing as awarding what’s second on the list. The game is being decided on small fractions of difference at that point, and the fact that cards are so far down the list indicate precisely that they are not being counted as goals but rather as much less important criteria (but ones that need to be there in order to put some distance between progression and the odious drawing of lots).
But plug in yourself in that situation. You know refs influence game outcomes at the level of points and results. You’ve argued this many times. We’ve seen it many times in Arsenal’s case. We’re not fine with it when it goes against us, but we know it’s part of the game. Are cards more subjective than goals. Sure, sometimes, depends on the situation, but I just don’t think the argument from subjectivity is a strong one against this admittedly imperfect system.
Tim’s right about the highly subjective and inconsistent nature of cautions. Right too about team gaming the situation, as Japan did. And yes, shot on goal or corners criteria can also be gamed.
But when you’re 5 or 6 tie-breakers in and you can’t separate teams on any of the criteria, to me it doesn’t matter a great deal that a somewhat subjective system ultimately breaks the tie. It is not the primary, or even the fourth criteria. I’m old enough to remember when people used to say that penalties were a lottery. But yeah, you played 120 minutes of football, so…
The other thing is that these kinds of occurrences — going 5 or 6 tie-breakers in — are rare. I possibly stand corrected, but I don’t remember that happening in previous world cups (Italia 90 was my first, with vague memories of Mexico 86).
Senegal should feel unlucky. At most.
It comes down to a preference, and where you stand on matters of ‘poetic justice’, I guess. Given that we’re talking about the criterion penultimate to drawing lots, we should expect something more subjective than goals scored, but less random than drawing lots.
But let’s say you want corners, for example, to be sixth, fair play seventh, and drawing lots eighth. I’ll give you a scenario:
Imagine Stoke and Arsenal were international teams, and playing in the WC. In the final game of the group stages they are equal in all respects, but Stoke have been rotationally fouling Arsenal, with the likes of Shawcross, Arnautovich, and Charlie Adam have all received yellow cards. Arsenal have none. Stoke then realize they can go through at the expense of Arsenal if they just lump the ball forward to Peter Crouch, whose sole intention will be to trap the ball at the corner flag and kick the ball against Monreal’s shins to win a corner. They manage to do that four times, and so they go through at Arsenal’s expense.
I realize that’s a charged example, because we hate Stoke, but it gets at the ‘matter of preference’ aspect of this, and I know every time, I’m picking fair play over corners in that instance.
“drawing lots” doesn’t ever have to be a criteria.
Your scenario is exactly the problem: Stoke have been rotationally fouling Arsenal and haven’t gotten a single yellow card (which is much more likely because that’s why you rotationally foul), Jack Wilshere made one bad tackle and Granut Shocker pulled a shirt, Arsenal’s only two fouls, but both got yellow cards. Stoke go through on “fair play”.
Right, refs basically influenced the result many times. Real points. It’s subjective. So to say that admits that the first criterion–results–can be subjective. In which case, using subjectivity as the reason to do away with cards is not to say much at all.
So in the case I provided, you’d choose corners over cards? I doubt it. Your sense of poetic justice over Arsenal’s treatment in recent years indicates (I bet) otherwise. Ideally, we’d want impartial and perfect refs, but this doesn’t happen in games judged by humans, so you make concessions on the matter of subjectivity. You have to, or you don’t have a game. I don’t think cards are ideal, either, but they represent something that happened in a game that have to do with following the laws and spirit of the sport, and personally, I think how many corners you win should come second to that.
Also, if we don’t solve this problem in this thread to the satisfaction of all involved, I will be outraged.
Bun, getting corners isn’t as easy as you describe, especially if the opponent knows that’s what you’re trying to do. Not just because we can try to avoid letting Crouch bring it down and knock it against Nacho (and given that corners are a great chance for Stoke to score, we ought to be doing this anyway), but because we can be getting corners at the other end. Plus, if shots on goal (e.g.) trumps corners, then we can be getting those so we don’t get into the “corner shootout” game.
