This is something I’ve been thinking about for a while and figured I would write down all my thoughts and start a new thread and see what my fellow SoSH posters think.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the practice of squad-building in world soccer, and the success and failures that different teams have had; particularly the failures for bigger clubs with more resources, and the success by smaller clubs with fewer resources.
I’ve only really closely fallen world soccer for about a decade or so, so a lot of the comparisons I feel like I make in my mind are to how things are done in American sports, which has a completely different economy and my experience following American sports I think sometimes colors my views on what they are doing in Europe, but I still don’t quite understand all the dynamics in play. So what I’m saying may be completely off base.
In general, I find the practice of team building in major soccer to be extremely wasteful and inefficient. As an outsider looking in, I don’t understand some of the general philosophies that go into squad-building in soccer, which seems rife with commonly made mistakes, wasteful expenditures and impatience.
We all know the financial gap between the handful of biggest clubs in soccer and everybody else is growing to what feels like unsustainable levels, and by extension, the gap between the EPL and teams from other leagues, is growing as well. And yet, we have plenty of examples of teams with only a fraction of the resources of other clubs being able to beat out their wealthier rivals. When it comes to the biggest trophies, such as domestic titles and Champions League, those trophies are still won by the football 1%, but whether it is a head-to-head matchup or teams finishing ahead of another in the table, there are numerous examples of poorer clubs beating out much larger enterprises.
How can this be? How can a team like Brentford be competitive at all with teams like Manchester United and Chelsea when they have a microscopic fraction of their financial resources (Brentford have a net spend of £781,000 over the last five years, Chelsea have a net spend of £654 million)? How can a team like Lille beat out PSG for a domestic title in France? How can a big, well-supported club like Schalke fall completely out of the Bundesliga?
To me, it seems like this all comes down to inappropriate use of resources and a complete lack of patience in developing a broader sense of team identity. I’m sure there are logical explanations for all of these things, but the more I study global soccer, the more I am confused by some of its standard practices. I think the issues come in a few different ways.
One is the short life of managers. We all know how quickly managers get sacked in world football. No matter where you are on the table, if you are performing below expectations, the manager is at risk of being fired. 7 out of 20 managers to start the season in the EPL have been sacked and we are only halfway through the season. A few more are clearly on the hot seat and are only a few bad results away from getting the boot.
The culture around managerial sackings is ruthless and teams are incredibly impatient. If a club thinks it should be contending for the title and they are not, the manager can get the boot. If a club thinks they should be in Europe and they are currently on the outside looking in, they can get the boot. If a club is hovering around the relegation zone, they are most definitely getting sacked.
This is largely a reflection of the financial game. Being in Europe is critical for business in global soccer; teams need to qualify for that lucrative competition or else they are taking a big financial hit. The same case is obvious for avoiding regulation, the gap between being in the top flight in a Big 5 league vs being in a lower division is astronomical, and teams will do anything to stay above it.
When I first started seriously watching soccer, I figured that the managers couldn’t actually be that important. They seemed so fluid and transactional, a manager can’t really be THAT important if teams are constantly firing them and looking elsewhere, and the same handful of names shuffle around the biggest teams, right?
Clearly, this is wrong. The consensus is that managers and the tactics they employ are of critical importance to football success, and choosing the correct one is an incredibly important decision for a football director or board to make.
That makes the practices around managers at the highest level feel contradictory. Everyone agrees that managers are important, and the tactics they select and the system they implement requires time to develop, and teams need to have them in order to be successful. Yet few managers are given the proper amount of time to implement a system, bring in players that fit it, and really develop a culture and identity if they are not giving out immediate results. Managers are important, but they aren’t so important that clubs will stomach a down season or perhaps even two to get them on the right track; everyone seems to expect immediate results and if that doesn’t happen, the seat starts to get very warm.
Another fact is player transactions. More than any other sport I’ve followed, it seems like the performance of players in soccer are dramatically tied to their current team, whether that be how a player fits in a coach’s system, familiarity with teammates, quality of competition, or any combination of those factors. A player can be outstanding for one side, drive up their value to an extremely high and speculative amount, and then immediately be disappointing in how they perform for their new club.
This is why it feels like the biggest expenditures teams make really struggle to click at the desired level, and how the big clubs can fall behind their impoverished counterparts. The big clubs have money, but if they are blowing it on Nicolas Pepe, Gylfi Sigurdsson, Eden Hazard, Paul Pogba, Tanguay Ndombele, Philippe Coutinho, Romelu Lukaku, etc. it helps even the playing field. But no matter how many times some of these clubs get bitten (like Chelsea) they will continue to spend record amounts of money to get the latest shiny toy in the window, hoping the success they are having somewhere else can translate to their current environment.
