Will December be the Decider?How many points will la liga Santa hide in his bag for Barcelona?
Yeah...I know...We are still in November, but before the deadline approach, and we all get drifted by the sequence of events, let's admit it, we are all killing time till the "Dooms month," the make or break, and you can add any exciting label you like. We are so excited - and luckily not the worried team - that we may forget we still have some tricky games before we arrive to the flammable slice of our calendar, something I don't like, but thats something to talk about another time.
Since the beginning of the season, December was crowned as the month of thriller for La Liga, those who have heart problems need to take an early X-mass vacation, and watch NO games before the beginning of 2009!
All the games before December are warming up, the champion will be determined in December, after December its all about holding positions…December…December…December…But how realistic this irritating speech is?
Any football fan knows that nothing is definite at least before April, that’s when we can talk about the team with the best chances to win a title, but I cant ignore that this December Anthem charmed me, and made me curious to know the fact and the fake about this theory. Will December have the definite impact on La Liga? Not?
Of course every game is important and the December games earn you points, the same as November games do. Yet is it true that getting points from your direct rivals give you an edge to win the league?
I will pass you the numbers and you can make your own conclusions.
I picked the previous five seasons as a sample, and for every season I listed the Top-five teams of that season, with the points they earned playing against each other, plus a table of direct games' results as an additional info, so you can compare the points earned through direct games and the impact of these points on the final standings.
Yeah...I know...We are still in November, but before the deadline approach, and we all get drifted by the sequence of events, let's admit it, we are all killing time till the "Dooms month," the make or break, and you can add any exciting label you like. We are so excited - and luckily not the worried team - that we may forget we still have some tricky games before we arrive to the flammable slice of our calendar, something I don't like, but thats something to talk about another time.
Since the beginning of the season, December was crowned as the month of thriller for La Liga, those who have heart problems need to take an early X-mass vacation, and watch NO games before the beginning of 2009!All the games before December are warming up, the champion will be determined in December, after December its all about holding positions…December…December…December…But how realistic this irritating speech is?
Any football fan knows that nothing is definite at least before April, that’s when we can talk about the team with the best chances to win a title, but I cant ignore that this December Anthem charmed me, and made me curious to know the fact and the fake about this theory. Will December have the definite impact on La Liga? Not?
Of course every game is important and the December games earn you points, the same as November games do. Yet is it true that getting points from your direct rivals give you an edge to win the league?
I will pass you the numbers and you can make your own conclusions.
I picked the previous five seasons as a sample, and for every season I listed the Top-five teams of that season, with the points they earned playing against each other, plus a table of direct games' results as an additional info, so you can compare the points earned through direct games and the impact of these points on the final standings.
2007-2008:
2006-2007:
2005- 2006:
2004 - 2005:
2003-2004:
Of course numbers do not tell all the facts, but it’s a sign, maybe in previous seasons winning against a direct rival offered the team a boost of moral to start a run of good results, so it had an additional impact that the numbers above may not show, but this year your next game will be also against a direct rival who already played against another top ranked team, so I neglect this factor for this season.
In addition we must not forget the impact of such results on the clubs' image, marketing returns and popularity, but that’s something that take place on the long run and it has nothing to do with the sports side of the game during the current season.
These numbers are useful for some, and will mean nothing for others, it sounded interesting for me while arranging it as a part of my obsession to analyze the analyzed analysis of this game, and felt this part worth sharing with you, I tried my best not to put my personal opinion so I don't effect (humbly) your own conclusion based on the tables above.
How will the results of this December mini-league effect on the team adventure toward the liga crown? How will December output define fans' expectations for the season? That's is for you to tell.
My last wish is that Guardiola show his players a similar report after the bloody December month ends, so that they don’t feel over-relaxed if they gathered most of the December points, and they don’t feel over-depressed if they didn’t.
In addition we must not forget the impact of such results on the clubs' image, marketing returns and popularity, but that’s something that take place on the long run and it has nothing to do with the sports side of the game during the current season.
These numbers are useful for some, and will mean nothing for others, it sounded interesting for me while arranging it as a part of my obsession to analyze the analyzed analysis of this game, and felt this part worth sharing with you, I tried my best not to put my personal opinion so I don't effect (humbly) your own conclusion based on the tables above.
