https://www.si.com/soccer/2018/05/24/tom-byer-us-soccer-pilot-program-canceled “They wanted to put what they called some metrics around the program. How do you measure it? What are the outcomes? How are we going to know that it’s working? They were always stumbling over this question. And the point for us was what was the program going to bring? It was a couple things: Increase participation rates, hopefully. Increase player retention rates between 6 and 12. And improve quality, technical ability. Those are what the outcomes are that we spoke about. “But they were always stuck on those metrics, about how they were going to measure it. The contract period was for six months between June and December, but what happened was Seattle [Sounders] liked the program so much they didn’t want to start the program at the end of the year. They basically wanted to kick it off at the beginning of this year’s season, in March. So we get out of December and into January, and things kind of started to fall apart after that.” So this grassroots program to get 2-7 year olds playing soccer -started by an american with a trackrecord of success in Japan - was kicked to the curb by US Soccer b/c it cannot be properly measured. from my perspective, this is satirically absurd....but unfortunately indicative of much of corporate, executive and governmental culture in the USA these days. Everything must be reduced to numbers and quantified. if it cannot be, it is useless....whether it is research, facts, analysis, personal identity...anything....even grassroots soccer programs with a generational plan.... Earnie Stewart US soccer GM: “A lot of times when you look at a player, you already have a clouded vision of him,” Stewart says. “You like him or you don’t like him because, I don’t know, he’s athletic or he’s not athletic. And you have to try to look past that when it comes to the scouting process. What numbers do and what analytics do is they don’t look at who the person is – if he’s athletic, what kind of ethnicity he is. It’s just the numbers. These are the facts.” an article about analytics and us soccer: https://frntofficesport.com/us-soccer-analytics-hackathon/ “U.S. Soccer is one of the more forward-thinking organizations,” Moses said. “So [data] is a big pillar of what we do on a day to day basis. Our analytics department is very powerful and we’re growing quickly.” all these data and analytics guys are going to fight to keep their jobs and make themselves important, Earnie stewart has a big background in using data and analytics....probably had a big role in why he was hired as GM. I know JK used fitness tests to determine which players he would play and bring into the team and which he would discriminate against....often at the expense of skill and technical capacity (the most skilled players arent usually the stamina freaks) overall, i see the US soccer federation going all-in on data and analytics and I'm pessimistic that it will lead to any improvements in the results of the team. I could be wrong but I dont think soccer lends itself to quantification and I'm even more convinced (given the USSF's trackrecord) that any attempts they make to make data the bedrock of all they do....will be an epic failure...not that anyone will likely notice...considering the recent failures of the team.
What metrics is Tom Byer's program being measured on. Japan has always been an Asian powerhouse and the popularity of soccer has been growing steadily. Japan won the AFC Cup in 1992, 2000, 2004 and 2011. The only time they failed to make the round of 16 was in 1998. Their best World Cups were at home in 2002 and in 2010. In 2014 they were 29th in the WC final rankings, 14 places behind the US. They didn't qualify for the 2015 U17 World Cup and were knocked out in the round of 16 in 2017 and in a rare appearance in the U20 WC last year they were outperformed by the US, who are steadily improving. And although their teams have won 6 Champions' Leagues they are way behind South Korea. So what measurement are we using? The USSDA was introduced in 2007, 18 years after Byer's started work in Japan. Before that we were hampered by relying on the college system to pump out untested players at 22 or 23 years old. In 2015 the US reached the U17 round of 16 for the first time in over a decade. In 2017 they reached the qfs. The U20 team has made similar progress reaching successive quarter finals. The WCQ failure had many causes but to me youth development was not one of them.
Then I trust you have no quantitative measurements to prove that. The reality is wise people use all the tools available to make the best decision at the time. So a combination of qualitative and quantitative analyses would serve a person using discretion. Quantitative analyses give us an outline. If it's still not clear what that depicts, then you can take it a step further and use qualitative analysis to fill in the gaps. Some of the metrics are excellent jumping off points in football, a sport where there are leagues throughout the world to scout. If a player stands out when scanning he can warrant more of your scouting attention. At the end of that process you can make an informed decision whether the player will translate based on the attributes you know are required from experience. Anybody who doesn't use quantitative measures as one of the tools in football in this day and age is a fossil and will likely be left behind. The reality is quantitative measures were already used, first in regards to goals, then assists. But that's applicable to a minority of players on the field and far from tells you the whole story about those it pertains to. So naturally you should desire to delve deeper with quantitative measures of performance as an aid. One shouldn't be averse to evolution.
