MBA Soccer just finished reading Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski’s book Soccernomics, an interesting, data-driven take on why soccer clubs don’t (and shouldn’t) make money, the game theory behind a penalty kick shootout, and a critique of fan (consumer) loyalty, amongst many other thought-provoking subjects. MBA Soccer highly suggests you buy or borrow a copy.
That said, a number of the authors’ findings seemed like a bit of stretch. The one, though, that really stuck in MBA Soccer’s craw was the explanation that the Spanish national soccer team has actually overachieved, not “notoriously underachieved” as so many Spanish nationalist and average soccer fans have assumed for decades. This can’t possibly be true, can it?
Kuper is noted as one of the world’s leading writers on soccer. Szymanski is a renowned sports economist and the MBA Dean of the Cass School of Business in London. MBA Soccer is a revolving set of hack MBA students occasionally writing and reporting on the business of soccer. The odds of MBA Soccer proving Kuper and Szymanski wrong on the subject of soccer are small to none, but that’s not going to deter us from trying—or hoping that someone reading this is much smarter and will dig deeper to prove us right.
To determine a country’s chance of success against an opponent, Kuper and Szymanski use three key data points: income per head, total population and international experience. The more average income per person, the better; the larger the population of the country, the better; and the more games played against other countries, the better. Taking these three factors into account when comparing two countries and employing the powers of regression, Kuper and Szymanksi are able to come up with the expected goal differential of an international match. Focusing on 1980-2001, this is what they had to say, contrary to public opinion, about the overachievement of the Spanish national team:
“Everyone instinctively benchmarks the Spanish team against Germany, Italy, and France, but that’s unfair. Spain is a much smaller country, and though its economy has been catching up fast, it’s still significantly poorer. Consider, for instance, Spain’s record against Italy in the twenty-two years. Over the period Spain’s population, income per head and international experience were on average about 30 percent inferior to Italy’s. Given that, we would have expected Spain’s goal difference to be about minus two over its four games against Italy. Instead, Spain overachieved, notching a win, two ties, and a defeat with a goal difference of zero.” (pg. 282)
C’mon now, “30 percent inferior” to Italy . . .? Spain is a country rich with soccer history. While Spain’s population is small, their domestic league, La Liga, ranks as one of the best, if not the best, with Real Madrid and FC Barcelona consistently dominating European club competition. Their national players are getting the best experience day in and day out. So, how about we consider when Spain isn’t considered “30 percent inferior,” but rather the superior team in a game?
At the 1982 World Cup in Spain—yes, in Spain—the home side tied Honduras, 1-1, and lost to Northern Ireland, 0-1, in group play. At the 1986 World Cup, Spain lost on penalties to Belgium in the quarterfinals. At the 1994 World Cup, Spain tied the Korea Republic, 2-2, in group play. And, at the 1998 World Cup, Spain lost to Nigeria, 2-3, and tied Paraguay, 0-0.
Using the Kuper-Szymanski Model, Spain should have had a better goal differential against those teams based on the following factors:
Honduras – income, population and experience
Northern Ireland – income, population and experience
Belgium – population and experience
Korea Republic – income and experience
Nigeria – income and experience
Paraguay – income, population and experience
True, these are one-off games but, simply put, from 1980-2001, Spain consistently choked in important matches. Good teams find a way to dominate these games. Go ahead and employ all of the statistical models you want, but the World Cup and other major competitions have a habit of getting the better of teams like Spain (also see the Dutch).
After telling a friend from Spain that Kuper and Szymanski believe the Spanish team overachieves, the friend laughed, and said, “Only the English would be silly enough to think that. They also probably think they’ll beat the U.S in South Africa.”
Yes, South Africa . . .
No doubt, the UEFA Champions League is big money. The final game in 2010 is set to be played on May 22nd in Real Madrid’s prestigious Bernabeu Stadium. Real Madrid and club president Florentino Perez had high hopes of playing in front of a raucous home crowd in the championship game.
MBA Soccer 