I will be discussing one important debate among soccer community today!
Let’s start with this! This is part of a song Manchester City fans sing:
We are not,we're not really here,
We are not, we're not really here
Just like the fans of the Invisible Man,
We're not really here
City fans were singing this when their team went down to Third Division (Now Second) in 1998 two years after they went down to Second Division (Now First). Funny how the fans were singing the same lyrics while Dzeko and Aquero score the crazy League winning goals last weekend! Chelsea had a similar story with the Champions League.
How did that happen?
Some fans are pointing to the overspending by the two clubs, meaning ‘cash bought the trophies’. But is that true? Well, partially! (Assuming truth can be partitioned!)
Is it only City?
Nope!
Club’s overspending is a phenomenon that is not new to world’s soccer. Madrid, Barcelona, United, Inter, PSJ, Alhilal, Al Ain, and most influential clubs have a history of overspending one way or the other. City is the new guy in school, who is just doing it better! (it’s worth to note though that a large portion of City’s infrastructure spending is on Eastern Manchester, a very poor neighborhood, have brought money and jobs!)
But is overspending good for the game?
Definitely not!
Fifty percent of clubs are losing money and going into debt. City is currently in 247$ mil debt United 423$ mil debt, Madrid 306$ mil debt, and Milan 86$ mil debt. Of course smaller clubs have to join the party. West Ham, Everton, Genoa, Fiorentina, Atletico Madrid, Villarreal and the list goes on! Most of the latter clubs have failed to pay their player’s wages and were delegated to Second division. Fans were disappointed! (Only few clubs are debt-free and making profits such as Napoli).
We can see the problem here!
For this reason, UEFA is implementing the Fair Financial Play(FFP) rules in which clubs can’t spend more than what they earn, similar to the ones adapted in Germany’s Bundesliga. Teams who don’t comply, they will face fines, points deduction and exclusion from major competitions.
In theory these rules sound noble but are they in reality? Can they be enforced? There are loopholes such as a club can over-price sponsorship rights and use it as revenue to reach that break-even point (City). Can City or other Big spenders balance their books in a year? Can UEFA exclude Barcelona or Madrid from UCL? Guess we’re going to have to wait and see!
However, that’s a step forward and as Arsene Wenger said that the League will be “more interesting with FFP. If you look at the history of England, there is Nottingham Forest, Aston Villa and Derby County who have all won championships. If that is possible again it will be even more interesting.”
But…
I believe most fans are being misled by the perception that overspending can lead to trophies and for this; they are missing the real causes behind losing and winning!
So, does overspending mean winning trophies? Uhm..
Big Spenders have been winning and losing, just like Small Spenders!
Let’s look at this season,
Paris Saint Germain this season went wild and attracted Big investments, one of the best coaches, and spent more than $135 mil, well, the silverware didn’t follow! They lost the league to Montpellier, a club whose annual budget of $36 mil, only the 13th in France and less than the $46 mil France record PSG spent on the transfer of Javier Pastore.
Bayern Munich is a self-financing team with very low spending but they knocked out a Big spender, Madrid, and showed a better performance and almost won UCL final.
Arsenal is another less spending team but they end up third in EPL.
Alahli won most titles at Saudi Arabian League winning Big Spenders, Al Etihad and Alhilal
In the other front, the $1.5 bil Chelsea spent to date has so far won them only three league titles and a sole Champions League in nine years. In the same time, United, their resources sucked away by the debt of their owners, the Glazers, have won four league titles and a CL.
Madrid had a similar story!
This shows that there is no clear relationship between spending and winning or performance. Other factors need to be considered here, such as Skill, fans, tactics, team culture, luck and belief!
Montpellier wouldn’t win the French title without Belhanda’s intelligent, looking forward playing.
Barcelona wouldn’t have a chance with CL or La Liga, especially against defending teams, without Messi’s creative playing or Xavi’s vision.
Chelsea wouldn’t win the CL without Drogba’s experience, Cole’s and Luis’s defending movements.
City wouldn’t win QPR without Agueros smart, in the box attacking movements.
Napoli wouldn’t show such a great performance without Cavani, Hamsik and Lavezzi brilliant team play!
So, skill is an important factor. But can you buy skill?
Well, one good thing about soccer market is it’s really big! Skill isn’t scarce! But you can only have 25 players in your squad and most skillful players prefer to be among the 11 that actually play! Thus, even if you’re a Big Spender, you can’t have it all!
The other thing, not all skillful players look at the financial aspect of a team. They look at team culture, development opportunities, teammates, fans, team’s causes and other ‘environmental’ factors. Messi threw City’s $188 mil offer away. He likes it in Spain.
What makes a team culture though?
It might sound odd, but it’s the way the team plays! The players and fans way of celebration, of reactions toward referee’s calls, of dealings with fans, with each other, with their management.
Manchester United location and its fans background imply they are obsessed with being ‘tough’ and ‘right’. No wonder ‘diving’ isn’t desirable among their fans!
Napoli’s team tell the a story of a long struggling city with corruption and crime. The way they play reflect that and fans consider the team wins as a win for the ‘good people’ of the city.
Roma’s team tell the story of the falling Roman empire. The team way of play reflects things such as honor, sacrifice and glory!
City’s team reflect a more modern story. It’s the Pluralism and Multiculturalism in today’s societies.
Each team has a hidden story that reflect it’s way of play. Player’s look at these things, too!
