The A's are a team near the bottom in terms of payroll and income. Their market is the poorer half of the Bay Area. Yet by dint of intelligent acquisition of players and insightful analysis into what wins and loses games, they've been a good team for a while now, and will be at least for the immediate future. From the "nondescript" thread, I gather that Charlton would be a candidate. But is CAFC the best choice?
The Oakland As???!!!! WHO CARES! How dare you try and compare ANY football side to those jagoffs who play rounders. Move on. As for your other post about the Orioles, for God's sake, they are as pathetic as the fat, white, middle aged schmucks who attend their games.
The Orioles are Middlesboro The Yankees are Man. U The Red Sox are Newcastle The Rangers are Bolton/Man. City The A's are Charlton
I dont' think there is an A's type team-a low wage team that by it's smarts and young talent has a chance to win a title. 1999-2000 list of payrolls- gives you an idea-perhaps what Leeds did recently, with it's core of young players. But I don't think you can have the gap in payroll that the A's have and really compete the way they do. Maybe looking at how some of the German clubs do in Europe compared to Spanish, Italian and English wage bills-or even last year's run by Chievo in Serie A, are better examples.
Real Ray...good point. I'm always arguing on here that the Bundesliga is underrated. And part of that is that those teams do indulge themselves in splashy bigtime signings. Because baseball is a statistical game, it would hard for a soccer team to be the A's. The A's succeed in large part because their general manager pays attention to sabermetricians and most GMs don't. Most teams are interested in how fast a guy runs, not how well he produces. In particular, Billy Beane's understanding of the importance of controlling the strike zone, both defensively and offensively, gives his teams a big edge. What he does is obvious to anyone who has studied the issues in a scientific, objective way, but it runs against "baseball wisdom." Because of the nature of soccer...it's played everywhere, with dramatically different styles, and pro/rel really punishes backward thinking...it would be hard for one person or one team to understand the game much better than his competitors.
The White Sox are Chelsea. We should be good, but we under-achieve constantly, save the occasional good season.
I think the larger reason is the MLB draft and its rules re:free agency. By having the draft and being able to keep the players for at least six years, you do have in place a system where smart guys with an eye for talent can compete with a low wage bill. Perhaps Matt or another UK poster can add some more insight, but my understanding is that it's much more laissez-faire over there re:signing players. For instance, the reason why some of the big clubs have the "partnerships" with smaller clubs, is that it allows the Man Utd. and Liverpools to poach schoolboy talent outside of the 90 minute travel restriction, yes?
From what I understand, there is a rule that says a club can't sign a shoolboy aged player outside an area that is 90 minutes from the club. There was flap a few years ago with Leeds and another club-can't remember which-where Leeds was accused of using the loophole in the rule for just this purpose: to get an inside track on young talent outside that area.
That's correct. A prospective youth signing must live within 90 minutes of the club if they are to be allowed to join the Academy. The incident with Leeds was over a kid called Chopra, from London. They circumvented to the rule by basically ringing his parents and saying "See this house in Leeds? It's yours." I wouldn't say we are more laissez-faire over the issue, it's just a very different set-up from the draft system. But part of the reason English talent is so overpriced, for instance, is the fact that young English players are jealously guarded by the clubs that developed them.
The team with the footie equivalent of having 4 high-quality starting pitchers is the EPL equivalent of the Oakland A's. Don't know who or what that would be.
There isn't one specific team that would hold that role. Instead, usually one of the smaller teams gets on a good run at some point and challenges for a European slot. It could be Boro, Charlton, Southampton or West Ham. Two years ago it was Ipswich. These are all solid, if unspectacular sides who always play tough and are well-managed. Probably the closest, though, would be Villa. Over the past few years they've finished between 6th and 8th - good enough to have respect, but not good enough for Europe. But they might be considered a bigger club in comparison to Oakland. Dave
...which was why I finished off by saying, "But they might be considered a bigger club in comparison to Oakland." Dave
They may or may not be a bigger club than Oakland....i know fuk all about baseball, despite living over here for the past 15 years...but in comparision to all English footie teams the Villa hold their own. Rich in history, good stadiun,good fan base etc etc etc.