How Kompany’s Absence Could Prove a Blessing for Belgium’s EURO Title Hopes

In this short post, I will explain how the injury of Belgium’s captain Vincent Kompany could potentially boost Belgium’s hopes of EURO 2016 victory – and why it probably won’t.

The key to understanding why the absence of a great player in this case may actually turn out to have a beneficial effect on team performance relates to automatisms. Concretely, Kompany plays in the central defense and is sure to play there with Belgium when fit. This necessarily means that the duo Vertonghen-Alderweireld will be broken up and at least one of them will be played on the sides, which is exactly what happened at the 2014 World Cup – when also Van Buyten was a certitude for coach Wilmots in the central defense.

Today, it makes much less sense to consider Belgium's defenders individually than at the time of the previous World Cup, though, for the following straightforward reason: Vertonghen and Alderweireld have been playing side by side all season, as a central defensive duo. Moreover, this was in the Premier League, the world’s most competitive domestic league, as well as in the Europa League. And, above all, no team in the Premier League conceded fewer goals this season than did Tottenham Hotspur. The automatisms of a central defensive duo that played at this rate of success in a direct combination for over 30 games at the highest level can be considered a godsend for any national team.

When Spain won the 2010 World Cup, coach del Bosque had three excellent central defenders at his disposal: Puyol, Ramos and Piqué. Two of them, he would field in the centre of the defense; one of them, he would move to the right-back position. While both Ramos and Puyol could fit the right-back position, naturally, del Bosque always elected to field Ramos on the right, preserving the Barça tandem in the heart of the defense. Spain’s 2010 world cup victory would go down as a prototypical example of one that followed from exploiting automatisms generated at the club level, mainly at Barça.

Source: theguardian.com

Skeptics may question the level of automatisms between Vertonghen and Alderweireld relative to the one of, say, Piqué and Puyol, given that the two Belgians have only been together at Tottenham since the beginning of the season. It is important to realize, though, that Alderweireld and Vertonghen coincided frequently during their careers and were formed in the same football academy: from 2004 till 2006, both were being formed at the youth of Ajax Amsterdam, after having joined from the same club in Belgium, Germinal Beerschot. From 2008 till 2012, Vertonghen and Alderweireld made up the defensive block at Ajax’ senior squad. (Thomas Vermaelen followed a similar trajectory, but left Ajax already in 2009.) Alderweireld and Vertonghen share as solid a common basis as you will find in contemporary football.

Source: scoopnest.com

There are yet two more compelling reasons to combine Alderweireld and Vertonghen at the centre of Belgium's defense. First is that whereas the former is right-footed, the latter is left-footed, underlining their complementarity. Second is that another Belgian who had an individually outstanding season at Tottenham, Mousa Dembélé, there plays one line above the defensive duo, opening up the possibility to leverage automatisms relating not just to the duo, but to the triangle as well.

Within the realm of economic rationality, having more available options can only lead to better or similar outcomes, but not worse. Economic rationality, however, is not the regime of a football team and certainly not the one of the Belgian national team. Leaving the influential captain out of the team or not playing him in his favored position could have had serious repercussions. It is thus only through Kompany’s absence that the way was freed for the successful Spurs duo to be united in the heart of the Belgium defense.

Especially with other contenders for the central defensive roles Vermaelen and Lombaerts mainly having been used as substitutes at their clubs this season and youngster Engels having had to forfeit the Euros because of injury, building on the successful central Tottenham duo would appear to be a no-brainer. Yet, I suspect coach Wilmots to come up with some alternative that will still require breaking up one of the most effective defensive duos present at the Euros.

BBC vs MSN: But This Year’s Clearly Different, Right?

In last January’s post, I subjected the goal-scoring performances of Barça’s trident and Real Madrid’s BBC to a comparative analysis. I showed that even though Messi, Neymar and Suárez overall turned out to be more efficient than Cristiano, Benzema and Bale, the constituent members of BBC do actually turn out to make each other better (synergistic), whereas Barça’s trident members rather seem to score more often when some of their strike partners are absent (cannibalistic). Neymar emerged as the most pivotal member of Barça’s trident. This analysis encompassed data from the start of both tridents being united at their respective clubs. Now that the 2015-2016 season is nearing a conclusion, it will also be important to investigate what the relations are like for the current season. Perhaps Barça’s trident is already combining much better than before? Let’s revisit the results for the current season only, including both La Liga and Champions League, to date.

We may recall that for the aggregated data, there was only one member of the two trios who was actually more productive when part of his threesome than when not: Cristiano Ronaldo. When looking at the current season, it turns out that all of BBC’s strike partners are more efficient when playing together than when not, whereas no member of Barça’s trident is finding the net more easily when MSN is complete than when not.