You can’t buy that, but you can make your own story!
How about tactics?
The good thing about soccer tactics is that it’s not predictable. It involves a lot of creativity.
Roma wouldn’t win the Serie A without Capello’s creative 3-5-2 plan, and they wouldn’t win the cup and compete with average players against bigger teams without Spalleti’s tactical vision.
Madrid wouldn’t compete with the best performing team in the past years, Barcelona, and win La liga without Mourniho’s realistic vision and changing the long Madrid tradition of an attacking team to a more defensive middle fielding!
Montpellier wouldn’t win the French title without Girard’s moving Belhanda to an attacking position and then scoring 13 goals that led the team to win the title.
You can’t buy that!
Can you write your own life story on script beforehand?
Not really!
Bayern Munich had no right to lose to Chelsea; they were playing at home, they had overwhelming domination in open play, they were one shot up in the penalties.
What if Robin scored that winner penalty kick?
Barcelona had no right to lose to Chelsea in the semi-finals; they were up against a 10-man side for much of the second half at the Camp Nou, Chelsea were without their captain and most inspirational player John Terry.
What if Messi scored that penalty chance to put the tie to rest?
United had no right losing the league after being eight points clear with six games to play. They never crack; this time they crumbled.
What if United didn’t lose that one game with Wigan?
City? In a roller-coaster of a league, they muscled off the competition early on before going to their own case of nerves, intrigue and inexperience of these situations. When they lost to Arsenal, they had turned a five-point lead over United into an eight-point behind. There were only six matches left to play, including one against United and a trip to dangerous Newcastle.
There was no way they could overhaul their far more experienced neighbors. And so to their final match, when again they lost their nerve, only to find it again in a dramatic way, with not one but two goals in injury time to win the title. Whodathunk?
You can’t buy luck, either!
What else?
You need to believe!
After City’s dramatic win, Kompany, arguably best defender this season, said “Sergio scored the winner and he was on the floor crying. Then I saw other players pouring their eyes out. Strong personalities don’t get emotional very often. I said it before that miracles happen in Manchester — but it’s this side of the road this time. We have been so good this season, we have been incredible, especially at home. Then all of a sudden, in this game, we couldn’t get through. But do you know what? For some reason we have done it before this season and I never stopped believing. Never ever did I stop believing. When we scored that goal it reminded me of the game against Tottenham when we scored the winner in the last minute and against Sunderland when we came back from two down to draw. We have done it before so we had no reason to not believe.”
And of course, you can’t buy that!
Then if you’re saying that overspending doesn’t mean instant trophies, why do clubs do it?
Clubs do it because it’s what the fans want!
Fans demand that because everyone else is doing it! So it must be right!
The problem isn’t with spending but with clubs, fans and UEFA perception that overspending can lead to trophies. Overspending is two edged sword, it can get you in debt or lucky in a season or two (and eventually in debt). Bigger teams are spending more than their capacity, run into debit and then wait for a savior. To make the mud muddier, smaller teams spend most of their limited resources on one or two star players in a hope that would change their status quo but they end up in debt and most of the time delegated. Then they will complain about how they didn’t have enough money and next time they will need more! This mistake is repeated over and over by world’s teams!
OK, so what should clubs do?
In the movie Moneyball, a smaller baseball team coach, Billy Beane, was telling his assistant coaches, "The problem we're trying to solve is that there are rich teams, and there are poor teams. Then there's 50 feet of crap. And then there's us. It's an unfair game."
You can ‘unfair’ the game if you take a step back and see what the real problem is.
Beane hired a statistic genius who analyze players’ performance based on the numbers and then Billy would use this data, along with his experience, to build a better team.
"If we pull this off, we change the game. We change the game for good.”, which he did, at least in the movie!
This is what clubs need to do.
The FFP rules can have a positive impact on smaller clubs since it would force them to look at alternatives other than overspending
They need to realize that overspending isn’t always the case behind winning but alternative, innovative ways like spending on developing facilities, homegrown players, Youth programs, technologies for improving tactics, such as the one by Prozone and any other thing that’s worth it. They need to look at out of their League transfer markets, educate themselves and their fans with open discussions, and look at out of box ideas.
For this, I admire Wenger, Spaletti, Ferguson, Capello, Mourinho, Conte, Mazzari, and Lippi.
For this, I admire Napoli’s fans and story of winning in 90’s, then going down to Second then third divisions, then to bankruptcy and now are debt-free and making profits and won the cup against the unbeaten club, Juventus, last weekend.
What makes soccer a competitive game is its uncertainty. Unknown teams with innovative tactics can win against the most experienced teams (Greece Euro’04). Teams with new skills can win against already establish skills (Montpellier and PSG).
New styles, skills, tactics evolves every other day somewhere in the world.
The game gives all reasons for fans from different backgrounds to follow the it.
This makes the beauty of the game!
I finish this discussion with this. At beginning of season, Manchester City fans were talking about winning. Manchester United’s coach Alex Ferguson referred to them as “The small club with plenty of talk, all talk, thenoisy neighbors who keep the radio on all the time.” Then City started to show brilliant performance and in the middle of the season, United fans held this banner at the derby game:
“The noisy neighbours are getting louder, Alex”
City won the game, and were heading to win the title, City’s fans held these banners:
“Oi Fergie we're having a party”
“Can you hear us, Ferguson?”
It seems Fergie isn’t getting the jokes, but whatever lol.
