In all of our discussions on this board, we all use selective memory to remember how a player performed in a given game, or over the course of a season. I was thinking that at this point, while the number of Yanks Abroad is still manageable, it would be useful if the regular users of this forum could develop some system to keep a game log of the teams where Americans play. It could be done in Excel, or there may be a better way to do it, if someone has the initiative to put something together in .cfm or .php. Then it could be posted somewhere central, whether it's a sticky on this site, integrate into www.yanks-abroad.com, or just posted on some other site. Basically, for each team with Americans, we can keep track of the following: Date; Opponent; Competition; Result; Home/Away; Whether our player(s) started, subbed in, sat, or didn't even dress; Whether there were particular circumstances that led to said player not playing or playing (i.e. he or his competition for a starting role was injured or suspended); who played in his stead; Any ratings; any mentions in official match reports; impressions of his play from the team's fans, message boards, or (gasp!) if someone actually watched the match; links to match reports; and whether the game was televised. I figure all this information is regularly collected and posted on this page anyway, so it's just a matter of inputting it as you browse a thread, cataloguing it in order for us to see a snapshot of a player's season on one screen. I think there are enough regular users on the board that we could all sign up for one team and just make an update on a weekly or monthly basis. I would prioritize Americans in the USMNT player pool (and obviously some teams, like Ajax, would be easier than others). Priority teams: Manchester United Manchester City Fulham FC Blackburn Rovers Tottenham Hotspur/Southampton FC Reading FC Preston North End PSV Eindhoven Bayer Leverkusen Hannover 96 FSV Mainz Bastia FC Ajax Amsterdam Standard Liege Other teams, depending on how many people are interested, or if our youth start getting significant first-team PT: Rosenborg FFK Fredrikstad Whatever Wade Barrett's team is. Watford FC Arsenal QPR (if we go retroactive) Liverpool I'm sure I'm missing one or two. I would gladly take one team. And I would be willing to go back to the start of the 04/05 season to compile the information, but we could also start it now, or effective January 1st, if that would make people more likely to sign on. As far as technical arrangements, I would appreciate suggestions. If it makes sense to host it elsewhere, I don't have any solid ideas for that. As far as the interface, it could just be done in Excel. I do have some knowledge of using Access and cold fusion to put it into a webformat, but i wouldn't realistically be able to put time into that until February. Anyway, I just wanted to brainstorm and gauge interest at this point, see if other people thought it would be useful, and would be willing to track one team, and whether people had other ideas or suggestions about how to go about it. (or if this already exists somewhere!) I look forward to your comments.
It just occurred to me how useful this would be for even someone like...Bruce Arena. Maybe we should get US Soccer to fund it once it got going too... Also, some more teams that would not need to be immediate priorities: Energie Cottbus Academica Stoke City Olympiakos NEC Nijmegen Ham-Kam Sporting Cristal (Luchi Gonzalez) Union Berlin (Ryan Coiner) Necaxa? (Daniel Hernandez)
So, not a lot of response so far...I'm hoping that's because of the Fulham-Chelsea excitement yesterday. In other words, despite the chance of being drowned out by Arse-ManU today... BUMP!
Waaaaay back in the day, when I was a shadow mod of this forum, dark_knight came up with a web site (that I nominally helped pull together) that was simply a way to track each of the players we followed... Team sites, fan club sites, FSW schedules... stuff like that. It was cool and was kept up for, I dunno, six months or so. But it just became superfluous to other, more professional endeavors, so it died out. With that as context, here's my comment on your idea: I think its fine, but if you want to see it done, you need to do it yourself or work with someone that has the technical capacity to do it. Throwing it out here as an abstract idea won't move it very far. What you propose is a lot of work. And, while mildly interesting to the folks here, I'm not sure I see the reason to go through all this effort to track these guys. I mean, honestly, I'm not sure I care all that much about how Blackmouth played in a game in September versus today or next week. But hey, that's just one man's opinion.
