Technological analysis fails to capture footie magic
I was watching Portsmouth at home, and after some talking point - which no one I know ever talks about or even notices, as it's a television device to fill space and show the same shot, over and over - I saw the manager, Harry Redknapp, bending down, studying something, presumably to do with the utterly boring talking point. Then I spotted that he had his own TV monitor, there in the dugout. The following week, watching Everton, I saw that David Moyes also had a TV screen.
I presume coaches can use them to call up close-ups of controversial incidents. Then they jump around, eff and blind, point and shout, try to duff up the fourth official, or scream abuse at the rival coaches in the other dugout who don't have the advantage of a similar monitor, being mere visitors.
Amazing how managers and coaches try to calm down their own players but can't calm themselves. This particular piece of technology is pretty pointless anyway, as the ref has made his decision, the game has moved on.
Modern coaches are very fond of using computers and stuff to record and analyse every kick, every move, every metre covered, every breath taken. Even Arsène Wenger, who always seems the most sensible of managers, willing to trust himself when it comes to buying players no one has ever heard of, says he finds such technical data of vital importance, telling him exactly how each of his players performed. As if he couldn't see with his own eyes.
Ah, but the boffins say, you are not actually aware while watching of runs being made off the ball, of completed passes, or assists, or those who have assisted the assists. You just see the goals, the glamour bits, not the nuts and bolts.
So in football we now have all these banks of computers and cameras and videos, plus hordes of experts behind the scenes, recording and analysing, drawing graphs, doing charts, giving the managers acres of printouts showing which players sweated most blood, did the loudest farts, did the longest gob. Sam Allardyce was famously one of the first to introduce these technical advances, and now he's, er, where is he exactly? Gorn.
The trouble with all this gear is that it can measure quantity, but not quality. Ray Wilkins could complete 20 perfect passes, all a total waste of time, as they went either sideways or backwards. OK, the technology is better since his day and machines such as ProZone can record everything - the speed and velocity of the ball being received, how quickly it was despatched - but machines can't spot the killer ball, which we can identify on the terraces, the one the opposition didn't see coming, didn't expect, but we know how brilliant it was, even when it didn't come off. And when it does, it might be two more moves before the goal, yet it was that killer ball that opened them up. How can a computer measure that?
The Americans are mad keen on sports technology, and books about how to use it are bestsellers. I can see that if you are considering a young or new player, his stats can be useful if you haven't seen him play. But stats are just stats. They lie there, one-dimensional. And like most stats, as politicians know, they can be used to prove whatever you like.
I think they should be left to the fans. We've always loved stats, ever since the first football annuals came out more than 40 years ago, giving details of the season's goals, scorers, achievements. Pub quizzes would be lost without them. But we want managers to be good judges, not anoraks or techies.
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