The bottom line is trying to get shots on goal and corners looks an awful lot like playing football, even playing attacking football. If Stoke can get these numbers up late in a game (and group stage) in which they’ve otherwise matched us, and we fail to stop them from doing so, then fair play to them.
Sure losing out to Stoke because they’ve got a cheap way to win corners, despite us dominating proceedings otherwise and playing all the good football, would feel lame. But you know what? losing to Stoke (and the equivalent) in the PL because they’ve found cheap ways to SCORE GOALS, despite us dominating proceeding otherwise and playing all the good football *also* feels lame. Football is inherently unjust, even more so than other sports. It’s woven into the fabric of the sport at this point.
The only solution I can come up with is for there to be no brackets. Just put the winners of each group in one hat and the runners up in another. Then draw one from each for the next ties.
I am English and am obviously wanting England to do well. I was getting mad at Belgium for deliberately picking up yellow cards yesterday. I don’t think Janujay
Scoring was in the script. Then I was screaming at Welbeck for getting a shot on target, which he rarely does for Arsenal. They definitely need to come up with a better system
I have an idea. Have the usual system of
1. Points
2. Goal Difference
3. Goal Scored
4. Head to Head
If that isn’t enough to separate teams. Have
1.Shots
2. Shots on Target
3. Corners
4. ‘Fair Play’
All put into a random draw to decide which of them will count, just after the games are played. So Japan won’t know if they’re winning on yellow cards or losing on shots (Senegal cannot reduce the yellow cards they have, but can increase their shots and SOTs). Maybe reward ‘ final 3rd possession’ as one of the categories too if we want to promote attacking play.
This is utterly mental, and I love it.
Thanks for being the only one to consider it.
Personally I don’t see it as mental.
It’s all subjective criteria. We are including the ones we deem as meritorious in some way in this draw.
The end goal is to not have a team play the final minutes of the game with a permutation mapped out and playing to that scenario. If they don’t know which obscure criteria they will be judged on, I reckon most will just decide to play football and qualify through the more established (the first 4) rules.
Im picking England to get past Colombia as well. I do think though, that Ospina is a better keeper than you and others give him credit for, even if, as far as Arsenal is concerned, Germany No 4 > Colombia No. 1. I think he’s had a decent tournament. He’s certainly been better than de Gea and Neuer. This tournament, before anyone spits their coffee. This tournament.
Key to beating England? Don’t concede corners or cheap fouls in and around the box, or try your lvel best not to. There are better dead ball/free kick teams, but England are the best, most efficient set piece/corner team in the competition. As soon as that Tunisian defender started d1cking about with the ball near HIS OWN corner flag and conceded a corner, I knew that they were going to score.
I dont think that teams try to lose World Cup matches, because momentum and confidence are important. True neither team placed much store in a win, given their selections, but the fellas who went out there tried to win a game of football.
In any case it’s foolish for England to look down the road to Brazil and think that they dodged a bullet. Sweden and Switzerland aren’t in Russia to make up numbers. Both are tough opposition for England. We have a saying in the Caribbean… sometimes when you’re running from the zombie, you run right into the coffin.
Did zombies come into popular/American culture from the Caribbean?
I don’t like PK shootouts but I like the ridiculous Fair Play even less. Teams that are even on all tiebreak rules should determine the result under the existing PK system.
Or just blow up FIFA.
I’d agree with a PK shootout, but the logistics are a problem, as a few of us pointed out in the last thread.
Just read through the thread completely and logistical issues exist no doubt but still, PKs are doable and they are at the very least, something that people know.
Interested if anyone else feels the same but I am enjoying this World Cup (the one I swore I’d never watch because it was given to – taken by? – a kleptocratic, homophobic, racist, misogynistic strongman dictator who is playing us for fools). Enjoying it far more than I thought I would.
Maybe it’s just the simple pleasure of watching decent footie without the weight of being a supporter. Canada won’t be qualifying for at least 8 years at point which they’ll field yet another team that will fail to score a single goal and be eliminated after two group games.
