SG - And seeing Cisse, Aguero, and RVP all go from top of the league to bottom, while Suarez switches bottom to top, certainly shows the variability of these numbers.

According to the file that Man City gave with their Opta data when they released that year for free, a big chance is "A situation where a player should reasonably be expected to score usually in a one-on-one scenario or from very close range." which I assume is the same for this, since it's also Opta.

I'm wondering MCOA, do you have Jelavic's numbers from last year? I mean, his horrible numbers for this year match up with what I've seen. Last year obviously he scored more, but I'd be interested in what his "conversion" rate was.

EDIT: RVP has so many of them, maybe he does such a good job on marginal chances that they are deemed big chances by the observers. Like an outfielder who makes hard balls seem catchable, dragging down his percentage of plays made.

How true is this really? Well, they obviously struggle against Dortmund. But if you asked me to pick between a top 2 of Man City and Man Utd and Bayern and Dortmund I'd take the German teams.

Germany is quite a bit better in terms of domestic football, which seems like it should help with lower/middle table teams.

Challenge time: Without looking it up, name a current German national team player, who plays club football at a German club, other than Bayern or Dortmund.

That was kind of the point, they have no depth. Bayer are a semi-decent, nothing special team. Maybe on par with Everton.

I'm not going to argue too much because I don't follow the Bundesliga, but there is absolutely no way Everton is dominating Arsenal on the road the way Bayern did today. Absolutely none.

Hey FPH, can't one say the same thing about La Liga though? Pretty much the entire core is built from RM, Barca and the EPL, no?

And the last time either of Real and Barca didn't finish 1/2 was in 2004. Hell, the last time another team was within 20 points of either of them was 2009.

oday, we heard Gus Johnson commentate his second soccer game for FOX Soccer, where he was the announcer for the UEFA Champions League match between Arsenal and Bayern Munich. His performance as a commentator at the Emirates Stadium tonight showed that he was a considerable amount of work ahead of him if he wants to improve.

The main issue with Johnson’s commentating today was his inability to correctly read the game in key moments. Examples include Johnson shouting “What a save!” when Manuel Neuer stopped an Olivier Giroud shot that was aimed point-blank at the German goalkeeper. Plus, in the first half, Bayern Munich won a free kick on the edge of the area, Johnson didn’t call it. Either he didn’t see the referee signaling for a free kick, or didn’t understand the call that the ref made. Instead his commentary was “A nice slide… dangerous for Arsenal.” His inability to distinguish between a foul and a “nice slide” is worrying. Plus, the TV viewer at home shouldn’t be the one figuring out it’s a free kick before the commentator does.

Other flubs included repeatedly mispronouncing Bacary Sagna’s name in the first half, as well as misreading a Bayern Munich corner as an Arsenal goal kick, and lulling us to sleep with his monotone commentating during quieter moments of the game.

Thankfully co-commentator Ray Clemence papered over many of the cracks, doing a far better job alongside Johnson than Warren Barton did last week. Clemence’s insights into the game were timely and astute, often enhancing our experience of watching this exciting match. His chemistry with Johnson was also decent. Clemence was able to defuse Johnson’s over-exuberance at times. When Johnson made the “What a save!” call, Clemence explained that “To be fair to Neuer, he doesn’t know a lot about it. If that’s half a yard either side of him, it’s in the back of the net.”

While Johnson’s performance was far from catastrophic, today revealed a little more regarding how much of a gulf there is between what he knows compared to the knowledge level of an average soccer commentator.

I wouldn't have gotten any. I don't see why this matters though. Unless your argument is that Germany has been much better at the domestic level the last 15 years than England purely because of the starting 11 (which has completely turned over during this time, in most spots multiple times) rather than a much more logical explanation - they're better, as a country, at every level. The EPL has had some advantages in terms of the strength of the pound and good American TV contracts. It will be interesting to see how and if that changes.

Except this year, of course :)

The main issue with Johnson’s commentating today was his inability to correctly read the game in key moments. Examples include Johnson shouting “What a save!” when Manuel Neuer stopped an Olivier Giroud shot that was aimed point-blank at the German goalkeeper.

Bayern play in a cupcake league. Dortmund is the only team that can play up to their level, and their track-record against them is not good. They had a cupcake group for the CL, and lost their second game 3-1 to BATE Borisov... They are hardly invincible.

Bayer are a semi-decent, nothing special team. Maybe on par with Everton.

I mean, "not invincible" is a very long distance from any kind of criticism. Everyone's vincible. Having a relatively weak record against Dortmund, one of the five or so best club teams in the entire world, is hardly some horrible black mark on your CV.

There are only two clubs in the Premier League that are clearly better than Everton. This suggests equivalence between the German and English leagues, not divergence.

What I note here is that the Premier League has a big advantage in the high mid-range, but then a big disadvantage in the true middle range. After the top seven clubs in the Premier League, there are a whole lot of cupcakes.

I'm hesitant to give much credit to Chelsea because they were horribly outplayed by Barca and Bayern. Yeah they won the CL, but that doesn't mean they deserved to or were one of the 20 best teams in Europe last year.