This leads to an incredible amount of waste, and a major squandering of institutional advantages the big clubs have. Smaller clubs with fewer resources are naturally forced to have more cohesion in their make-up, even if they are constantly shuffling around managers to avoid sinking below the tide; and that gives them a chance to level the playing field in some regards against their bigger opponents who are assembling all-star squads with little cohesion.
The smaller clubs are also much more likely to find bargain talents because that is where they shop. Teams like Brighton are able to find huge value in players like Karou Mitoma (purchased for £3 million) and Moises Caicedo (purchased for £5 million) because that is where they generally have to find talent; as opposed to the big clubs who are constantly looking to purchase the next young superstar from the top clubs in Portugal and Holland.
In short, the constant allure of expensive new talent and the consistent shuffling around of players from squad to squad lacks cohesion undermines team chemistry and familiarity, both from a teammate perspective as well as understanding how a player will fit within a coach’s system. Teams are constantly in the hunt for a splashy new signing, alienating previous splashy new signings and starting from the ground floor when it comes to building a sustainable winner.
I am really impressed with how Arsenal, after years in the wilderness, have emerged as a powerful, dynamic squad. After going through a few managers and spending a lot of money, they committed to Arteta and while it was hard and his seat got very hot, they stuck with him and in turn, he developed a system and trust with the players that sees them reaching their potential.
Arsenal have spent money, but they’ve wisely built their squad by finding quality deals (Odegaard for £35 million, Martinelli for £7 million, Saliba for £30 million) while also committing to letting younger players time to develop like Saka and Marinelli, something that is hard to do on squads with Top 4 aspirations. They also let a player like Xhaka, who many fans wanted gone from the club years ago, to get a chance under Arteta to turn things around, and he’s been a rock for them all season.
This is getting quite rambly, but the TLDR version of this is that I find the current way most soccer clubs go about organizing their franchise to be wasteful and impatient, and the demand for instant results leads to clubs drifting along without a clear direction, leading to horrible results, embarrassing finishes in the table and relegation.
I’d be interested in reading what other people think about the direction the game is going, what recent trends can tell us, and if the future of the game is just more dramatic versions of roster turnover and excessive spending.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the practice of squad-building in world soccer, and the success and failures that different teams have had; particularly the failures for bigger clubs with more resources, and the success by smaller clubs with fewer resources.
I’ve only really closely fallen world soccer for about a decade or so, so a lot of the comparisons I feel like I make in my mind are to how things are done in American sports, which has a completely different economy and my experience following American sports I think sometimes colors my views on what they are doing in Europe, but I still don’t quite understand all the dynamics in play. So what I’m saying may be completely off base.
In general, I find the practice of team building in major soccer to be extremely wasteful and inefficient. As an outsider looking in, I don’t understand some of the general philosophies that go into squad-building in soccer, which seems rife with commonly made mistakes, wasteful expenditures and impatience.
We all know the financial gap between the handful of biggest clubs in soccer and everybody else is growing to what feels like unsustainable levels, and by extension, the gap between the EPL and teams from other leagues, is growing as well. And yet, we have plenty of examples of teams with only a fraction of the resources of other clubs being able to beat out their wealthier rivals. When it comes to the biggest trophies, such as domestic titles and Champions League, those trophies are still won by the football 1%, but whether it is a head-to-head matchup or teams finishing ahead of another in the table, there are numerous examples of poorer clubs beating out much larger enterprises.
How can this be? How can a team like Brentford be competitive at all with teams like Manchester United and Chelsea when they have a microscopic fraction of their financial resources (Brentford have a net spend of £781,000 over the last five years, Chelsea have a net spend of £654 million)? How can a team like Lille beat out PSG for a domestic title in France? How can a big, well-supported club like Schalke fall completely out of the Bundesliga?
To me, it seems like this all comes down to inappropriate use of resources and a complete lack of patience in developing a broader sense of team identity. I’m sure there are logical explanations for all of these things, but the more I study global soccer, the more I am confused by some of its standard practices. I think the issues come in a few different ways.
One is the short life of managers. We all know how quickly managers get sacked in world football. No matter where you are on the table, if you are performing below expectations, the manager is at risk of being fired. 7 out of 20 managers to start the season in the EPL have been sacked and we are only halfway through the season. A few more are clearly on the hot seat and are only a few bad results away from getting the boot.