The best part of that thread is Joshua’s admission he got a speeding ticket yesterday, shortly after making fun of Tim for being an old man driver! Lol.
“Anyway, that’s four years from now.”
When football will be played by cyborgs.
And tiebreakers will be resolved by BattleBots™
(You did say it would solved by geniuses– right?)
jw1
Jetsons
How to make the third game in the world cup exciting?
Easy. Play it first or second instead.
“Everything I know about morality and the obligations of men, I owe it to football.”
― Albert Camus
Easy. Tim’s got the right answer already, he just got hung up on the problem with shots. So replace shots with head-to-head result (not my favorite, but not a disaster; not sure why Tim got rid of it), and you get:
1. Points
2. Goal difference
3. Goals scored
4. Head to head
5. Shots on goal
6. Corners
Shots on goal and corners don’t really create the problem that shots alone do. Consider this sentence:
“The final match between Japan and Poland ended in a 0-1 loss for Japan, in which the Japanese side [just repeatedly tried to get shots on goal] for the final 16 minutes of the match.”
Doesn’t sound too bad, right? It’d be nice if more matches looked like that!
While I guess it’s *possible* that focusing on racking up shots on goal could be to the detriment of trying to win the match or playing good soccer, it’s really unlikely. Most of the time, trying to maximize your shots on goal is just going to amount to playing attacking football (for one thing, you can’t just take wild pot shots from 35 yards, as these will frequently be off target, while making them super weak to ensure they’re on target (e.g. side-footed daisy-cutters easily stopped by a defender) will result in many of them not being registered as shots).
Corners likewise: in order to win corners, you have to play it off an opponent near their end line. In the vast majority of cases, trying to do that is going to look an awful lot like playing offensively.
If two teams are still tied on all 6 criteria, you can resort to fair play, or just go straight to flipping a coin.
“That’s smart refereeing. He knows the player is one yellow away ( or on a yellow) from missing the next game, so he’s just gonna talk to him” or something similar by the game commentator, which I heard being uttered more than few times, suggests Tim is right.
Am I the only one having a problem with Sadio Mane’s pen being overturned based on Sanchez getting a touch on the ball before taking Mane down?
I thought we were past this interpretation of a tackle like that.
How is that “ winning the ball” if both players are down , Mane didn’t go down too easily or on his own, and the ball is just sitting there barely a yard away just begging to be played by anyone including Mane , except he can’t because he’s down on his s$$?
As usual, lovely writing. Just one thought. How about, in looking at the stats to determine who qualifies from a tight group such as this one, we discount the last game in the group and only factor in the first two? This will encourage teams to perform consistently in all the group matches and negate the numbers from the last game that can be padded to suit an outcome.
Hi all – I’ve been reading the blog and comments for a while and this is my first post and is made with tongue in cheek (sorry!).
But just before I say it, just wanted to say how great it is to find another fun, thoughtful blog on footy and Arsenal – thankyou.
Now, how better to choose between tied teams at the FIFA World Cup?
We want to reward teams that have tried, teams from smaller countries deserving something, teams and countries that have a backstory.
And its FIFA so… obviously we need a TV audience-participation vote show (a la Blah’s Got Talent, The Voice etc).
Its a no-brainer:
– We don’t have the vagaries of ‘gaming’ the system during the matches;
– Teams don’t have to fly thousands of miles for a shootout – they can be filmed live at whatever hotel they’re already in;
– We get the joy of pundits sharing with us their wisdom over the teams, while we re-watch major plays within the matches with arrows and slightly arbitrary freeze frames;
– We watch players and managers huddle in slightly cramped ‘backstage’ holding pens, while they wait for the results before erupting in joy or sorrow, but definitely tears;
– We have something to watch on the day when there are no games after the group stages;
– Advertisers get a little more airtime to sell all their wonderful stuff;
– Those poor people at FIFA can make a little bit of money as reward for putting on the rest of the show that is the World Cup.
– And as its FIFA there will be no favouritism, voting in blocs etc etc (they’d never allow it).