Thanks for the feedback. I still don't think it would be all that much work, once it's set up. As I said above - all the info gets posted here anyway, it's just a matter of spending 5-10 minutes a week cutting and pasting. Maybe what I'll do is set up a few samples when I have more time (like February) and see if I can get people to sign up for some of the other ones. If there's demand, great, if not, it won't be the first time I have a great idea that nobody else thinks is great.
Doesn't Barrett play for FFK Fredrikstad? And you forgot Corrales (is that his name?) in HamarKameratene (Ham-Kam)
Just thought as the season is kicking off, this might be useful, in part so we can quell the future versions of myths like "Reyna didn't even start when healthy at Man City", "Jonathan Spector never gets a game at West Ham", and "Eddie Lewis has permanently been moved to left back", and in general, to create better-informed discussion on this and USMNT forums. Because I don't have a better technical solution, I propose just an Excel or Google Spreadsheet, with an eventual sticky at the top of the forum. Just seeing if there is any more support for this idea three years later. I will start with Fulham to create a model, and if there's interest, other people can pick up other teams like: Blackburn Everton Reading West Ham (Bolton) (Derby) Sheffield Wednesday Watford (Charlton) Rangers (Sampdoria) Hannover 96 (Wolfsburg) Heerenveen Benfica Standard Liege (clubs in parenthesis are perhaps less of a priority) For some of you who already give us tons of info on specific clubs and players (thinking of the Reading and Hannover 96 folks, for example), this would probably not take you more than an additional 5 minutes per weekend. Just throwing it out there again. I'll start and post my Fulham sheet here on Sunday or Monday, and interested parties can have a look. Cheers, Nick
This is a good idea. I might be willing to do Watford's, since I am a fan and it will be quick and simple with only one Yank on the team (Jay DeMerit). Let's see if this thing picks up any momentum. Show me your prototype for Fulham, mundial.
Uh, I'm no expert in logs, mind you, but if I'm not mistaken players' logs belong in toilets. I'm just sayin'.
I haven't been tracking BigSoccer's wiki project, but could that be used? Barring that, Google Spreadsheet was also the thought that occurred to me. I would really love to revive a links page that Bambule referred to above, but it's just too much of a hassle to maintain and the info becomes obsolete so quickly. It's a good idea only if it's maintained closely, and in my experience it will be hard to find enough folks who will do this with consistency for a large period of time.
I've already been keeping player logs for the entire 2007 calendary year for all the players on the players MLSNHTOWN and I picked in the American Draft - including national team, preseason and reserve matches. Not all that much information included, but I'm at least tracking minutes, goals, assists, and cards. The YAs that I have been tracking are: Oguchi Onyewu (Standard Liege, Jupiler League) Jonathan Spector (West Ham United, EPL) Cory Gibbs (Charlton Athletic, CCC) Jeremiah White (AGF Aarhus, Superligaen) Cam Weaver (FK Haugesund, Adeccoligaen) Josh Grenier (TuS Koblenz, 2.Bundesliga) Just to give some idea of what it looks like, here's what I've got for Oguchi Onyewu in 2007: Code: Date Match Location Result Status Mins G/A/C Type 01/21 Standard vs Sporting Lokeren Liege W 3-1 start/c 90 Jupiler League 01/26 Standard vs Charleroi Charleroi W 5-2 start 90 C Jupiler League 02/03 Newcastle vs Fulham London L 1-2 start 90 Premiership 02/10 Newcastle vs Liverpool Newcastle W 2-1 start 90 Premiership 02/25 Newcastle vs Wigan Athletic Wigan L 0-1 start 90 Premiership 03/03 Newcastle vs Middlesbrough Newcastle D 0-0 start 90 Premiership 03/18 Newcastle vs Charlton Athletic Charlton L 0-2 start 90 Premiership 03/25 USA vs Ecuador Tampa W 3-1 start 90 int'l friendly 03/31 Newcastle vs Manchester City Newcastle L 0-1 sub 17 Premiership 04/07 Newcastle vs Sheffield United Sheffield L 1-2 sub 6 Premiership 04/09 Newcastle vs Arsenal Newcastle D 0-0 start 90 Premiership 04/14 Newcastle vs