Statistics & Style.....

So, I've blogged about this topic before, but I'm not a fan of the "stats as gospel" line of thinking. Why? Well, analytically, sample groups are easily manipulated to generate the results you already wanted. For example, you want to prove Spain is great. They don't score a ton of goals usually, so you concoct or emphasize a possession stat. At the other end of the spectrum, sometimes stats lead to such academic conclusions that they lose their tether to reality. In Soccernomics, it was concluded that Iceland (or one of those Nordic countries) watched or liked soccer the most. Really? Thus, between those two extremes, stats only reveal something useful about 30% of the time (feel free to cite that).

That being said, statistics are like a view from a mountain top - you can see the whole valley, even if you can't predict which direction a particular stream will flow in a year's time. I definitely will include basic stats in the book. Soccer is a game of scarcity, and goals still count for something. As do trophies.

However, the bottom line is not the finish line. My favorite soccer writing uses powerful prose to paint vivid pictures of players and teams. I loved the old "Tuesday Portrait" at the Run of Play. In the age of video and Youtube, perhaps such descriptions are becoming obsolete. However, analysis should not be confused with video watching paralysis - a writer's goal often is to help your better understand something you've already seen.

For example, Kubala scored plenty of goals for Barca, but I love the innate contradiction of his playing style: he invited defenders into his broad shoulders, then, after a bump, tip-toed around them with the grace of a ballerina. He was both bull and bullfighter.

And I promise that's the last and only "torero" reference you will see in this blog and in my book. I will keep the armchair sociology to a minimum.