Its so gonna happen…. {sigh}
Argentina, what a mess! For starters, they have two wingers playing on their dominant foot side either side of… No center forward. So when they finally get a crossing opportunity, there are no options. Their fullbacks are bang average in both phases and produce nothing on the ball, so of course they play high up the pitch and get involved in the build up. Their center backs aren’t the quickest, so of course they push high up the pitch and invite Mbappe and Griezmann behind them. Sampaoli has finally stumbled upon a sensible midfield combination in Banega and Mascherano, but he is leaving them outnumbered 2v3 against France’s excellent trio of Kante, Matuidi and Pogba. Up front, he’s sitting two of Europe’s most productive forwards in Aguero and Dybala in favor of a callow winger and DiMaria, whatever he is these days. What he is is a black hole of possession and no cutting edge, but it seems he is indispensable as far as Sampaoli is concerned. This is the most shockingly mismanaged group of talented players I’ve seen in this world cup.
I’ll claim the assist on his thunderbastard from midfield.
France had a good 20 minutes, and that’s it. Completely fizzled out. It’s Argentina’s game now, but they’ll be without Mascherano and Banega in the next match (both of whom have been terrific), which will hurt them.
Banega holding off the France midfield at the 58th minute. Wow. Guy’s a tough customer, and a sweet passer of the ball. Can see why we’re interested.
He’s doing the work of 2 midfielders defensively AND is charged with creating the passing angles to the forwards, taking set pieces and making forward runs. Really impressive.
Oof, 3-2 all of the sudden. What a match this is turning into.
Very entertaining game. It’s clear who the best player on this pitch is, and it isn’t Leo Messi. Is it too soon to declare a changing of the guard? Is this where Messi passes the torch to Mbappe?
Sampaoli would rather fall on his sword than bring Dybala on. Meza is the trench where his WC campaign will die.
On an Arsenal note, all this amazing young French talent and we missed out on all of them except Giroud. Sad commentary on our scouting this past decade.
That makes no sense. Anyone Arsenal liked and didn’t sign is someone they missed out on? In a global marketplace? Simplistic. In the past only we appeared to have unique insight into the French talent. Now everybody does.
Yes, if they liked a player and didn’t sign him, that’s a missed opportunity especially looking at our midfield in recent seasons. We had a chance at any of those players as much as anyone except maybe Mbappe, even Pogba after he left Man United the first time. Maybe it’s not just scouting but also a broader process of recruitment. Wenger himself has said as much over players like Varane; but look at that roster, with Wenger as our coach we could’ve and should’ve signed more of them. We even brought Leicester’s head scout on board because he identified N’Golo Kante (who muzzled Messi today exceptionally well). It’s OK to admit it hasn’t been good enough.
Mbappe had about 10 admirers among big clubs. Did all of the 9 that he didn’t sign for miss out on him? There are players many of us would have liked to see playing for us. A bit much to say that we missed out on them. You don’t even know that we actively tried to sign a Pogba or a Varane. Or if we’d succeeded. So how did we “miss out on them?”
We did hold talk with Mbappe, but at 17 he was already the next big thing, and boy did he have suitors.
Kante’s different. When everyone else was talking Vardy and Mahrez after Lester’s championship, I was pretty much the lone voice here championing his cause, so yes, if we had been looking at him for many years before that we should have put in a bid to Leicester (he went to Chelsea for 30m).
Bit puzzled about what your ding on Arsenal is.
Enjoy the exceptional talent pool that France is. The pleasing thing for me is that while the Trump-sympathetic National Front on the rise in France, the French team is three-quarters black. Take that, Marine.
The proof is in the pudding: all this talent and too few of them with Arsenal contracts, and for a club that prides ourselves on giving talented youngsters a chance that is just not good enough. That’s my point. Whether we tried to sign them or not is not really the issue; either way, it’s a big miss. I believe that’s a big part of why the club has invested in new leadership with direct oversight of that part of our operation.
Just wrote a response that got lost in the ether.
