So Man Utd. have a big residual…much of that must be due to Sir Alex, right?

Nostalgic for my days in econ…nah…never did I look at anything quite so interesting. Is there an audience for a more extensive soccer-metric analysis? It’s an exciting prospect…got to run!

I then matched these salary numbers up with the clubs’ point total from league play that season. You might argue that cup tournaments should have a chance to add to that productivity number, but it’s cleaner to ignore it rather than to obsess over how much to weight those non-league matches. Simple point totals offer decent comparability across clubs.

As most anyone would guess, there’s a strong positive relationship between success and payroll. The plot linked here shows this:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/27428912@N04/2555637101/

What to me is more interesting, though, is to look at the clubs that appear far above and far below the fitted line. (A regression through all 20 data points shows the best fitting straight-line relationship between wages and points.) A club that had more points than its wage level alone would have predicted would appear above the line. This is a measure of how effective they were in turning wages into results. Clubs that aren’t so efficient will appear below the line.

Not surprisingly, all the demoted teams last year fell below the line. Another notable underachiever was Newcastle. It seems they’ve had a reputation for that recently. (Money alone doesn’t alleviate boredom, eh Kev?) On the other side of the “quality for the quid” spectrum is Man U. They had a whopping 17 points more than their wage level would have suggested. Others that did well by this metric were Spurs, Everton, Bolton and Reading. For the Royals, mean reversion kicked in this year, but that’s another story.

Chelsea is an interesting case. If you squint at the data the right way, you might see a kind of levelling off in Points at higher Wages. If a curved line were fit instead, with Chelsea influencing the fall-off, we’d be showing diminishing marginal productivity. (Does this make you nostalgic for your days in economics, Susan?)

Anyway, even just this simple analysis seems revealing. Of course, I’m predisposed to anything that makes Man U look good.

I’m a big fan of Rafa too. Anyone who can win the French 3 times running (is it 3 or 4) is both very patient and a tremendous athlete. But I want Federer to win this year, though I think he will not do it. I’d like to see Federer win the French and Nadal win Wimbledon, just to keep things interesting. I wouldn’t even mind Djokovic, and definitely Ana Ivanovic. That would be fun to see two Serb champions.

Are you excited about Jozy going to Villareal? I am, though I know it will be a while before he settles in and gets a spot on the first team. I just hope that he gets adequate playing time before 2010, if you know what I mean. I have BIG hopes for him. Did you see the Spain-US game yesterday? Freddy looked good–it was a shame they took him out at the half…haha, I need to leave this comment at your site, R.S.!

What’s up with your first response? “[...] Original post here [...]“, what is that?

I like your new site and am pretty impressed at all of your Euro 2008 previews. I am never bold enough to predict who will win. Who would have predicted Greece four years ago? Actually, I haven’t thought that much about it and it’s only three days away. I’ve been watching French Open tennis (go Federer), and Steve & I have our anniversary today. But I’m sure I’ll be immersed in soccer starting Saturday, except for when Wimbledon rolls around.

“Some visitors are staying farther afield. Munich collector Betina Gerlach says she started searching for a room in Basel six months ago but eventually gave up and booked a room in Zurich, about an hour away by train. Other fair-goers are staying several hours away in French towns such as Strasbourg or closer by at German towns like Freiburg.” (Crow, Kelly)

All because some soccer fans are going to be present? Come on. I too noticed the picture of the Greek fans and the one of the more subdued couple admiring a painting/sculpture, and thought it was a nice extreme of pictures they chose to make their point.

I will have to leave it at that for now, lest a book is written here about what I’m thinking.

Steve, you are such a genius! (I’m not worthy, I’m not worthy)! Only you would think to look up one of our favorite film clips ever–from Manhattan (back when Woody Allen was producing his funniest material). How many times have we applied the “negative capability” quote (to The Girl, mostly)? But of course, it’s best used for Italian football, as the negative style was capable enough to win the World Cup.

You are right that the Journal is usually pretty good in its footy coverage. It has to be, as soccer is the sport of choice for so many of its readers. The world is shrinking, markets are global, and no one can afford to be captive to provincial attitudes, even in sport. But I felt that the art/soccer article was egregious in portraying every soccer fan as a troublemaker. That’s one attitude that simply will not die in the American press.

As for the wages/profits article, it’s interesting but doesn’t tell the full story. That would require a more thorough examination of the books of all the clubs involved.

(Isaac and Tracy running into Yale and Mary)
Isaac: We were downstairs at the Castelli galleries and saw the photography exhibition. Incredible, absolutely incredible.
Tracy: Yes.
Mary: Really, you liked that?
Isaac: Er, yes, the photographs downstairs – great, absolutely great. Did you …
Mary: No, I really felt it was very derivative. To me it looked like it was straight out of Diane Arbus, but it had none of the wit.
Isaac: Really? Well, you know, we didn’t really like them as much as the plexiglass sculpture, that’s what I meant …
Mary: … Really, you liked the plexiglass, uh?
Isaac: You didn’t like the plexiglass sculpture either?
Mary: Uh, that’s interesting. No, er, …
Isaac: It was a hell of a lot better than that steel cube. Did you see the steel cube?
Mary: Now that was brilliant to me, absolutely brilliant.
Isaac: The steel cube was brilliant?
Mary: Yes. To me, it was very textural, you know what I mean? It was perfectly integrated, and it had a marvelous kind of negative capability. The rest of the stuff downstairs was bullshit!

It would be fun to juxtapose a conversation like that with one about the wonderful negative capability of the Italian catenaccio. Maybe Basel will be just the place for it to happen.

I’ll comment later on the money and football article. That one I’ll treat seriously since finance and numbers are involved.

One last point for tonight: the WSJ is usually pretty soccer-friendly. They had quite a few favorable articles leading up to the last WC.