How will the results of this December mini-league effect on the team adventure toward the liga crown? How will December output define fans' expectations for the season? That's is for you to tell.
My last wish is that Guardiola show his players a similar report after the bloody December month ends, so that they don’t feel over-relaxed if they gathered most of the December points, and they don’t feel over-depressed if they didn’t.
Ramzi Tanani
Posts
26 comments:
Great work !
really great effort, thanks for letting us know, you are doing such a great job (in terms of this blog:)!
regarding our beloved team, it is interesting to see a proof how bad the last two seasons were..i am full of expectations towards this season, especially i would looove to see madrid suffer and cry at santiago bernabeu after we have kicked their asses in direct confrontation :) i didnt really know what to think about this season at the beggining: a new quite unexperiened coach, besides d. alves no big name signing, departure of the icons (thank god they had left..). i certainly didnt expect the team perform so well. omfg, the best start to the season in a decade. i am proud to be a barca fan.(ive been one like for half of my life.i am 21 though..:)
this blog bring joy and happiness to my life, i have even lost an eager to read goal.com (of course i read it, but not that often), so pep, thank a looot! keep on going ;)
Jeez...
This is exactly the reason why i visit this site more then any other on the web!
Excellent article!
Thanks alot for this, and ofcourse for the whole blog!
yep dealing with the best bloggers ha.! sup buddie bloggers..
where is Memo?????
Your interaction give the energy to keep going, thanx!
We are also interested to know If you have your own thought about December games, Your expectations and concerns, feel free to express yourself so we enhance our knowledge through reading your Opinions.
Remember know one here is really an expert, so don't hesitate to post your five cents.
We are open to critics as well as feel motivated by praise.
"Remember NO (not know) one here is really an expert"
but you already know, miss typing is my bad finger tip on almost every comment I post:)
NOTE: Watch Caceres against France as a left back, the game just started!
Another "Ramzi" Trade Mark!
superb approach Ramzi!
well, I'm really in love with numbers, because I really have hard times dealing with them, but that doesnt mean that I dont believe in them, absolutly not..
now..if a team sucks the whole league and get straight wins in december, that wont help them that much, of course. but in the other hand if two teams get similar no. of points from the other matches "in both parts of the league" , this "mini-league" will have more to do with the title race..
in this particular season, and due to the relatively minor deferances seperating the top 4 or 5 teams in the table till now, this "mini league" will be some how decicive, provided that these teams will keep the deferenses stable after the end of this "mini league", so what I want to say..after december the picture will be more cleare, but no one can claim the title by then!! and no one will be deemed out of the race either.. the only way to know if these games would have any major effect is to wait to the end of the season and look backwards to them, "retrospectively", no general rule will fit every season.
I also think what u mentioned about the clubs image has a great weight, greater than what many people would think about it.
I talked a lot, I know...so sorry
Thanx Anony
As long as you still have things to put in another comment, dont worry about the length of the comment u r typing at the moment Waleed, keep "Rambling":)
You raised some good points, I am also wondering How would it deffer now that all the direct games are coming together rather than being spread along the season.
As for Cacers i watched the game he was nothing but Great,, i am worried why Pep doenst play him so much anyway .
he also got the highest ranking in his team by goal.com so a decent game from Caceres.
Hmm Ramzi, for once i'm not really sure where you're going with this, no offence.. :)
For me it seems as there is no direct correlation between the points achieved against direct rivals and the final outcome of the season. To figure out a potential correlation maybe adding the average point pr. match should be added and then compared with the average point pr. match against rivals.
There is no true indication of the strength of the team based on points against rivals. If we take the season 05/06 which Barcelona won by a noticable 12 points, we can see that the points against rivals are actual below average compared to the top 5. Yet again in 04/05 Barcelona has below average points against rivals, but wins the season by 4 points.
Hmm i'm not sure how else to display the statistics in a matter where you could really give a fair picture of it all. As it is now, the number 5 has generally gathered fewer points per match, and is therefore expected to also gather fewer points against rivals, meaning that a team could actually have "overperformed" against rivals while the points here could make them seem "underperforming". This is why i think showing the points as an average points per game against rivals and then maybe deflating them by the average points per game in general. By using this method it would give a clearer picture of the true strength-relationship between the top 5, eliminating the prior statistical expectations.