To summarize: agree that Wenger / Arsenal didn’t do a good job of identifying talent before they made it big at the stepping-stone clubs, but that’s a tough task with a ton of competition that just wasn’t there 12-15 years ago. Nowadays, every serious club in the world has a dossier on Europe’s young talent. Where I lay the blame at Wenger’s feet is that he took on way too much responsibility in the last decade, and that prevented him from being proactive in the market.
Since Dein left, Wenger’s only diamond-in-the-rough success has been Koscielny. His only youth success Bellerin. The others were already good / proven quantities when bought. Would that be fair?
Dein departed in 2007, so I would say there have been a lot more than just those two since then but not nearly enough for what we needed to compete with clubs who could just buy ready made players. I can accept not eating from the same table as Madrid, Bayern and City in terms of established talent, but I can’t give the club a pass for not buying and developing more promising players. While the other top clubs zigged to those established stars, Arsenal’s mission was to zag to youngsters who could become those players, and we had every chance to succeed because not even the top clubs can do both effectively. But then we were out-competed and out-raced to those players by other clubs with less financial power and prestige, most notably Tottenham and Liverpool domestically. We didn’t do enough to fulfill that mission and ended up having to compensate for all the misses by buying established players after all.
Who, after 2007, would you say qualifies as a diamond in the rough (e.g., Koscielny was Ligue 2 when bought) or as a successful youth player (e.g., Bellerin, who arrived at the age of 16)? I just think we’ve done a poor job in the last decade of getting those kinds of players at the club.
It depends on how you define those things. I consider a youth player successful if they have a professional career either at their parent club or are sold for profit elsewhere.
A few that come to mind:
Diamond in the Rough (DITR):
Eduardo (He came a month before Dein sold his shares, so maybe it doesn’t count)
Santi Cazorla
Alex Song (Stretching this one)
Nacho Monreal
…. Yep, that’s it.
Successful Youth Player (SYP):
Aaron Ramsey
Jack Wilshere
Kieran Gibbs
Wojciech Szczesney
Francis Coquelin
Oxlade-Chamberlain (More a credit to Soton than us)
Oghuzan Ozyakup (He has 30 caps for Turkey!)
But we can agree, it’s not nearly enough. We were chasing our tails during that time on players who never amounted to anything, a hall of mirrors recruited from academies abroad and from our own: Joel Campbell (who was less disastrous than most), Yaya Sanogo, Amaury Bischoff, Thomas Eisfeld, Dan Crowley, Fran Merida, Jon Toral, Jay Emmanuel Thomas, Serge Gnabry and Emmanuel Frimpong, Ryo Miyaichi, Conor Henderson and Gedieon Zelalem are some of the more high profile ones who at one point or another where the next big thing, but there are even more that we never heard of because they couldn’t even get the odd League Cup run.
What did Mbappe cost PSG, or Dembele Barcelona? No, we’re not getting those players. A case could be made against Wenger and his scouting team that they didn’t do enough to target players before they made it big at their ‘stepping stone’ clubs, and I’d agree with that. Wenger took on way too much after Dein left, and we weren’t decisive or proactive enough in the transfer market…we were also subject to Wenger’s stubbornness (refusal to sign a DM, and refusal to buy a proper GK for ages, etc.).
Wenger’s only great ‘diamond in the rough’ story since Dein left was Laurent Koscielny, and only great youth success was Hector Bellerin (and even his career has plateaued worryingly). The rest he brought in were either above average / good already or known quantities.
Hearing Fabregas talk about how Dein was instrumental in bringing him to the club was interesting. I’ve never been one to ask for Dein to come back to Arsenal, but what is undeniable to me is that it hurt the club somewhat to have Wenger fill that power vacuum with what was essentially his lackey (Dick Law), instead of sharing it with someone as powerful and intelligent as Dein was.
However, given how much scouting has changed in the last 12-15 years, I can’t blame Wenger / Arsenal alone. Every serious club have their dossiers on young talent all over Europe, and that just wasn’t the case in Wenger’s first decade.