They're a top 20 teams in terms of talent but I don't think they played like it over the course of the year last year.

I would say they were horribly outplayed by Bayern in the final.

He's a really poor choice, but it's not like Fox has a ton of better options among their ranks.

The most baffling aspect of this Arsenal side is that it so often gives the impression that it isn't far from being good. It keeps offering hope of better things to come. There are runs of five, six games in the Premier League that are good enough both to get Arsenal into the Champions League and to keep fans believing. Even against Bayern the opening minutes offered promise, Theo Walcott's pace looking as though it could unsettle Daniel van Buyten. But then, as so often, came a fatal sloppiness.

No Premier League side has made as many mistakes leading to goals this season as Arsenal: it averages a defensive error every 71 minutes. Last season it was every 117 minutes. Chelsea make a mistake only every 190 minutes. But it's not just errors; there's an institutional laxity about the side. After seven minutes that suggested a potential classic, a wounded Arsenal hurling itself at a sleek Bayern, the flaws came to the fore.

[...]

It was a shambles, and it's hard to know who to blame but the coaching staff. For all the talk of the lack of money Arsenal has spent, much of its underperformance has resulted from errors that would be unacceptable from professionals far lower down the pyramid. Former Arsenal defender Steve Bould was recruited in the summer to improve that aspect of Arsenal's play, but if anything it's even worse this season. Yet really it seems a matter of attitude rather than position of softness. That can be a matter of confidence and morale -- there can be a tendency when things are going wrong to become fatalistic, but then it is up to the manager to encourage his side to take responsibility.

Jonathan Wilson half-buries the Gunners:

Another way of putting this, here is Germany's team sheet from the Italy game from Euro 2012

Well some googling indicates to me that "rosbif" is a French word for the English, derived from "roast beef". Not sure if it's insulting or not. No worries, we'll just beat Lyon with out Welshman, our Togolese and our fine collection of Belgians. Oui oui Monsieur Aulas!

Well some googling indicates to me that "rosbif" is a French word for the English, derived from "roast beef".

I think Benteke fits Tottenham's needs even more clearly than he fits Arsenal's. And he'd be perfect for Everton, he'd be great at Swansea or West Ham or Norwich. He's just really good at football, and lots of clubs need a striker, or need a better striker.

While this is true now, it's interesting just how quickly German and Spanish talent has been consolidated at Bayern/Dortmund and Barca/Real, respectively, over the past several years.

Summer-borns are similarly outcast. Far more Premiership footballers are born in October and November than in June and July. 'They are bigger and make more of an impact on the pitch,’ White says, 'then, of course, they get selected, better coached and leave the other guys behind.’ What else do you need?

Summer-borns are similarly outcast. Far more Premiership footballers are born in October and November than in June and July. 'They are bigger and make more of an impact on the pitch,’ White says, 'then, of course, they get selected, better coached and leave the other guys behind.’ What else do you need?

It would seem there's a market inefficiency here that could be exploited just by focusing solely on kids with May-June-July-August birthdays, since it seems they are largely getting dismissed out of hand in some circles.

In Sweden the kids are grouped by year, so here the kids born early in the year are overrepresented.

And indeed, Arsenal does have the easiest schedule remaining. These are strength of schedule remaining as a % of average team quality. So "-9%" means your schedule is 9% easier than an average schedule.

Arsenal: -9%
Chelsea: +14%
Everton: -2%
Tottenham: +5%

(Chelsea really do have a tougher schedule going forward. They have five more games against top-7 clubs, and they've already played both the home and road games against bottom-dwellers Reading, Wigan and QPR.)

This is actually becoming a concern now in the US. Parents are purposely holding back their kids from school so they can get an advantage in athletics. I'm guessing its been going on awhile in Texas but has been spreading throughout the country. I seem to recall that 60 Minutes did a piece where some parents are purposely holding their kids back for social and academic reasons now.

I guess it worked though because it was a 5th-7th (can't remember) round draft choice of the Phillies and signed for about $100K.

I graduated 19 years ago btw.

Because we relentlessly fact-check professional writers here, I have no choice but to apply the same standards to you and say that either you're talking about this guy, or you are SENILE AND ARE A LAZY BASTARD WHO CAN'T BE BOTHERED TO GET HIS FACTS STRAIGHT!

I feel like I missed something...

I think that there is a market inefficiency but I'm not sure how easy it would be to exploit even for a good coach. Even if you are aware in the abstract that their is a bias toward favoring slightly older players, if you are evaluating a small group of players (a few dozen?) I think it would be extremely difficult to convince oneself that your eyes are lying and that the kid in front of you that is 6 months older isn't just benefiting from age, but also because he's really talented.

Recommend the Galatasaray-Schalke game (well, to everyone but ultra-hipster Arjun).

Milan played exceptionally. Never let up. By the end, Barca was simply resigned to their fate.

Also, Chelsea up in Barca 2-0 late in that game. Premier League teams are 3 for 3 today and it's not like they were taking down minnows--PSG, Barca and Ajax academies are no joke.

Galatasaray is like the island of misfit toys. Altintop, Sneijder, Riera and Felipe Melo with Eboue on the bench.