Benítez was often accused of managing by numbers; that may have been the case, but in terms of his substitutions, it appears he could have been using the wrong numbers. Across every league, the <58<73<79 rule offered a greater hope of mounting a comeback than any other substitution pattern. The greatest difference came in Serie A, where it brought a 52 percent chance of taking something from the game, as opposed to 18 percent if the rule was not followed. Those managers who never followed it paid the price. Take Tenerife’s José Luis Oltra, who never once used the <58<73<79 rule to replace his
...more
