Intangibles

In 2014 I started watching hockey. It initially was the Stanley Cup finals that year, the Kings' second title in three years, against the Rangers. The next year I tuned in the entire season, learning the rules and figuring out how to watch properly. I didn't realize the team I chose to support, the Blackhawks, had a bandwagon following due to success. My older brother had a replica sweater, and they were always on TV, so before even learning the history of the organization that was who I'd chosen. Ever since then, I've followed them, as well as the league in general. It's been interesting. I accepted that the period of success was over, and I was fine with that, despite the fact that I only casually watched the end of the 2013 series (one of my roommates is a Bruins fan) and wasn't initially aware that they'd also won in 2010. I took a two day trip to Chicago with one of my other friends over winter break of 2016, braving the freezing conditions and outrageous ticket prices to see a game at the Madhouse. Since then, the team's been garbage, but hey, that's life. The title gives away the topic for today's article, and I thought it was relevant to bring up hockey, as it's one of the sports that emphasizes this idea.

The recent trend in football, and previously baseball, is analytics. To be fair, every sport has data that can be used to prepare for opponents and change one's style of play to be more effective. I'm on analytics/scouting twitter, which is often insightful, but the thing is, it neglects parts of the game that are necessary to win trophies. Most all fans would love a team full of homegrown talent, playing attractive football, winning all the trophies. That simply doesn't happen. One topic I hear time and time again from current and former footballers is the balance of athleticism, technique, and reading of the game. When you're young, athleticism is at its peak, but game intelligence is low (for most players). The reverse is true at as players age. Technical ability is interesting, because it can certainly be improved over time, but some have it at a young age, while others will never fully grasp it. In recruitment, there's an emphasis on resale value, since most clubs rely on player trading for income. Potential is a word that's overused, but the fact is the average footballer is going to have an early part to his career, building up to his peak, and once that peak's done, it's downhill from there. Exceptions exist, such as Jamie Vardy, and some players have ridiculous longevity, think Zanetti and Zlatan. As I initially stated, the point of this is to look at undervalued aspects of football, also known as intangibles.

First is leadership. For a variety of reasons, there's a massive focus on young players in football. One is games like Football Manager and FIFA, where "potential" is overvalued, and young players can easily be trained to become world class over the course of the game. It doesn't work like that in real life. Growth is not incremental in every player, and it doesn't follow a perfect curve. On the flip side, games like this drill the idea into people's heads that once a guy hits 28 or 30, whatever the cut off is, he drops off a cliff and is no longer a good player. It's frankly ridiculous, but mainstream stuff tends to seep into public consciousness, whether people want to admit it or not. You can't really quantify leadership, despite the fact that FM does have a rating for it. If you look at pretty much any successful team, club or national team, they find a balance of youth, guys in their prime, and veteran leaders. A recent example I'll give is Man City. I said it at the time, but Vincent Kompany leaving was a bigger blow than people made out. He had regular injuries throughout his career, but as a leader, he was invaluable for that squad. Also, take into account the upheaval when Guardiola arrived; older defenders, in particular, were shipped out and replaced by younger ones. When you have a young squad, with a generation of leaders on their way out (Kompany was followed by D Silva, soon to be Aguero), it impacts the team.

Next, we'll look at game intelligence. Stats like packing and expected threat are out there, but generally, people look at goals and assists to judge players. Obviously, this is mostly relevant to attacking players, who are the ones that get most of the praise in football. Thus, the average fan probably has no idea how to properly judge midfielders, defenders, and goalkeepers. Comparing players can be a strange action, as no coach implements the same system, which is what brings me to the game intelligence part of intangibles. This seems like bit of a stereotype, but Spanish midfielders tend to be small, technical, and class at reading the game. Part of it is coaching, for sure, but I think the physique plays a role. In scouting, you tend to notice bigger/older kids because they dominate their age groups. It's literally like men against boys. However, if the bigger, stronger, faster kid doesn't develop the mental and technical side to his game, he'll struggle against grown men. There are countless examples of this. It's also why the "best athletes" trope people in the US ignorantly trot out is ignorant. They say the ball travels faster than any man, and it's true. Knowing what to do with the ball, when to do it, and being able to execute the proper action trumps physical ability every single day.

Hustle and determination are two others I'll group together. I realize that metrics exist to determine how much a player runs on the pitch, but there is an obvious flaw. A guy can be running for days, aimlessly, and it'll look good by the numbers. What needs to happen is each player knows his role and runs with a purpose. Also, system and style of play dictate how much players will run. The point here is you have the idea, let's say, of looking like one's working hard and giving it his all. There are comments like, "he makes it look easy", and it gives the connotation that the player isn't "working hard". Determination, I think, goes hand in hand. An example is 50-50 challenges, where putting a little more in can win a throw in, free kick, or corner to change the game. It won't show up on the stat sheet, but when you watch a game, you see and and take note.

The final aspect of football that's unquantifiable is cohesion, or attitude, depending on how you want to look at it. Similar to the ones in the previous paragraph but on a wider scale, it's everyone in the club working towards a goal. Seeing, let's say, Barcelona's decline in recent years as an example. Most of the players were still at the club that had success, but the soul of the group changed. Man United is another example. You had a "sum of its parts" situation, but when Ferguson left that all quickly died off. It's also why the trend of "club legends" as managers rather than tacticians makes sense. The players, who really should be professional no matter the coach, seem to need someone they respect to perform at a decent level. I've noticed, personally, in various sports, that it often starts as team being the underdog. My favorite manager (Mourinho) has made a career of it. I'll describe it the best I can. Firstly, there's significantly less pressure and expectation on a team when they haven't won anything. It's why you see random teams make deep runs in tournaments. In football, recently, we have Monaco, Ajax, and Atalanta/Leipzig. That's just in the last 3-4 seasons. In hockey, I think of the Senators a few years ago reaching the conference finals and being a goal from the Stanley Cup finals. What usually happens in this case is either a) players get picked off by other teams, or b) the playing style is unsustainable, plus cohesion/motivation dips. When expectations are low, there's no pressure outside of what a team expects of itself. After a bit of success, whether or not a trophy is the result, people think they deserve more, and others think "hey, this team made it this far, that's now the standard". I'm writing this part the day after the Villa 7-2 Liverpool, and while I'm not going to be a prisoner of the moment, it's entirely possible that after 2.5 seasons of top level performances Liverpool are experiencing the inevitable regression. I mean, I think that was just a blip, and if you actually watched their games last season, it's not like they were playing well every week. Also, the drop off from Alisson to Adrian is massive, as seen in the fluke loss to Atleti at Anfield. Anyways, my point here is it's almost impossible to maintain an underdog mentality when you're factually no longer the underdog. Especially in that situation, where the XI more or less picks itself.

A final parallel I'll draw up to bring this full circle is the Tampa Bay Lightning (2020) and my school's men's basketball team (2019). Long story short, they were favored to at least make a deep run the prior year and embarrassed themselves by losing in the first round. The Lightning were the top seed and were swept by the Blue Jackets, while UVA became the first ever #1 seed to lost to a 16 seed. Like, ever. It had literally never happened before. Some may say sports are scripted, and I couldn't prove them wrong, but there's something awesome about being a the lowest point sports wise and having the resolve to power through it the following season. Many people and sports institutions would crumble at the embarrassment, with players transferring or being traded, but these teams kept their cores together and ran it back, winning the coveted trophy the following season.