Numbers and soccer

I hated math and numbers when I was a kid. ask my parents. Ask Mr Flannigan Hyde. Ask Mr. Sami. I began to actually see the use of them and the application of them to the world when I read the Sporting News subscription my dad had. It applied statistics and math to every sport of the time, particularly baseball. I was hooked.

I saw the same type of application to numbers with the stock market and company financials. It is really really ironic (the situation is actually in the dictionary!) that I teach Finance and use simple math to college students. I believe my parents are still in a state of disbelief.

I read a lot about soccer and try to see the same numerical connection to the game of football as other sports. After all: numbers don't lie!  The book I am reading these days is called "the numbers don't lie: Why everything you know about soccer is wrong" It is a Bill James type perspective where numbers are used strategically for success. (Moneyball)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/27/sports/soccer/with-new-book-seeking-truth-in-statistics-of-soccer.html?_r=0
 I think the book can piss people off as it refutes the common "knowledge" that a fan or novice coach might have. Some of the issues listed in the first half of the book:

• Chelsea has gathered 32 million pieces of data from 12-13,000 games
• On corner kicks, only 1 in 5 result in a shot-only 1 in 9 of those shots result in a goal
• Authors say (And I think prove) football is a 50-50 game:half luck and half skill
• Average number of goals is 2.66 per game over all four European leagues
• Bookmakers have a harder time picking soccer scores than other sports
• Two anaylysts data suggested that 1/2 of World cup matches are decided by luck, not by being better or worse.
• The team that shoots more, actually wins less than half the time
• defenders on average touch the ball almost 2 times as much as the forwards  60 vs. 30

More on this later but I can see that as a coach, one always wants to be somewhat detached from the emotion of the game and goal of the training (or even game!) I some cases, I think I observed on my own watching a zillion games live  or on TV that corners are a lot of excitement over nothing for exmaple.

On the other hand, I have something to say to young players who want to start on defense because they are a bit nervous on the field: "sure, you can be a back-by the way Julie/Bill, you will probably touch the ball more than anyone on the field!"