Interesting to me how a club management style leaves an imprint on players and gives them different impulses even when they play under the same national coach.
Griezmann had a couple of chances to advance the ball on counters at 4:2 with more than 15 minutes left to play and instead chose to slow the game down and play it back to keep possession. Simeone tactics on display.
Giroud, whom I still consider more of a Wenger player than Conte’s even though he did spend a full season at Chelsea, was unhappy with Griezmann and clearly wanted to go for more.
Predictions for Uruguay v Portugal? It’s got to be Portugal, no?
Not for me. Uruguay will set up to deny space and force the play in front of them. Portugal looked vulnerable to that strategy when playing against Iran, but Uruguay have better forwards to make chances on the counter count more than Iran could, and the Godin-Gimenez partnership is arguably the best in the business at shutting the door.
Torreira starting!
Uruguay. For the sake of balance, let’s send Messi and Ronaldo home on the same day, no? 🙂
I have a crazy amount of respect for Ronaldo (there’s no doubt that he showed his greatness in taking the Spain game by the scruff of the neck), but I can’t stand the poseur. There. I said it. And it has nothing to do with football.
Also, selfishly, there’s no Arsenal interest in the Portugal side. But there’s (not quite ours yet) Torreira. I’ll be 80% watching only him and Carvalho. Who we “missed out on” 😉
My take is let’s get all the Arsenal / Arsenal linked players out of the WC as soon as possible so we can get them signed or into pre-season…so I guess that’s why I wouldn’t mind a Portugal win.
Disagree. Being a world cup winner brings a lift to the dressing room. Sadly, Arsenal have no players in the competition playing for a team with the ability to do that (England fringe player Welbeck?)
I miss Olly Giroud. Very much. I understand why he felt that he had to go. He probably wouldn’t be in Russia today if he didn’t leave us for game time.
Oh , btw, Spurs are having a great world cup. And probably supporting your theory…
Maybe it’s because I’m getting old but I’m actually starting to warm to Ronaldo.
The footballing landscape is going to be way more boring without him and I don’t think he’s actually a nasty person in the same way someone like Mourinho is. And at least Ronaldo is almost constantly entertaining.
OOWWWOOWW, that Cavani-Suarez goal gave me goosebumps 😛
Torreira so far with a nice hip check to clean out Ronaldo and a brave block in front of a CR7 howitzer.
Too lightweight for the premier league… 🙂
Liked what I saw long before this game.
Taking corners too
Ends the game with 2 interceptions, 4 clearances, 3 aerial duels and 7 blocks (led his team) but was dribbled 5/5 times while passing with 84% success and losing possession once.
Was dribbled 4/5 times.
Latest goal scored should be the tie breaker.
Is there a better closer of seemingly open space than Diego Godin? Im still sore at him from denying us in Europa.
Best defender in the game
Good game here in Sochi between two good teams that are well coached. Portugal finding an edge in the possession game with the play of Bernardo and Joao Mario behind the runs of Guedes and Ronaldo. Lovely balance in their buildup play should be shown to Sampaoli as an example of how to play to the strengths of your team. No wingers running into blind alleys, no hero-ball from their superstar. But they’ve met their match in Uruguay’s tenacity, defensive organization and youthful athleticism in midfield and a real cutting edge from two top class forwards. I’m really enjoying this.
Torreira was outstanding today.
From Tim on twitter…
4 – Blocked shots (led all players)
3 – Blocked passes
2 – Interceptions
1 – Tackle
4 – Clearances
3 – Aerial duels won
1 – Foul
1 – Ground Header
I’m a little worries. Ornstein tweeted yesterday that because of the world cup hasnt been able to sign yet or do a medical.
A Madrid can look at that game, come in, offer Samp 20m more, and, you know… Can his head be turned?
Deal isn’t done. We’ve agreed a fee with Samp, and provisionally, it seems, terms with the player.
If we clinch a deal at 25m Pounds, on business mainly done before the world cup started, Im not hearing a single word of criticism against Gazidis’ team.
So worried, in fact, that I’m unable to spell ‘worried’