The numbers that give a wrong picture

Can someone please advise football’s media executives that many pundits are tired of being bombarded with meaningless statistics whenever they watch a match on television.

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God help us, we’re becoming so much like the Americans.

All kind of information – some of which pretty basic – is foisted upon us at half-time and full-time.

From goals scored, shots, fouls and yellow and red cards. Now we even get to know how many kilometres the players run during a match and how fast the ball travels on its way to the net. Wow!

Apart from the fact that from the way football’s going at the moment it’s easy to keep track of the few scoring chances created let alone goals scored, do we really need to know all the details put to us?

Take for example, the most meaningless stat of them all: possession.

Having the ball for a longer period than your opponent means absolutely nothing in modern football.

In fact many teams are quite willing to give up possession in an area of the field that bears no danger.

What is important – always has been – is what you do with the ball not how long you have it.

Two recent examples from European competition illustrate how misleading those possession percentages can be.

The UEFA Champions League semi-final between Barcelona and Manchester United had a similar pattern in both legs.

The Spaniards had the lion’s share of possession in both matches but they created only a handful of half-chances in 180 minutes of skilful yet ineffective football.

They probed and probed and passed the ball laterally ad infinitum but never did they penetrate United’s defence that stood its ground remarkably in both matches.

Statistics show that United had much less of the ball than Barca in both matches. The figures from the first leg at the Nou Camp are an extraordinary 39 per cent to 61 per cent while the return at Old Trafford had the even more amazing figures of 42 per cent to 58 per cent.

But the Red Devils made more scoring opportunities in both matches because they were less elaborate and more direct in their approach.

SBS chief football analyst Craig Foster was so right in summing up the tie thus: Barca were the better footballing side but United were more dangerous.

The same scenario applied to the UEFA Cup semi-final between Fiorentina and Rangers.

The Italians were clearly the more technical side overall and held the ball for long periods, particularly in the return in Florence.

But same as Barca, Fiorentina did not capitalise on their possession because Rangers defended doggedly and allowed the Viola only a handful of sniffs on goal.

And as the Italians became more frustrated at their inability to transform their territorial supremacy into something more tangible like goals, the Scots could even have pinched a late win in one of their rare counter-attacks.

In the end Rangers won the tie on penalties after two scoreless draws that were better than the scores might suggest.

So the two semi-final ties had a common theme: the team having the larger share of possession ended up losing.

Which goes to show that the merits of possession are disputable at best and completely irrelevant at worst.

More so these days when pragmatic and safety-first football seem to be making a not entirely welcome reappearance.

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One statistic that illustrates the strong temperament of English club teams in major finals is the one relating to the European Cup/Champions League finals.

The three big leagues of Europe have provided the bulk of finalists in the continent’s most important competition.

After this year’s 53rd final between Manchester United and Chelsea that takes place in Moscow on May 22 (AEST), England’s Premier League, Italy’s Serie A and Spain’s La Liga will have won the competition 11 times each.

But while Spanish teams have lost eight of the 19 finals they were involved in (almost half) and the Italians no fewer than 14 of a record 25 (more than half), the English have the enviable record of only five losses from 16 finals.

This corresponds to less than one defeat in three finals.

So the moral is you don't bet against an English team in a final. If it's not an all-English final, that is.

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