To finish this off, even though I do not see any clear correlation in the prior seasons, I do believe that this seasons intra-rival games will have a far greater impact that earlier on. With all these games within a month the impact will be alot more sudden and distinct, rather than spread out and thereby "sub-dued". With a team performing badly in the next month they can basically be set out of the title race mentally in such a way that it can have a big influence on their future performance. Say in the earlier seasons Barcelona lost to Real Madrid, it would only mean three points difference at the current time, but also losing to Valencia, Villareal, Sevilla etc. in a short period of time, could mean a huge mental "wall" of points between Barca the top teams (Keeping in mind that they of course also can lose to each other, a team could potentially perform really bad compared to the other four).
Okay now I'm tired and I almost lost where I were going myself.. Hope this is not all too technical with the statistics talk, it is merely a symptom of my undergoing economics education.. :)
CONCLUSION: I find no true correlation between intra-rival performance and the final season outcome, however i do believe that this season will be different as the impact will be far greater with the compact program, rather than sub-dued by time.
And keep them coming, love the debate these posts can arise Ramzi!
Ps. I'm going to apoligize on before-hand, I simply don't want to read this over again right now to correct for spelling and mistyping! Bear over with me ;)
See what you did now Ramzi, i basically made my own Ramble here!
Its simple Barca keeps up the rampant tempo that now has... We win every match something that may sound too much,but if we can a team with 10men behind the ball then the big teams like R.Madrid,Sevilla,Valenthia,Villareal won't do...Imagine if we score 4-5 goals against such teams what we will do to teams that choose to open their defences and not just wait for the opportunity to counter attack...Nevertheless 4 wins=Champions nothing more nothing else....
Hmm okay i read what i wrote myself now..
What I'm basically saying is that it seems that having a good "bottom-level" has a far greater impact than the points achieved against rivals.
Earlier on the impact from a loss against a rival would result in a short term loss in team moral. What is different this season is that matches are so compact that the loss in team moral can prove long term, as a team can experience being put out of the race for the top spot way earlier than prior.
I believe that the "mental wall" can prove quite decissive this season.
Hehe now I'll spare you all for more posts, gotta get some sleep. Great work with the blog, keep it up!
Stigsby I am impressed!:)
I cont know why But I hope u never know where i am going in the posts so you show this side of you;)And be sure I don't get offended by such a quality opinion,even though there is nothing to be offended about.
I by no way was trying to make a statistical analysis, something u r making me now mention it earlier than I planed(next few days;), First because Football at the end of the day is not a pure math,secondly because, and lets say specially with the uncertainty of football, Statistics is not as objective and scientific as posting lot of numbers may express, because as you know you can always create coefficient that prove your point, while adding one more coefficient may change the whole figure, again I am not a man of statistics but as a person who worked with marketing we used to play this game:)
So the numbers above are just a "document on the table" of discussion, to figure out if December Mini league really has as much impact as it is promoted -Make or break.
What I really like about this post is actually that, It change the label of posting from "Look how much I know" style(though I NEVER write with that Idea in mind) , to "Here what I found so what do you think?", and with the quality of responds I am getting I am more excited to write more of this style, and it already approved an Idea I have in mind, but thats what the future will tell;)
If you are the statistics man, prepare your papers, you, waleed, and all the blogers cruising around o this blog;)
granche thanx for your report, and Zos I may be wrong but i guess this is your first comment on my posts so welcome to our talkative gang:)
Interesting figures, Ramzi.
Anyhow, I can't see Guardiola approaching the big games in another way than the little ones, even with us having an advantage. I don't like it but it's really special that we'll have all these top games gathered in two periods (now and at the end of the season).
The truth is that we haven't play a
really big game so far.From the
matches we've seen so far i can say
that we are going to win the Primera
considering our rivals current situa-
tion and the good chemistry of our
team.What worries me is the Champions
League since we haven't met with a
big club yet.I can't wait to see how
Barca will perform against a big
rival...
Well, we've met with Atletico Madrid, Nico. Who did pretty well against Liverpool...
No team can put its money on the CL anyway, there's too much luck involved (form of the day, referee decision, injured players, suspended players,...) We should focus on the Liga. The CL is something extra but not the main objective.
