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A lesson in statistics Numbers don't always tell the whole story in soccer
Unlike American sports, statistics, especially individual statistics, are largely irrelevant in soccer. The only numbers which matter are goals and even then they are only useful to determine the winner. A center forward who scores twenty goals in a season is not necessarily twice as good as one who scores ten. In fact, he isn't necessarily better at all. There are two reasons for this. First, a striker who is the focal point of a high-powered offense will inevitably tend to score more than the center forward on a team struggling to avoid relegation. Second, there is more to the game than scoring, even for a forward. Guys like Pippo Inzaghi and Mario Jardel are virtual goalmachines, yet few would place them among the top two or three strikers in the world. All this is fairly obvious. Equally without dispute is the fact that soccer is a fundamentally subjective game, at least when it comes to individuals. Personal opinion, team requirements, conventional wisdom, all these factors determine how we judge somebody. Is Edgar Davids better than Roy Keane? Is Rivaldo better than Juan Veron? Who knows? Arguing about it is part of what makes it fun. Having said all that, I came across an interesting statistical breakdown which does offer, in cold hard numbers, a glimpse at what a top-notch striker actually does on the pitch. Last Sunday, Roma beat Brescia away, 4-2. Gabriel Batistuta scored three goals and was the man of the match.
I was curious. Apart from scoring three goals, what did "Batigol" actually do? In 96 minutes on the pitch (they played a total of six injury time minutes), he had the ball just thirteen times. That's one touch every seven and a half minutes. Or, if you want to have some fun with numbers, consider this. Batistuta earns around US$9 million a year, excluding bonuses. Roma will play anywhere between 38 and 50 games this season, depending on their progress in the Coppa Italia and UEFA Cup. Let's assume, for argument's sake, that it is involved in 45 matches. Furthermore, let's assume that Batistuta actually plays in 38 full matches. Allowing for injuries, suspensions and substitutions, it seems like a reasonable amount. That's a total of 3420 minutes which implies that he gets paid US$2,631.58 for every minute hešs on the pitch. Or, assuming the Brescia game is a reliable indicator of his involvement, that's almost US$20,000 every time he's on the ball. That alone doesn't tell us much. Let's take a look at what he does with the ball. Batistuta shot on goal nearly half the time (six attempts in thirteen touches). And, of course, he netted three of those shots. This would imply that when he receives the ball, he's in a good position to have a crack, which in turn suggests two things: that his movement and sense of position are exceptional and that his Roma teammates are good at creating chances for him. Four of his thirteen touches were headers. This would confirm what we already know: "Batigol" is good in the air. He attempted just two dribbles, beating his opponent both times and lost the ball just once. Again, this would suggest that Batistuta is a very direct player who rarely wastes a ball. He committed two fouls and was fouled once. In a nutshell, these stats simply reflect much of the conventional wisdom which surrounds Batistuta. Rather than an indication of his performance, they are useful as an indication of his characteristics as a player. The one statistic which surprised me however was the fact that he touched the ball just thirteen times (and one of those was when he took a free kick). While he obviously had a good day at the office, he was uninvolved for long stretches (indeed, the helpful guys who compile the stats also inform us that in the first half he went 27 minutes without touching the ball at all). So what does all this mean? Do they tell us anything about Batistuta or are they just a meaningless numerical masturbation? I would argue they do mean something: they underscore the fact that what a player does without the ball is just as important as what he does with the ball. As mentioned above, without Batistuta's movement off the ball he would not have gotten six chances to shoot. Indeed, on three of those occasions he pounced on rebounds after the goalkeeper parried the ball; on two of those he scored. Beyond that, when he didn't have the ball, Batistuta didn't sit around waiting for it. He chased defenders, he made runs into space, he made himself available to teammates. These are all things which don't show up in a statistical analysis, but which are crucially important. A guy who understands the game will notice these elements, though they are harder to spot on television. That's why there is no substitute for watching games in person. But what if Batistuta hadn't scored a hat trick? What if all we knew about him was that he touched the ball thirteen times, took six shots, headed the ball four times, fouled two opponents, was fouled once, and gave the ball away once? If that were all you knew about his involvement, you would probably guess that he did not have a particularly good match. And you would be wrong. Anyone who was there would tell you that he was simply devastating, that even if he hadn't scored, he would have been one of the best players on the pitch. What it boils down to is that, in soccer, statistics can help paint a picture, but, on their own, give little indication of performance. US$20,000 per touch may seem like a stiff amount to pay. In reality, as far as Roma is concerned, it's an absolute bargain.
Based in London, Gabriele Marcotti writes a weekly column on international soccer for CNNSI.com.
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