The culture around managerial sackings is ruthless and teams are incredibly impatient. If a club thinks it should be contending for the title and they are not, the manager can get the boot. If a club thinks they should be in Europe and they are currently on the outside looking in, they can get the boot. If a club is hovering around the relegation zone, they are most definitely getting sacked.
This is largely a reflection of the financial game. Being in Europe is critical for business in global soccer; teams need to qualify for that lucrative competition or else they are taking a big financial hit. The same case is obvious for avoiding regulation, the gap between being in the top flight in a Big 5 league vs being in a lower division is astronomical, and teams will do anything to stay above it.
When I first started seriously watching soccer, I figured that the managers couldn’t actually be that important. They seemed so fluid and transactional, a manager can’t really be THAT important if teams are constantly firing them and looking elsewhere, and the same handful of names shuffle around the biggest teams, right?
Clearly, this is wrong. The consensus is that managers and the tactics they employ are of critical importance to football success, and choosing the correct one is an incredibly important decision for a football director or board to make.
That makes the practices around managers at the highest level feel contradictory. Everyone agrees that managers are important, and the tactics they select and the system they implement requires time to develop, and teams need to have them in order to be successful. Yet few managers are given the proper amount of time to implement a system, bring in players that fit it, and really develop a culture and identity if they are not giving out immediate results. Managers are important, but they aren’t so important that clubs will stomach a down season or perhaps even two to get them on the right track; everyone seems to expect immediate results and if that doesn’t happen, the seat starts to get very warm.
Another fact is player transactions. More than any other sport I’ve followed, it seems like the performance of players in soccer are dramatically tied to their current team, whether that be how a player fits in a coach’s system, familiarity with teammates, quality of competition, or any combination of those factors. A player can be outstanding for one side, drive up their value to an extremely high and speculative amount, and then immediately be disappointing in how they perform for their new club.
This is why it feels like the biggest expenditures teams make really struggle to click at the desired level, and how the big clubs can fall behind their impoverished counterparts. The big clubs have money, but if they are blowing it on Nicolas Pepe, Gylfi Sigurdsson, Eden Hazard, Paul Pogba, Tanguay Ndombele, Philippe Coutinho, Romelu Lukaku, etc. it helps even the playing field. But no matter how many times some of these clubs get bitten (like Chelsea) they will continue to spend record amounts of money to get the latest shiny toy in the window, hoping the success they are having somewhere else can translate to their current environment.
This leads to an incredible amount of waste, and a major squandering of institutional advantages the big clubs have. Smaller clubs with fewer resources are naturally forced to have more cohesion in their make-up, even if they are constantly shuffling around managers to avoid sinking below the tide; and that gives them a chance to level the playing field in some regards against their bigger opponents who are assembling all-star squads with little cohesion.
The smaller clubs are also much more likely to find bargain talents because that is where they shop. Teams like Brighton are able to find huge value in players like Karou Mitoma (purchased for £3 million) and Moises Caicedo (purchased for £5 million) because that is where they generally have to find talent; as opposed to the big clubs who are constantly looking to purchase the next young superstar from the top clubs in Portugal and Holland.
In short, the constant allure of expensive new talent and the consistent shuffling around of players from squad to squad lacks cohesion undermines team chemistry and familiarity, both from a teammate perspective as well as understanding how a player will fit within a coach’s system. Teams are constantly in the hunt for a splashy new signing, alienating previous splashy new signings and starting from the ground floor when it comes to building a sustainable winner.
I am really impressed with how Arsenal, after years in the wilderness, have emerged as a powerful, dynamic squad. After going through a few managers and spending a lot of money, they committed to Arteta and while it was hard and his seat got very hot, they stuck with him and in turn, he developed a system and trust with the players that sees them reaching their potential.
Arsenal have spent money, but they’ve wisely built their squad by finding quality deals (Odegaard for £35 million, Martinelli for £7 million, Saliba for £30 million) while also committing to letting younger players time to develop like Saka and Marinelli, something that is hard to do on squads with Top 4 aspirations. They also let a player like Xhaka, who many fans wanted gone from the club years ago, to get a chance under Arteta to turn things around, and he’s been a rock for them all season.
This is getting quite rambly, but the TLDR version of this is that I find the current way most soccer clubs go about organizing their franchise to be wasteful and impatient, and the demand for instant results leads to clubs drifting along without a clear direction, leading to horrible results, embarrassing finishes in the table and relegation.
I’d be interested in reading what other people think about the direction the game is going, what recent trends can tell us, and if the future of the game is just more dramatic versions of roster turnover and excessive spending.