The CL should always be Barca's main objective Refter since we are the biggest club in the world.
It's true though that the CL is not
always won by the best team, we've
seen teams like Liverpool, Juventus
Milan, who played miserable football and still have won the CL.
And that kind of teams i'm afraid
this year since football gets more
and more defensive.
I hope Pepe will find a way to deal
with these football thieves....
Ramzi.. I can be every thing you want but a statistician! as I mentioned before there is no lost love between me and numbers, and thats the main reason why I chose not to study engineering ;)
and refter I agree, CL winner is not always the best team performing in the league, while the fittest, deepest, and the steadiest team have the highest chances to compete on the league, the CL needs different mentality and approach, and of course individual game circumstances have greater effect on the final outcome! I'm not saying that we dont have a chance in CL, of course we do, but given the rate of work the team is making, the league results will reflect this work more readily, and we deal with every CL match on its own, and hope things r gona be fine.
Adding to the CL discussion, I think when it come to the CL, we get stressed more because of its uncertainty rather than the lack of confidence in the squad available, yet three factors may play on our side this year:
1)we have a big squad, the rotation will prove its worth by time when the other teams start to suffer a fitness drop down or injuries, we will have injuries too(hope not)but again we have depth.
2)related to whats mentioned above, we may have some players that will cost us dearly if gopt injured (Messi and Xavi for me), but still we are notas dependent on them as any other team depend on 2 or 3 players, and as I mentioned before if you want to test that, take any team pull our their best 3 players and check what remain in their squad, u can do the same for barcelona and compare.
3) Our defence is much MUCH better than before, forget about offence, in CL defence is the key factor to make u a CL winner candidate, then offence grap it for you!
4) The upgrading of our operation engines in the midfield adding two more physical players (Kieta and BUSQ) to Yaya, unlike last season when we had that weakness when we played phisycal demanding games, specially that yaya played injured, this season you have three physical tyanks plus a more direct playmaker in hleb beside the maestro (Xavi). this will help mostly in the away leg to seal the result that suits you.
One question, Pep experience as a coach in CL,will it be as impressive as it is till now in the league? CL has its own rules, not least that you need to plan for the two games (home and away), and avoid the common mistake of taking each game at a time, it just dont work in CL, specially in the final stages.
We've got depth in defenders and defensive midfielders but we don't have enough attacking midfielders and
since Hleb doesn't seem to adapt very
well i think that's an issue.
"I will pass you the numbers and you can make your own conclusions."
I can see i missed this sentence when i read our post initially! Now i perfectly well know where you're going ;)
Hehe as for the statistics, I've gotten really curious about the effects of intra-rival games! I have to hand in a few papers at university first, but then I'll for sure look into it.
What could be interesting to look at would be the possible effects on the match results after a lost match to a rival. To see if there really is a negative effect or if it's just talk. It could also be interesting to see what teams do well against other top teams and which don't, making sure they the teams earning less points are not punished. As i explained in my earlier posts on this topic, we can see that the number 5 can actually have done quite well statistically, but when you look at the final numbers, they can look weak.
I'm perfectly aware that numbers can't explain all and that football can be quite unpredictable, but i'm not sure we should just ignore them. For once, it is quite expected that Barcelona will be at least in the top three at the end of each season, and as history shows, we quite often do! I will look into writing a small paper for this blog once i get abit more time, have an upcoming exam next weekend in Descriptive Econimics, so i'll sadly have to focus on that first ;)
As for the CL-issue, i agree with most of your points Ramzi, however i'm not sure our offensive line-up is wide enough. If we have injuries to both Xavi and Messi we can really be in a bad place. What have saved us in the previous matches against teams, have been Messi coming on the field and performing some magic. True, the two are not the whole team as they would be on other teams, but if we meet a complete high-class team it could mean alot of trouble.
Well that's it for now, I'll make sure to look into the statistics once i get abit more time!
Ps. Damn you for making me curious now ;)
Alright Stigsby, I will give you a paid vacation till Monday, then you have to work Double shifts in return, lucky us the building up for December hell start after your Exam;)
Good luck!
Now stop staring on this blog and back to your Descriptive heaven :P
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