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Message: [QUOTE="IthacaMatt, post: 4802334, member: 405"] In a funny coincidence, I was listening to a soccer match the other day (or maybe a post-game analysis show), and the speaker, a previously "all league" level player, talked about how advanced metrics had taken over the game, particularly in the area of player recruitment. He said, "Yes, you can learn things from those stats, but I prefer to judge a player's performance with my own eyes." There are so many movements and runs and positions a player takes up on the field (or on a basketball court) that may be important to a team's set-up and tactics that just don't fit into those neat little analytical boxes, like "take-ons" or "successful dribbles" in soccer. The +/- rating tries to quantify some of those intangibles in U.S. sports like basketball, but most would agree that it's an imperfect measure. And I guess to solidify that point, my team, Chelsea FC, in the recent past signed a guy from Germany who led the league in tackles as a fullback (a defender along the sidelines). Chelsea signed that guy, and he couldn't get into the first team and seldom played before he was sent away. Two other attacking guys, both also from Germany, were considered great rising attacking talents in the world and we signed them both for a gazillion dollars. Of course, after 3 years, neither one approached the levels they had played at in Germany. In part this is because, top-to-bottom, the Premier League is the most competitive of the big European leagues, because they have the most television money. That allows even the mid-level teams to have a lot of good players on them, especially compared to 15 years ago when I first started watching. Now, the advanced metrics can tell you the relative strength of these leagues around the world, so you can project "OK, when someone moves from Italy to Spain, there is this difference in how many fouls are called (players tend to be protected better in Spain, and kicked a lot in Italy, where until the last few years they play with much more focus on defense). Or you can say, "goal scorers from Germany moving to England tend to see their production drop by about 20%", and the opposite would be true, as well. Harry Kane's best years in England produced 25-30 goals, but this year playing for Bayern Munich in Germany, he's currently on pace to get over 40 goals. But those are just numbers, trends, etc. There is more to sports than just numbers. [/QUOTE]

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