Fig. 1: Goal-scoring performance as part of trident (bar) relative to when not part of trident (100%-line)

As can be seen in Fig. 1, the numbers are most extreme for Neymar and for Bale. During 90 minutes on the field with both Messi and Suárez, Neymar scored, on average, 0.4 penalty-adjusted goals. When not part of the trident, in contrast, the captain of the Brazilian national team managed to score slightly more than 1 goal per 90 minutes. Neymar already played for over 1,000 minutes for Barça as not part of the trident this season and almost 2,000 as part of the trident. So even though the numbers for the current season alone are naturally more sensitive than the aggregated ones, there is a solid basis for comparison.

The scoring numbers for Gareth Bale are almost mirror images of Neymar’s. When not part of BBC, the Welshman scored slightly more than half a field goal so far during 90 mins; when part of BBC, 1.2 goals per 90 mins on average. This season so far, Bale has thus been more than twice as productive when part of BBC than when not and his bar in Fig. 1 actually extends beyond what is shown. Bale has been out injured quite a bit though and so there is less performance data on him than would be desirable. Still, he already played in over 800 minutes as part of the BBC constellation and in almost 700 as not part thereof.

So the synergism of BBC vs. the cannibalism of MSN turns out to be all the more true for the current season. Whereas BBC appear to be setting each other up to score more and more, Barça’s trident is not – yet(?) – showing any signs of such improvement. We may well recall from the January post that findings regarding BBC’s synergism and MSN’s cannibalism where quite much lessoned though by the fact that the constituent members of MSN combined were still more efficient than the ones of BBC combined. Let’s see if this still holds true for the current season. Turns out it does not! So far, the sum of the average number of goals scored by Messi, Neymar and Suárez during 90 minutes this season is 2.5, compared to 3 for the sum of BBC’s members. Furthermore, 90 minutes of actually fielding MSN together so far resulted in 2.1 goals, per 90 minutes, vs. 3.5 goals in the case of BBC.

Why then, one naturally wonders, are Barça already this season's uncrowned La Liga champion, with the merengues lagging ten points behind? Although both teams scored and conceded about equally in the league, the scoring data support a twofold answer. First, whereas the above analysis focused only on efficiency, i.e. the average number of (penalty-adjusted) goals per 90 minutes, naturally, efficacy, i.e. the actual total number of (penalty-adjusted) goals scored, is also crucial. Concretely, both Benzema and Bale have been injured quite some time, making that the members of BBC have played slightly short of a combined 7,000 minutes so far this season, in La Liga and Champions League together. Suárez, Neymar and Messi already have more than 8,500 minutes on their combined season’s teller. The efficacy of those three combined is actually higher than the one of Cristiano, Benzema and Bale combined: 78.5 penalty-adjusted goals vs. 76.

Second, the crux to understanding the differential in terms of team outcomes is "goal importance", a measure of how many incremental points one’s goals actually provide to one’s team. Cristiano, for instance, is the undisputed top scorer so far, with 37 penalty-adjusted goals. Suárez has 31, six less. Yet, Suárez’ goals often led Barça to take the lead and/or to win a game, whereas more than a few of Cristiano's goals didn’t actually result in Real Madrid gaining any more points from matches (e.g. neither of Cristiano’s four goals against both Malmö or Celta mattered). The total number of point increments for Barça as a direct result of goals scored by its trident members this season to date amounts to 48.5, compared to 37.5 in the case of Real Madrid (Benzema’s 24 penalty-adjusted goals actually yielded hist team more points so far than did Cristiano’s 37). This underlines the added value of a multi-measure analysis when it comes to top scorers, which has been the subject of a number of earlier posts in this blog, also detailing the goal-importance measure.

Let us conclude the analysis by looking at which player is most pivotal in the blaugrana's scoring as a team. I propose to do this by comparing how often a team (not just the trident) scores with and without a player on the field (a similar analysis for Real Madrid is prohibited by Cristiano not having been on the field for only a minute).

Fig. 2: Avg. number of Barça goals per game with and without player having been on the pitch

Although Barça turn out to score more often without Suárez on the field, the above discussion on goal importance illustrates why this probably should not be overemphasized. The main insight is that the role of Neymar turns out to be even more critical in the current season than for the aggregated data: with Neymar on the field, Barça managed to score 2.76 goals, vs. 1.89 without the Brazilian. The explanation hereof in light of Neymar being both the least efficacious as well as the least efficient of the three members of MSN? As for the aggregated data, of all possible combinations (i.e. solo, duos, trio), the one in which they were most efficient for both Messi and Suárez has been in combination with Neymar only. The presence of the Brazilian seems to enable his strike partners to score, this season more than ever. Most probably, he is the one who destabilizes the opponent, even more than Messi does, which in turn is what creates goal-scoring opportunities.