Portsmouth Portsmouth L 1-2 sub 60 Premiership 05/05 Newcastle vs Blackburn Rovers Newcastle L 0-2 start 90 Premiership 05/13 Newcastle vs Watford Watford D 1-1 sub 32 Premiership 06/02 USA vs China San Jose W 4-1 start 90 G int'l friendly 06/07 USA vs Guatemala Carson W 1-0 start 73 CE Gold Cup 06/12 USA vs El Salvador Foxboro W 4-0 start 90 C Gold Cup 06/16 USA vs Panama Foxboro W 2-1 start 90 C Gold Cup 06/21 USA vs Canada Chicago W 2-1 start 90 Gold Cup 06/24 USA vs Mexico Chicago W 2-1 start 90 Gold Cup 07/11 Standard vs AFC Tubize (BEL 2) Tubize D 1-1 start 90 friendly 07/18 Standard vs Alemannia Aachen (GER 2) Eupen D 1-1 start 57 friendly 07/21 Standard vs Le Mans (FRA) Le Mans L 0-2 start 90 friendly 07/25 Standard vs SC de Braga (POR) Liege L 1-2 start 90 G friendly 07/29 Standard vs FC Metz (FRA) Thionville W 3-1 start 90 friendly 08/05 Standard vs Zulte-Waregem Waregem W 4-1 start 90 GC Jupiler League (If the opponent competes in a different league than the team the player is playing for, the other league is indicated.)
OK, here is a sample I've accumulated so far - I just went through Fulham's last three games of the 2006-07 season and did what I thought would be reasonable for this idea - keeping in mind that it would all be stuff I'd easily cut and paste as I went through the BigSoccer threads that I read anyway (in fact, BigSoccer threads were my primary source). I've also included some other sample explanations that might be really helpful as we progress - why they didn't play, etc. It's quite similar to Elninho's format, except that I've created three separate tabs for the three FFC players, with a little tiny bit more detail. You'll also note that I include data on matches not played, which I think would be just as important if the goal is to contribute to informed debate and analysis on this forum. I am happy to find some happy medium between Elninho's and my format, and comments from others would be helpful (keeping in mind that ordinary BS users are going to be doing this for fun and not because it's their job). One problem with doing it through Google Docs is that I think you need an account with Google to view it. But if we decide Google Docs is the best way to do this, it would be fairly simple to create a BigSoccer account and log-in so any BS user can have view-only access to the files. And all the links would have to be stickied in one thread or something, but that shouldn't be too tough, I think. In the meantime, if you don't have a Google account and want to see what I've done, send me a PM and I can e-mail it to you - unless someone can instruct me how to paste a table like Elninho has done (although some of my columns are wider, so I don't know how good it would look). I'll track FFC for the next few months and see if the idea catches on at all, but I'm happy to take comments and coordinate with other potential contributors. http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pZd0eCLQm33jSulT1QgTwWw&hl=en_US
As the "keeper" of the Goal Scorers list, I'll agree that it's a good bit of work and the size of this project is too much for any one person (unless you are unemployeed, but that's a different story). I would definately appreciate people doing it, but you'd need to recruit a group of folks and divvy up the Yanks to be followed. I second the idea of using BS Wiki-- this kind if thread would get really big fast and would be hard to search through. The wiki format is perfect.
What would the wiki format bring? It's not clear to me how it would be organized. Absolutely, the Yanks, or at least the Yank teams would have to be divvied up. But from what I understand of wiki, anyone can edit each other's stuff, and people need to monitor each other, so that nonsensical crap isn't posted - so basically you need active monitors. If, instead each volunteer tracks his team, spends the 5 minutes needed to input what he's just read in the game thread into a spreadsheet once a week, then he has ownership, and if other people think he's doing a bad job, they can offer to collaborate, help out, or takeover. I may be ignorant though about the wiki format, so by all means, tell me if it would facilitate this in some way I'm not seeing.
