Thursday, October 9, 2014

Building a Champion

How long do we have to wait?

Arsenal, the 5th most valuable football club in the world, has gone 10 years without winning a European title or their domestic league.

I'm not saying "we don't win anything." I appreciated the FA Cup victory in May. I appreciated it in 2005.

I can appreciate the joy of winning a domestic cup while also understanding that a club at Arsenal's level should be winning more.

Compared to the most prestigious trophies--domestic league titles and European cups--success in a domestic cup is more random than a major trophy. Basically, small clubs can win domestic cups. Only big clubs can win major trophies.

Look at the number, and caliber, of clubs who have won domestic cups in the 4 major leagues (Germany, Italy, Spain, and England) over the last 10 years:

Domestic Cup Winners:

FC Nuremberg
Werder Bremen
Schalke
Dortmund
Bayern Munich (6 times)
Lazio (twice)
Napoli (twice)
Roma (twice)
Inter Milan (4 times)
Real Betis
Espanyol
Sevilla (twice)
Valencia
Barcelona (twice)
Real Madrid (twice)
Atletico Madrid
Arsenal (twice)
Liverpool
Chelsea (4 times)
Portsmouth
Manchester City
Wigan Athletic

That's 22 different teams for 40 available trophies. Of those 22, 13 are listed in the world's top 20 most valuable football clubs, just 59%,

4 clubs (Wigan, Portsmouth, Real Betis, Nuremberg) are not even currently in their own country's top division.

That 59% ratio suggests winning domestic cups has been far more random than winning more significant trophies over the same period of time. To make my point, I will compare that 59% level of economic diversity with the champions of each of these countries' domestic leagues over the past 10 years.

League Champions:

Bayern Munich (6 times)
Stuttgart
Wolfsburg
Dortmund (twice)
Juventus (3 times)*
AC Milan *
Inter Milan (5 times)
Barcelona (6 times)
Real Madrid (3 times)
Atletico Madrid
Chelsea (3 times)
Manchester United (5 times)
Manchester City (2 times)

* in 2004-05 Juventus forfeited the Serie A title as a penalty for match fixing. AC Milan finished second that season. Depending on your opinion, either team won Serie A that season. Since no champion has been officially acknowledged, I have not awarded a domestic league title to either team.

13 teams for 39 available trophies. and of those 13 teams, all but 2 are among the world's 20 most valuable clubs. 11 of the 13 are in that exclusive list, a rate of 85%.

Now let's look at the last 10 Champions League winners.

European Cup Winners:

Liverpool
Barcelona (3 times)
AC Milan
Manchester United
Inter Milan
Bayern Munich
Real Madrid

That's just 7 different teams in 10 years, and 100% of those 7 are included in the world's 7 most valuable clubs.

In total, just 11 clubs have won the 49 significant (domestic league titles and European championships) trophies over the past 10 years.

Clearly, club value has an extremely strong correlation with club success. And Arsenal, despite the club's strong financial value, has not enjoyed the same competitive success both in England and in Europe a their financial rivals.

I decided to plot this information on a graph to further illustrate my point. The below scatter plot shows the expected return (significant trophies) by club value (in millions of US$):


As you can see, Arsenal has vastly underachieved when compared to other similarly-valued clubs over the past 10 years, No club is further below the line of best fit than Arsenal. 11 clubs have won more significant trophies than Arsenal over this time period, 7 of whom have much weaker valuations.

The money is there, people. Even if Arsenal didn't have enormous sums of cash reserves in the bank (we do) Arsenal could easily take loans out against the strong value of the club to put a more competitive team on the field. There is no doubt, when looking at the numbers, that Arsenal could--and should--be winning more significant trophies than we have over the past 10 years.

SO PLEASE STOP USING OIL MONEY AS AN EXCUSE FOR ARSENAL'S SHORTCOMINGS.

The fact is Arsenal have the resources to put together a team with enough quality to win the EPL and the Champions League. We have possessed the necessary resources for a long time. And we have not used those resources effectively.

The only conclusion one can take is that Arsenal has underachieved for 10 years. And somehow, Arsenal have not changed managers during this period of blatant underachievement.

Many Wenger supporters have suggested the manager is striving to build Arsenal into some sort of Barcelona 2.0. That's why so many support "keep the ball" tactics  and so many are willing to accept losses. Somehow, a large portion of Arsenal supporters are willing to accept losses because they still believe that Arsene Wenger will be able to develop his team into an unstoppable force if he can get the time required to develop the club's culture in his vision.

Here's the problem. Teams like Barcelona don't take 10 years to produce results. They do require more than one manager to get there, however.

If we want to be the new Barcelona, let's actually look at how Barcelona developed.

Frank Rijkaard took over for Louis Van Gaal in January of 2003. In his second full season at the club, Rijkaard won La Liga. In this third, he won it again, and added a Champions League victory against Arsenal in Paris in 2006. 3 significant trophies in 2 years.

And then Rijkaard suffered two straight years without a significant trophy. He was sacked at the end of the 2008 season.

When people say Wenger is developing the "new Barcelona" they are presumably saying he can create a similar team to the treble-winning 2008-09 version of Los Blaugrana--Pep Guardiola's first year in charge.

Over the 10 years that preceded that Barcelona team, they went through 5 different managers, including two separate spells with Van Gaal.

The fact is, in aggregate, a new set of eyes adds value to a football club. Turnover at the manager position creates value. It normally does not hurt a club. In fact it is more frequently much more beneficial than destructive.

Situations like Manchester United's are not a warning sign. They are the exception to the rule. A tenure like Sir Alex Ferguson's, where one manager sustains success for an extremely long period of time, has happened just once. Every other big, trophy-winning club in Europe employed 3 or more managers over the past 10 years.

This makes sense. Football clubs stagnate when one manager is given too much time to attempt and reattempt and reattempt to implement their own personal ideals on their team. A new set of eyes is normally able to quickly address their predecessor's overlooked vulnerabilities, while maintaining the old manager's strengths, and win trophies as a result.

It's why Arsene Wenger's attacking philosophy brought so many great results during his initial years at Arsenal. Wenger took over a George Graham team that already knew how to defend. He taught the club how to attack. And in so doing created the best team England has ever seen.

But 10 barren years have shown that Arsene Wenger is not the exception to the rule. He is not without weaknesses. A new manager will be better equipped to address those weaknesses.

Rather than let the club stagnate, Arsenal needs to be brave.

Arsenal needs to sack the best manager the club has ever known. 

To move the club forward.

And build a champion.

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