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Football: The odds are not even


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Just now, BigFatCoward said:

is there any other sport/tournament where one side does freakishly well in?  its so random that they dominate.  Its not even like they were particularly good those years, league positions of 5th, 3rd, 5th, 5th, 7th, 4th and currently 11th. 

Another Spanish team - Real Madrid in the Champions League. 5 times in 10 years.

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32 minutes ago, The Sunland Lord said:

Another Spanish team - Real Madrid in the Champions League. 5 times in 10 years.

Yeah, but Real are generally one of the favourites.  if you look at teams in Europa league, Sevilla wouldn't be one of the top 5 or 6 favourites when the CL teams drop down, so winning 7 times in 15 years is statistically weird. 

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1 hour ago, BigFatCoward said:

Yeah, but Real are generally one of the favourites.  if you look at teams in Europa league, Sevilla wouldn't be one of the top 5 or 6 favourites when the CL teams drop down, so winning 7 times in 15 years is statistically weird. 

To be fair, Sevilla are unmatched shithousers and get away with plenty of it. That partially explains the weird statistics, but there's something else to it I guess. 

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3 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

is there any other sport/tournament where one side does freakishly well in?  its so random that they dominate.  Its not even like they were particularly good those years, league positions of 5th, 3rd, 5th, 5th, 7th, 4th and currently 11th. 

It's a weird one for sure and tough to explain. Over the past 15 years, regardless of manager or personnel, Sevilla just seem able to consistently up their game to another level in the Europa League. It's a fantastic achievement for them especially given their resources and the fact that they're usually a selling club.

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1 hour ago, Consigliere said:

It's a weird one for sure and tough to explain. Over the past 15 years, regardless of manager or personnel, Sevilla just seem able to consistently up their game to another level in the Europa League. It's a fantastic achievement for them especially given their resources and the fact that they're usually a selling club.

I agree and I think it is similar to RM in the CL, but moreso.  The EL has a rotating cast of serious contenders because of the niche it fills just below CL.  Very few of those contenders have much recent experience of going deep in European competition and facing off against unfamiliar opponents of high caliber with unfamiliar styles in unfamiliar venues in knock-out ties.  (Liverpool under Klopp went on a slightly naive, helter-skelter run to the EL final only to lose to a more composed Sevilla who were ultimately better at game management and adapting to their opponent)

Sevilla have institutionalized that experience now beyond any single manager or few players, which gives them an edge.  That doesn’t make them invincible but that edge helps in close games.

Real haven’t always been the best team in the CL nor played the best football but they developed a similar edge in mastering one-off knock-out encounters: game management, shit-housing, never falling too far behind, patient defensive shell when pressured, targeting the weak points of each opponent, denying the opponent the game they wish to play, taking advantage of limited attacking opportunities, and mastering the psychology of the arena.

The CL, unlike the EL, has a more consistent group of serious contenders but no other serial winners aside from Barcelona.  So RM need to have a baseline level of quality in order for their institutionalized edge to  matter, but mostly they do.

Pro sports is weird in this respect.  In business you beat your competitor by securing a better response from the customer base.   The customer acts as some external, objective adjudicator.  (In my business, the financial markets are the objective external adjudicator: you either generate better returns or you don’t).  But in pro-sports you just go head-to-head with your competitor in an arena setting and you try to nullify them by disrupting them as much as the rules will permit and then eke out a narrow advantage in the limited time window before they can adapt and respond.

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14 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

Well next year Liverpool will be in the EL, so we'll see how well Sevilla does. They qualified for the CL as a result of this win, but in the CL they usually get slapped down.

I think that’s part of Sevilla’s success in the Europa League. You’d expect a team good enough to win it this many times would be good enough to move up and consistently play in the Champions League, and as a result not be in the Europa League enough to win it 7 times, but Sevilla have very much accepted this is their level and really committed to it.

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14 minutes ago, ljkeane said:

I think that’s part of Sevilla’s success in the Europa League. You’d expect a team good enough to win it this many times would be good enough to move up and consistently play in the Champions League, and as a result not be in the Europa League enough to win it 7 times, but Sevilla have very much accepted this is their level and really committed to it.

The difficulty that Sevilla have with consistently qualifying for the CL via league position is that:

1) 3 out of the 4 CL spots in Spain are locked down. Barca, Real and Atleti have by far the strongest squads in La Liga so even if one (or more) of them have a sub par season, they still end up in the top 4.

2) Sevilla operates on a modest budget and are a selling club so their squad depth isn't that great.

3) They are usually a good cup side, consistently getting to at least the QF stage of the Copa del Rey (each round of the CdR is played over two legs except for the final). Combined with the games they play in the CL and/or EL, this strains their squad which often negatively impacts their league form.

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29 minutes ago, Consigliere said:

Di Marzio reporting that Benzema has informed Real Madrid that he intends to accept the offer from Saudi Arabia. Apparently there will be a press conference later today.

So it's Kane to Madrid then. 

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1 minute ago, Spockydog said:

So it's Kane to Madrid then. 

If Levy even agrees to open negotiations that is. If Kane isn't extending and agrees to leave England then Levy might consider it palatable to sell Kane abroad though. From Real's perspective, Kane would make the most sense as he is the most like-for-like player to Benzema that they could get i.e. Someone who is capable of playing both as a traditional CF and dropping deeper to act as a playmaker. It would also allow Real time to slowly integrate Endrick into the squad.

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4 hours ago, AncalagonTheBlack said:

Damn, Kone looks better than Ugarte overall :drool:

 

Ah, a highlight reel. Yes, he has potential, but he has to up his game and play at his top level more consistently. Not sure, he is an immediate fix rather than signing for the future. 

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1 hour ago, Consigliere said:

If Levy even agrees to open negotiations that is. If Kane isn't extending and agrees to leave England then Levy might consider it palatable to sell Kane abroad though. From Real's perspective, Kane would make the most sense as he is the most like-for-like player to Benzema that they could get i.e. Someone who is capable of playing both as a traditional CF and dropping deeper to act as a playmaker. It would also allow Real time to slowly integrate Endrick into the squad.

I could see them joining the race for Vlahovic. Bayern is rumoredly close to his signature, with Juve needing to sell.

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4 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

...facing off against unfamiliar opponents of high caliber with unfamiliar styles in unfamiliar venues in knock-out ties...

 

In this respect, the EL is analogous to the old European Cup, where the actual league champions were the only participants, and the lack of familiarity and wildly differing styles of play added some real spice to the competition.

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