Donadoni was a midfielder, Matthaus never played as a defender in MLS, Marquez split his time evenly between holding midfield and CB. MLS has never spent big money on defenders.
no league really splashes cash for defenders. Zabaleta makes $5 mil/year, Kolarov $7 mil/year, while Nasri makes their combined salaries.
Right - but I think the next opportunity for stats geeks in soccer is to uncover data that points to the importance of defenders. Apart from the fact that SKC had the league's stingiest defense last year and won the Cup, I'm convinced defenders are an undervalued position - globally. Just look at Alston's goal for the revs or Skertl's goal for Liverpool over the weekend against Citeh, defenders that score timely goals can have a BIG impact on a team's success. Spain won the 2010 WC in part thanks to their ultra-stingy defense. France let in what, one goal in the entire 1998 tournament? Italy in '82. There are other examples both at the int'l and club level. More often than not, the best defense correlations with Cup winning teams and I believe a guy like Collin (especially, because they won) or JoGo should be paid accordingly.
I was curious so I took a look at the top leagues in Europe to see if there was a trend and noted yes/no if the first place team in the table also gave up the fewest goals in the league. The result is 6-3, where the first place team has given up the fewest goals, with the specifics detailed below. Bundesliga (yes): Bayern (1st) - with the top teams in order of stingiest defense. Ligue 1 (yes): PSG (1st) - giving up an impressive 19 goals in 33 games with Lille in 2nd, giving up just 20. Serie A (no): Roma (2nd) giving up just 19 goals, with 1st plact Juventus giving up just 22. La Liga (yes): Atletico Madrid (1st) allowing just 22 goals and Barcelona (3rd) allowing just 27 with the top 2 defenses in the league, sandwiching Real Madrid which has a still-impress 32 goals allowed. The EPL (no): We have a slight anomaly as Liverpool is in first on the back of outscoring everyone but giving up a less than impressive 42 goals. The stingiest defense in the Prem this year is Chelski in 2nd place, with 4th place Everton 1 goal better than 3rd place Citeh for goals allowed at 31 and 32 respectively. Portuguese Liga (yes): Benfica in 1st with an astonishingly impressive 15 goals allowed, followed by Sporting and Porto at 18 and 22 respectively. Turkish Super Lig (no): This one goes against the trend as 1st place Fenerbahce has given up 29 goals, followed by Besiktas at 27, and 3rd place Galatasaray with the stingiest defense with 24 goals allowed. Greek Super League (yes): This one is interesting as Olympiacos has the stingiest defense giving up just 19, while the 2nd stingiest defense is 4th place Atromitos, which has given up 24 goals. Scottish Premier League (yes): 1st place Celtic has by far the best defense, giving up just 16 goals.
This ties into the old adage about how a good offense is the best defense. Nearly all of the teams you listed above score goals for fun. They don't give up goals because they keep their opponents on the defensive for the majority of the game.
Now let's look at MLS by year- does the best defense correlate with winning the Supporters Shield (to be consistent with the European league structure) or MLS Cup? 2013: League's best defense: SKC SS Winner: NYRB (no) MLS Cup Winner: SKC (yes) 2012: Best defense: SKC SS Winner: SanHo (no) MLS Cup Winner: LA (no) 2011: Best defense: LA SS Winner: LA (yes) MLS Cup Winner: LA (yes) 2010: Best defense: RSL SS Winner: LA (no) MLS Cup Winner: Colorado (no) 2009: Best defense: Houston/Seattle SS Winner: Columbus (no) MLS Cup Winner: RSL (no) 2008: Best defense: Houston SS Winner: Columbus (no) MLS Cup Winner: Columbus (no) 2007: Best defense: Houston SS Winner: DC (no) MLS Cup Winner: Houston (yes) 2006: Best defense: Revs SS Winner: DC (no) MLS Cup Winner: Houston (no) 2005: Best defense: SanHo SS Winner: SanHo (yes) MLS Cup Winner: LA (no) 2004: Best defense: KC SS Winner: KC/Cbus tied (yes) MLS Cup Winner: DC (no) 2003: Best defense: SanHo SS Winner: Chicago (no) MLS Cup Winner: San Jose (yes) 2002: Best defense: LA SS Winner: LA MLS Cup Winner: LA 2001: Best defense: Chicago SS Winner: Miami/Chicago (tied) MLS Cup Winner: SanHo (no) 2000: Best defense: KC SS Winner: KC/Chicago (tied) (yes) MLS Cup Winner: KC (yes) 1999: Best defense: LA SS Winner: DC (no) MLS Cup Winner: DC (no) 1998: Best defense: LA SS Winner: LA (yes) MLS Cup Winner: Chicago (no) 1997: Best defense: Columbus SS Winner: DC (no) MLS Cup Winner: DC (no) 1996: Best defense: Dallas SS Winner: Tampa (no) MLS Cup Winner: DC (no) After looking at the data, best defense doesn't always correlate to league winners or MLS Cup winners, but it does correlate closest with MLS Cup finalists -as there have been a lot of 1-2 match ups in terms of stingiest defense. Even if this goes against my argument it's still interesting to see the relationships.
That is especially true for Spain. In their case, the best defense is to never let the other team get the ball. I do agree that defense is underrated around the world, but I think it's explained by the fact that defense doesn't sell tickets and merchandise.
Except SKC in MLS and Chelsea in the prem - goal scoring is at a premium yet they both have lock down defenses. I gave other examples in the World Cup of champions that didn't score goals for fun but had lockdown defenses (you can argue possession for Spain if you'd like).