Barça’s Trident vs. Real’s BBC: Synergies or Cannibals?

During the past weekend in La Liga, no less than ten goals were scored by Barça’s and Real Madrid’s super trios, divided evenly between both. Moreover, each constituent member – Messi, Neymar and Suárez vs. Bale, Benzema and Cristiano Ronaldo, respectively – got himself on the score sheet.

At first sight, one would have to conclude that both trios work splendidly. Indeed, both teams already collected a Champions League trophy on the back of their respective tridents. But let's have a closer look at last weekend's performances. Both teams played one half with their complete trident and one half with an incomplete one and whereas Real Madrid managed all of their five goals during the half their super trio were united and none during the one they weren’t, Barça only scored two goals – one of which a Messi penalty – during the half with their trident in tact. Additionally, Suárez completed his hat-trick entirely during the half when one of his strike partners – Messi – was no longer fielded. 

The important question arising then is, “Do these players actually make each other better?” Concretely, on average during a 90-minute game, do they score more goals when combined than the sum of the individuals, when not operating in a trident (i.e. are they “synergistic”?) or, instead, are they rather “stealing” each others goals, e.g. by being at the end of assists that otherwise a teammate would have scored (i.e. “cannibalistic”)? 

To answer these questions and to better understand what and if there is actually something meaningful going on in terms of discriminant performances between both tridents, in terms of individual vs. combined performance, we naturally need to consider more data. Thus, in preparation for this post, I collected information about all the goals scored by Bale, Benzema and Cristiano Ronaldo as well as by Messi, Neymar and Suárez since they were united at their respective clubs (seasons ’13-’14 and ’14-’15, respectively) to date and considered what combination had been on the field at the time of scoring. As I do elsewhere, I take into account both La Liga and Champions League games, counting penalties for half a (field) goal. The main findings can be summarized as follows:

Table 1: Comparing efficiency (i.e. avg. number of goals scored
      per 90 mins. on the field) as part and when not part of MSN

Table 2: Comparing efficiency (i.e. avg. number of goals scored
      per 90 mins. on the field) as part and when not part of BBC

As it turns out, only one of the six players, Cristiano Ronaldo, actually scored more goals when part of his trident than when not. Some level of "cannibalism" may be expected, e.g. as penalties and free kicks may fall to a teammate in the absence of strike partners, but the relative performance of Barça's three main strikers when vs. when not combined is quite startling, as depicted in the below graph. The red line indicates each player's respective scoring level (100%) when not part of the trident; each bar indicates the corresponding player's scoring level when part of the trident relative to this line:

Figure 1: Goal-scoring performance as part of trident relative to when not part of trident

It can clearly be seen that Barça's trident's scoring performance falls well short of Messi, Neymar and Suárez' scoring performances as individuals (or duos). In fact, as a trio, MSN, on average, scored 2.14 goals per 90 minutes, whereas the sum of Messi's, Neymar's and Suárez' average scoring performances per 90 minutes, when not part of the trio, adds up to 3.22 - over a full (field) goal more. Moreover, the Barça player least cannibalized by the trident, Messi, is still more negatively affected as compared to Real's most negatively affected player, Bale. Real Madrid's BBC scored, on avg. per 90 minutes, 2.33 goals vs. 2.44 as the sum of the individuals' performances - less than a meaningful difference. 

Is there something going horribly wrong then with Barça's trident relative to BBC? Yes and no. On the one hand, yes, as Barça's individual trident members all appear to be sacrificing a substantial portion of their efficiency when operating as a trident. On the other hand, no, because, in absolute terms, overall, Messi, Neymar and Suárez still scored more goals than Bale, Benzema and Cristiano, on average, per 90 minutes (2.56 vs. 2.36). Thus, it would be harsh to claim the former are underperforming compared to the latter. What does clearly emerge, is that Barça's trident still show ample potential to up their performance if they find ways to create more synergies among the constituent players.

