Je ne sais quoi

What About The Other 99.77%?

The Space Between

What's wrong and right

Is where you'll find me hiding, waiting for you

The Space Between

Your heart and mine

Is the space we'll fill with time

The Dave Matthews Band

"The Space Between"

I've maintained for a long time now that inasmuch as soccer is about space, and the control thereof, it's just not that simple.  Figure a player takes up one square yard...without diving or sliding, an athlete is in total control of one square yard at any given time.  There's 9600 square yards on the pitch (full sized one, anyway) and 22 players account for .23% of that space.  That's POINT-TWO-THREE.  Controlling space that you don't stand in requires vision, communication, anticipation, and the ability to interpret the intent of the opponent - as well as your invariably erratic teammates!  It's not a clear cut soccer skill to manage that space...it's the intuitive side, the part of the game that players leave observers saying "she was born with it."  It's the art of filling in the huge gaps left by technical skill.

Now consider Liverpool.  Liverpool are charging hard toward an EPL title this year (so long as Chelsea keep tripping over their own feet...but yay Jozy for earning the PK that got Sunderland the win) but it's been noted that perhaps Liverpool are a bit inexplicable.

Serious stats gurus have shown that not only are Liverpool surprising in their points total (versus their statistical profile - they "should" have fewer points) they are actually typical in their abnormality.

huh?

This graphic by James Grayson shows the margin by which the past 13 EPL champions have over- or under-performed in accumulating points based on a couple of important metrics:

Season #1, United are exactly where they should have been (but still just, just, over-performing).  Chelsea in season 10 under-performed but still won.  This year, season #14, City have under-performed while the Reds have massively over-performed.  Liverpool have a 6 point edge at the time of writing (though City have a game in hand).

So that's interesting.

Richard Whittall also gives Liverpool a good once-over, and warns of impending troubles for the club.  Again, noting that while they are chalking up points, they don't look like they should be.  His advice is for Brendan Rodgers and Co. to hit the transfer market hard this summer and find some possible solutions...to problems they don't yet have.

So there's the two tricks: a manager has to assemble a team in anticipation of challenges and has to find a way to make his team better than their stats (the sum of the whole exceeding the sum of the parts).  And there's really no way to know how that math will work out until the players brought in play a few matches together.  (Reminds me of the analysis on NFL drafting; for all the crazy data collection, scouting and video, draft picks are the "right" pick 50% of the time.  They could flip a coin and do just as well.  And be home on the weekends.  My take on that here, Bloomberg News' take here.)

There is something about human performance we really struggle to quantify and put our finger on.  What is Brendan Rodgers doing that is allowing Liverpool to take points above what the stats tell us they should?  Does he even know?  Why do some combinations of players work so well when they are clearly not as talented individually as other pairings?  Why am I often left on the sideline urging my player(s) to stick to the plan, to do the simple things...only to be left shaking my head at the success of some low-probability option that just led to a goal?

It's art, I guess...spontaneous, creative, unexpected.  Liverpool are controlling the spaces between, the 99.77% better than everyone else.  How they are doing it is very much up for discussion.