The only thing solely focusing on quantitative evolves into is bureaucracy. Qualitative measures are as equally important and the most often ignored because they’re not as easily measured.
IMO the biggest/main disadvantage of quantitative data is that many fail to understand the limitations. for the most part, the limitations aren't in the numbers themselves but in the people that determined what or how to measure and the people that interpret those numbers.
I can see why a figurehead coach who does what the federation tells him to do and calls in the players the federation tells him to would appeal to a data-obsessed bureaucracy. I'm not trying to imply that data or stats cannot be a useful tool and part of the picture....but my feeling and instinct tells me the potential is there for the use of numbers and quantitative data to override the value of subjective judgement and remove it from the process entirely....and the whole national team program could become strictly governed by the analytics department....which would be, imo, a disaster....
his program isn't being measured...its been de-funded b/c it can't be properly measured. mind you, that is not the same thing as it not being effective or worthy. it is the mentality that anything that cant be satisfiably measured is not worth pursuing that i find off-putting. just b/c you cant (fuly or properly) measure something doesnt mean it isnt a good thing to do.
Development academies and development programs are expensive to not only run but also administer. In order to raise funding for these programs the USSF is going to need to provide proof that the programs are working. Regardless of whether or not anyone around agrees with this, it all comes down to money. Investors, right or wrong, like to see MEASURABLE results. Seeing as the age groups being talked about in Byer's program don't have any international tournaments to get wins and loses from............ Sports, unfortunately, at the highest levels aren't a charity.
your post perfectly epitomizes the mentality that will guarantee US soccer remains an also-ran. USSF is a 501c3...its a non-profit. (it's supposed to be, anyway) If you wanna talk about what MLS does..that's different. (what's funny is that the Sounders...a privately funded org....wanted to support the program...but a non-profit didn't...its kinda ironic). revenues us soccer creates are not dependent on convincing capitalists to fund them, anyway...that might be a directive on high from the board or CEO...but when the USMNT gets money it funds a lot of USSF. for the most part, they are not getting that money with strings attached.
Money is budgeted, and allocated right? The USSF has a board of directors, correct? Well, right or wrong (and whether or not anyone around here agrees or not), the Board wants to see measurable results for it's programs. If a program isn't getting results that money then gets allocated somewhere else. It all comes down to money in the end. It doesn't matter if you are a 501c3, a private entity, or a publicly traded entity.
I am already sick of analytics being used in baseball. People going with new stats and weird defensive shifts over gut feeling and intuition. Makes it more robotic and less about hustle and heart. I would hate to see this happen to soccer too.
Metrics are part of the puzzle, but not the entire puzzle as so often seems to be assumed. Soccer metrics specifically have been notoriously difficult to produce in simple, reliable forms. We see them so much in baseball because it works for judging baseball players. In soccer, we see top teams using them more and more, but they are still rather crude measurements and teams that use them well use them as one tool in a more comprehensive assessment. If US soccer thinks we can math our way to the top of the soccer pie, they are sadly mistaken. And, yet again, guilty of thinking they can do something better than the rest of the world despite no evidence or success to hang that theory on.
When Germany decided to "reform" their system. They had a strong soccer infrastructure with club teams, soccer was the most popular and well funded sport in the country, and they had the public infrastructure. Before any of the changes really took hold, they were runners up in the 02 world cup and then finished 3rd in their group at Euros 04. They still spent a billion dollars over a country the size of east Texas. Meanwhile, the US Soccer is trying to divy up a hundred million dollar surplus with everyone trying to get a cut for what they believe will help solve US Soccer. If US Soccer helps fund a program in pasadena, they have to give similar money for a similar program in portland, maine. There were discussions for the US youth coaching education to be centered in Kansas City and then satellite/continuing education being done at MLS clubs. That got blown up due to a sense that US Soccer was favoring MLS Clubs and unfairly helping them. While it may be true, where else can US Soccer set up an office at a training center with a team that also has youth teams as well as previously qualified coaches. There are still just a few USL teams that have youth academies or strong affiliations with youth academies. There are two (North Carolina and St Louis) that could actually do this today. The US can't try to use the Netherlands, England, etc as examples when they are the size of Russia and China. It isn't taking an hour train to the next town because they have a large soccer club. For most, it's taking a flight. In addition, you have the high school experience and college that is completely different than most of the world. US Soccer is going to continue to do dumb stuff and make mistakes because there really is no blueprint.