Certainly injuries need to be noted. My record of Cory Gibbs is the one friendly he appeared in, plus "(injured for entire 06/07 season)". Similar for Grenier, who missed the last few weeks of 06/07 following emergency surgery for appendicitis.
I re-considered, and I think the Wiki format could work well. I've never used Wiki and would be fine driving content addition if someone out there who knows how to can help set it up.
Mundial -- i think your log would be excellent. But there must be some way for standardizing and simplifying the data. Suppose you had a rating that looked like this: 1. Bocanegra 1765 2. McBride 1367 3. Cherundolo 1343 4. Demerit 1253 5. Howard 1225 6. Freidel 1201 7. Beasley 1154 8. Lewis 1132 9. Spector 1003 10. etc etc What are these numbers? The formula would be European-based and would reflect: Total minutes played during the last three months; a captaincy; goals scored; yellow cards; and each minute played would be weighted, with an an MLS minute worth 1.00. So an EPL minute might be worth 1.75 each, a Liga or Serie A minute worth 1.66 each, a BL minute worth 1.6 each, a Dutch, French or Scottish first division minute worth 1.5 each, and a Portuguese, Scandinavian, or English Championship minute worth 1.40 each, with all other Euro leagues worth 1.33 each. A Champions League game minute would be worth 1.95 each, and a UEFA game minute would be worth 1.70 each, etc., etc. A table like this would rate the players on a relative scale to each other, hence the mock list above. It also indirectly takes into account injury status and sub roles. A player like Demerit would rate high because Watford did well in cup competitions at the end of last year, and Demerit regularly pulled down a full 90. Beasley would benefit because Rangers play in Europe and will advance in their national cup, but he would be slightly penalized for his league minutes compared with, say, Spector. I like the idea of a single number assigned to each player showing his relative worth toother Yanks in Europe. That way the database is controlled offline, and just the rating is published. How ling would it be before such a rating drew attention from the players themselves, and their coaches. I know it sounds crazy, but the NBA draft was influenced by a twenty-something blogger from India who simply rated the players on a numerical system.
Hmmm...I appreciate your fervor Seanie Blue, and understand the appeal of a single-number indicator. However, I think it might be tough to get concensus on a methodology. More importantly, collecting the data is a necessary first step. I'm going to make getting enough people involved to not make the data collection burdensome my priority. However, once that's up and running, I invite you to analyze the data to pieces. That said, here is the Fulham log after the first game of the season. http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pZd0eCLQm33jziPjtKX1OMw&hl=en_US As you can see, it's something I put together in 5 minutes while doing what I would have done anyway (checked the scores, read the game thread, etc.). My hope is to get one user doing this for all YA teams in big leagues: Rangers West Ham Hansa Rostock Watford (olephill possibly?) Sheff Wed Hannover 96 Everton Blackburn Reading Standard Liege (Elninho possibly?) and eventually: Charlton Derby Wolfsburg and anyone else that people think is worth their time. If you're having trouble viewing the spreadsheet, I can send you the Excel file if you PM me. I tried to create a bigsoccer@bigsoccer.com account, but apparently it already exists, but the password isn't bigsoccer, BigSoccer, or any other obvious variant. If you know about that or know how we could initiate this on the BigSoccer wiki, please let me know. I will track Fulham for a while in the hopes that this takes off. Let me know if you're interested in tracking one team. I still welcome comments on format as well. Cheers, Nick
I suppose I can take Standard Liege... I wouldn't mind also following West Ham or Charlton if no one else picks them up.
Fulham log updated: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pZd0eCLQm33hr6Bw9WdK6bw Should be viewable by anyone.
Fulham log updated to reflect today's game: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pZd0eCLQm33hr6Bw9WdK6bw
Fulham log updated to reflect today's game: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pZd0eCLQm33hr6Bw9WdK6bw