Critical question: now that we know that Barça have been substantially more efficient when not fielding Messi, Neymar and Suárez all together, would it actually help the team to keep one of them on the bench? To assess this, we need to consider the goal-scoring performance of the team as a whole (not just the trident) when fielding the trident and when not. After all, if one is not to field a member of MSN, someone else, e.g. Munir, with his own relative (in)efficiency will take his place. Barça's average number of goals scored per 90 minutes turns out to have been very similar when having fielded and when not having fielded the trident (2.60 vs. 2.63), which leads to yet another question: as the team turned out no less efficient without the trident, could FC Barcelona actually save itself quite some money by selling off either Messi, Neymar or Suárez, without sacrificing team goals? And if so, which one of them? 

Hereto, I repeated the exercise of considering team goals, this time with and without each Messi, Neymar and Suárez, respectively, having been on the field at the time of scoring. The results are depicted in the below graph. The blue bars indicate the average number of team goals per 90 minutes with the corresponding player having been on the field; the red ones, without him having been on the pitch - from the start of the '14-'15 season to date:

Figure 2: Avg. number of Barça goals per game with and without player having been on the pitch

From this, it seems that what Barça don't want to do is sell Neymar: not only did the blaugrana score more goals with the Brazilian on the field than with either the Argentinian or the Uruguayan, but also did Barça, on average, score fewer goals per game without Neymar than without either one of his strike partners. Furthermore, as evidenced by the descriptive statistics listed in Table 1, both Messi and Suárez found their most efficient combination of all possible ones (i.e. trident, duos or alone) in duo with Neymar. One likely explanation would be that Neymar is the one mainly able to unbalance the opponent, which is what creates goal-scoring opportunities for the team.

How Barça’s Treble Will Change the History of Football Tactics

Before turning the page on the 2014/2015 season, let’s have a look at the learning and implications for football tactics of Barça’s treble. At least as significant as the move away from tiki-taka is the adoption of a three-forward format, Barça’s so-called trident (with both moves obviously not being unrelated). In this post, I seek to highlight why, from an evolutionary perspective, the importance of FC Barcelona having managed to win everything with such a system can hardly be overestimated.

Source: financialexpress.com

In what is widely considered the most authoritative book on the history of football formations, in Inverting the Pyramid, Jonathan Wilson brilliantly describes the history of formations as a process in which the pyramid became inverted, i.e. a move from an all-out attacking 2-3-5 in the game's early days to a much more cautious sole-striker formation. In particular following FC Barcelona’s tiki-taka success under Guardiola and Spain’s victory at Euro 2012, some observers as well as coaches, notably Carlos Alberto Parreira, prophesied the winning formation of the future even to be the 4-6-0 – perhaps a final evolutionary step.

Did Luis Enrique, with his trident, then defy the laws of football tactics’ natural evolution? The answer is no. In an attempt to make sense of their environment, people naturally tend to look for patterns and cause-and-effect relationships, also where none exist. As football is a social undertaking, made by men’s thinking and acting, there is no “natural" evolution of which the future can easily be predicted or inferred from what came before. Most analysis is thus ex-post sense-making and assuming current tendencies will amplify in the future. Matthew Whitehouse’s recent book Universality: The Blueprint for Soccer’s New Era reads as a prime example hereof: enlightening in explaining the past; very unlikely to have any predictive power. Luis Enrique did not escape from any inevitable evolutionary path but, rather, realized that – as in any human endeavor – there was an active choice to be made.

For signs of just how powerful and self-fulfilling a formation’s success can be, we need not look far: with Cristiano Ronaldo, Bale and Benzema, Real Madrid have a trident of their own. Furthermore, the most promising formation for Atlético, notorious for their defensive pressing through a 4-4-2, in the upcoming season, seems to combine Jackson Martínez (center), Griezmann and Ferreira Carrasco (both wide) – and it probably won’t take Simeone long to figure out just that.

Source: laacib.net

So, apart from there not being any pre-defined, inescapable evolution in football formations, what is the take-away of Barça’s treble this time? Get three excellent forwards and success will take care of itself? Not quite.

1. There’s no one formation that beats the others (which is obviously not the same as saying that all formations are equally good or that formations don’t matter). A team’s best formation depends on the players you have at your disposal. In case you don’t have three – relative – star attackers, there’s as little point in playing with a “trident” as there is in not fielding all three when you have got them.
2. Provided you have the quality forwards, attacking in numbers can be very effective, especially when playing against a team with a non-adaptive system that does not account for facing numerous attackers. Belgium – Argentina, to which I dedicated the first post in this blog, being a case in point. As much as people like to analyze and philosophize about the beautiful game, you get three points only when you score more goals than the opponent, so scoring goals is a prerequisite to winning.