I said it in this forum a while ago, soccer is not baseball, you cannot use stats to measure soccer. Many people here said, "stats do work, if you don't understand advanced stats, that is your problem" I couldn't do anything but to laugh at those people. Soccer is a sport that requires EXPERIENCE to learn how to evaluate the quality of a player. This experience can only come from playing the sport, at least a decent level. It is like music, you cannot understand how difficult or what level of virtuosity is needed to play and master a very difficult music piece if you have never played the instrument. Since I am an ex soccer player, the eye test is for me the only tool to evaluate a player.
People used to say the same thing about stats in Baseball. Until Billy Beane... Even after Billy Beane for a while. Now it's the norm. All it takes is the right minds to find what statistics actually lead to winning in soccer.
Jayson Werth played MLB from 2002 to 2017 and had 1,465 hits including 229 home runs. http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/24329670/jayson-werth-rails-super-nerds-killing-game is about his comments in August that agree with you. As a side note about shifts, I read that shifts are bad defense because they reduce opponents' batting average but greatly increase the amount of walks. It may sound strange to think that shifts could make pitchers throw more balls, but the difference was too big to be a coincidence. I like numbers, but people should know that players are good or not good because of what they do on the field, not because of what a formula with arbitrary value for events thinks of what happened on the field. It can be hard to draw the line between a formula showing what players are good and players being considered good because of a formula. The on-field performance compared to formulas can be like what came first, the chicken or the egg. The MLS Audi Index is proprietary. I don't think they should expect fans to agree with the formula without being willing to share the formula.
When trying to punch above your weight, you need to take advantage of everything at your disposal. In depth analysis and statistics are part of it. If you are a hitter and a defense puts a shift on, they're telling you something. You are not a complete player. You can't hit the other way. (I'm actually surprised it took this long for this kind of strategy to happen) It's the same thing on the pitch. If a player scores a significantly higher percentage of his goals going to his right as opposed to his left, you give him his left all day long. If I'm a goalie and I know the percentages of where a player shoots on a penalty, damn right I'm going to use them. Obviously you don't shift on a penalty, but you are probably going to dive that way.
I think it is fair to say wise managers and teams should use as many tools and as much info to make themselves better. I just don't want the situation to go to an extreme where managers just use numbers. For instance John Smoltz said something the other day on how batters are just not using their heads in situational plays offensively. If you see that the defense is shifted on one side of the field, lay down a bunt and get on base and run your legs off. But some nerdy stats guy would tell you that bunts are a waste of time and should rarely be used according to some weird algorithmic formula they use and no one before them has. I don't want that kind of nonsense happening in soccer. I want it more creative and more of improvisational game.
The point I tried to make very badly was that, in terms of Japan's results in international and continental competitions, there is nothing to suggest his program has made a measurable difference.
I don't think you need stats to tell you whether a player is predominately left or right footed. Goalkeepers like the ball to be passed back to their dominant side. You don't need stats to tell you which side that is. Actually stats suggest goalkeepers would save more penalties if they didn't dive but that's widely ignored. Stats can be useful. One English manager said that he asked his goalkeeper to punt the ball downfield rather than play it short, as statistically most of the opposition's defensive headers would end up with his own team. However, teams like Wimbledon and Watford achieved success in the 1980s by using the stats gathered by Charles Reep, which Wolverhampton had used to dominate English football in the 1950s. Other managers jumping on the bandwagon led to the most insufferably boring period of football in modern history. Luckily for Premier League fans those stats have been confined to a period of history. The Audi index btw is a gimmick.
I've read Soccernomics and the Reep story. It is quite interesting. It also is an interesting look at how interpretation is important.
I agree with your sentiment. People watch the game for entertainment. Stats ignore the most important part, the game needs to be played and the players need to execute. But, if stats leads to more interesting strategies and forces players to become more complete players so be it.