Well, in this case, how things are in Europe don't really equate to hear. As we know, in Europe, it's almost always a few teams that have a lot more money than others, so their squads from top to bottom will be better than the less wealthy teams. I know that there is a great disparity in spending between the top teams in MLS and the rest, but that disparity is made up only of DP salaries, and if you take them out, the spending on the rest of the squads is going to be much more even. In this case, I think it's ok to take out the DP players, because they're basically all attacking players, so I would think that what you might call the range in the ability of defenses in MLS would be much smaller than it would be in other leagues, especially if you look at an extreme like Scotland, where Celtic is the only team that can win the league these days, because they can spend so much more. This is obviously just conjecture on my part, I haven't looked up spending on defense from team to team or league to league, and I freely admit sometimes things that seem logical to me aren't don't work as logically as I'd expect or there are other factors I didn't think of, but figured I'd throw that out there.
You can't compare winning a league to winning a tournament competition. Yes, teams can get far winning 1-0 games in tournament competition, or drawing 0-0 and winning in PKs (just look at Greece in the 2004 Euro). For the most part, that's not sustainable for winning a league. You need to play positive soccer to win a league. RBNY won the Supporter's Shield last year, and not coincidentally, they lead the league in goals scored. SKC won the MLS Cup because they had a sound defense that often leads to grinding out ugly results in do or die games.
Fair enough, those are certainly salary / spending considerations but the point was made earlier in the thread that even the top teams in Europe don't overspend on defense with Zabaleta at Dubai Citeh making "just" 5m and Kolarov 7m. However, my point is the revs don't need to "score goals for fun" to win MLS Cup as shown by SKC and I wanted to find data to back up my contention. Collin for SKC is immensely valuable to his team as is Goncalves - to the point you can argue giving up fewer goals, combined with timely goals spread among players will ultimately yield more wins. It's similar to the baseball metric where teams try to optimize on "runs saved" as opposed to "home runs hit." I just think this type of thinking could be applied to soccer with good effect.
Yes - I looked at the Supporters Shield winners for that reason. SKC is a perfect example where they've had the stingiest defense the past 2 years with them being able to put enough together offensively to make a strong playoff run and win MLS Cup. If RBNY made the MLS Cup final on the strength of scoring goals for fun (which we agree they were capable of doing in the regular season) you'd be right, there's no credence to having a strong defense. However, SKC was right there in terms of the Supporters Shield and ultimately won the league on the strength of their defense and their ability to grind out goals on offense. Look at Sinovic and Collin's goals in the playoff game against the revs - obviously they don't even advance without contribution from their defense. That's why I put such a value on having a rock solid defense - that can contribute offensively. Even with Alston in over the weekend the revs looked night and day from DC and it was partly due to the consistent pressure he applied.
A couple of things: I understand what you're saying, but comparing MLS to European teams and leagues was totally off base. A league structure versus a cup structure are two entirely different things. SKC didn't win the league, they won the Cup. I agree that a strong defense can help make a strong playoff/tournament run, just like having a hot goalie can lead to a long Stanley Cup run in hockey. For this reason, it's possibly more important to have a strong defense in MLS relative to the rest of the world.
I'm confused. Do you not considering winning the Supporters Shield (best record in MLS) the equivalent of winning the league in Europe (best record in the EPL etc)? Forget MLS Cup. Don't focus on Cups. Focus only on the league. Supporters Shield = winning the league in Europe. I don't understand what you're stuck on or have an issue with.
Earlier today [and also posted on ChiFire game thread]-- Jeff Lemieux @jeff_lemieux 1h No real update on the extent Jose Goncalves' right quad injury today. When asked, Heaps said the captain was still being evaluated. #NERevs
When you keep a clean sheet, you will get at least a draw, period. However you can score a couple goals and still lose (Dallas). Thus you can argue that defenders are more important than strikers. However the value of strikers is not solely for scoring goals. When you can't keep the ball, you're always under pressure, and a hold-up striker thus helps defense. That gets into why soccer will never (given current computing) be reduced to stats the way baseball can be, because there are too many inter-related variables.
Everyone undervalues defenders. Actually, everyone undervalues everyone but goal-scorers. Fans want to see goals, so players that contribute to winning and have the ability to thrill the fans have extra value. Except that it was negotiated and agreed to. Presumably Goncalves pays an agent to understand the contract - and if he doesn't, he's only got himself to blame (i.e., "he who represents himself has a fool for a client"). It certainly is a raise to the team that you would expect to pay it. It has major implications to their salary cap management. The guy is already the highest paid player on the team, and makes close to 3x the next highest guy. So, Goncalves is getting screwed if he's not making 5x as much as anyone else? Sorry, I love the guy, but he's not right here. There's a reason they have contracts. I find it hard to believe that a guy who has played all over Europe is that naive. That's the point I was trying to make.
I don't even know what you're saying anymore, and I don't think you really do either. You've contradicted yourself multiple times in the past several posts. You've said multiple times that SKC won the league but they didn't they won the Cup, RBNY won the league last year. SKC was competitive in the league, but ultimately lost out to a team with a far more potent attack. Attack-minded teams typically wind up winning in the long haul (league competition) while stingy defenses often prevail in tournaments or cups where games are win or go home and often include overtime and/or penalty kicks.
The facts show that it rarely does. Teams with strong defenses and weak attacks, seldom prevail in a league competition. Citing Chelsea and SKC as "defensive" teams is pretty ridiculous when you consider that they both score more goals per game than the average team in their respective leagues. Chelsea are the third highest scoring team in the Prem (higher than Arsenal who most fans would consider to be an "attacking" team).
Did you bother to read anything I wrote? I keep repeating myself. Last time. I didn't say "and weak attacks" I said stingy defenses. Take a look at all the data I posted above. Yes, you obviously need to score goals but the best teams also have the best defenses.