Whether the “trident” will take the rest of Europe by storm remains to be seen. What already seems certain is that Barça’s recent treble success on the back of its trident has silenced prophesies of there being no more room for strikers in the football of the future. We may now also better understand why it makes little sense to believe in some kind of determinism when it comes to the future of football tactics. In Whitehouse’s words,

Football’s future will be defined thanks to the visionaries and risk takers who seek to try new things and experiment with the game. This is how anything evolves, change through trial and error.

Munir vs. Neymar: 0-2

On Saturday afternoon, FC Barcelona was playing Athletic de Bilbao – always an interesting confrontation. As I wanted to see Barça with Neymar and Vermaelen before October 24 – when Luis Suárez will return from suspension and Barça can safely stop pretending still being més que un club – I checked the ticket prices. Cheapest ticket 70 euros, so I watched it on my terrace instead. Neymar was on the bench and Vermaelen not even in the squad, so, initially, it seemed for the better.

Neymar’s position in the starting line-up was taken by Spanish-Moroccan youngster Munir El Haddadi. The two Spanish commentators were lyrical about Munir, FCB’s new 19-year-old sensation. They both were unanimous at the start of the game that as the season progressed, Neymar would probably retake his position in the starting line-up – as Barça had paid a lot of money for him – but, implicitly, that in fact this Munir is a better quality player. When, in the 63^rd minute, he was brought off for Neymar, they concluded Munir had been involved in every Barça attack and you could sense that they felt Neymar was only brought on to satisfy those people who had paid 70 euros or more to see a star team.

Source: fcbarcelona.com

After having been on the field for 15 minutes and when most people had already come to terms with a goalless draw, Neymar signed for the first moment of real excitement in the game by opening the score. The most striking element of the goal for the commentators was the apparent moment of hesitation in his finish, in spite of which he managed to score the goal. Five minutes later, Neymar would score the 2-0 – after another hesitation – and game over.

Indeed, it is not without meaning that Neymar had hesitated slightly when finishing on both occasions. Other than 99% of forwards, not only can Neymar keep his nerve when presented with a goal-scoring opportunity, but also does he know how to make the most of this trait. The split second he holds out, as compared to any other forward, enables him to read where the goalkeeper is moving to, to spot the empty space and to deposit the ball exactly there. The commentators had been most accurate in their observation: hesitation. If you watch his penalty goals at the World Cup, against Croatia and against Chile – arguably, the most potentially stressful penalty taken during the entire tournament – you can also spot the hesitation. Other forwards typically don’t hesitate, they generally just miss.

Munir had had a great opportunity to open the score when Jordi Alba and he showed up in front of Athletic’s goalkeeper. Munir got the ball and finished, but was – just – offside. The number-one rule for the free man when you are two advancing towards the goalkeeper is to stay behind the ball – if Munir had, it as surely would have been a goal. Is Munir a talent? A huge one. Is he better than Neymar? Not now, not ever.

Source: nacion.com

The episode resonates with a recent experience I had related to the last game I attended so far this season in the Belgian league, KV Mechelen vs. KV Kortrijk. After the game, I read a journalist's commentary, dedicated to KV Mechelen’s substitute Van Tricht, who was brought on just before half-time. The journalist described him as the future of the club and the only sign of light on my team’s side that day. At the start of his article, he mentioned that when Van Tricht was brought on, he had instantaneously decided to focus on him for the remainder of the game.

Had I not been in the stadium myself, I may well have taken this journalist’s assessment for true. As I had been, however, I knew that we had been 1-0 ahead when Van Tricht came on and ended up losing the game 1-2 – the only of four home games thus far we did not win – and that the coach had tactically erred by bringing on Van Tricht. What we needed was a powerful defensive midfielder to consolidate the lead, a type of player Van Tricht is not. Van Tricht is a physical lightweight with a light touch and good bouncing skills – most useful skills under most circumstances, but not the ones needed when defending a 1-0 advantage against a heavy-duty physical side such as Kortrijk. The much more sturdy, over-my-dead-body-mentality De Witte would have been the more obvious choice. Coach Jankovic tried to rectify his tactical mistake at half-time, but the system was already out of balance.

The take-away is not at all that either Munir or Van Tricht would be overrated youngsters who lack talent. It is rather very close to St. Thomas’s credo: “First I see, then I believe”. In order to judge those or any player, see for yourself – only then believe. If you rely on the so-called expert observers, you may well be taken in by their pre-conceptions and even their mood of the day. They will want to appear consistent – with their earlier statements or even their random choice of what player to focus on. Relying on their judgement may well get you on top of the day’s fads, but possibly farther away from the truth. If you’re selling newspapers, a fad may well sell better than the truth. But if you’re building a team, ask yourself what’s more important to you: selling jerseys or winning games.