State of the League: back to the grind

By: Isaiah | October 15th, 2008

It’s International Week again, so the kids are all out with their respective national sides, leaving us precious little to discuss. Just my luck, of course, that I return to civilization from the Industrial Purgatory that is Norwood, Massachusetts at the moment when club soccer takes a break. Because the hotel had ESPN Classic, I was able to catch the thrilling Shaktar game and because Phoenix Landing in Cambridge has GolTV, I was able to catch the thrilling-in-a-different-kind-of-way Atleti game. At least that.

I’m easing my way back into the day-in day-out blogging grind by way of another in my fabled series, State of the League. Some of you might point out that “fabled” is perhaps a bit of an overstatement, but I’m looking at it from a self-fulfilling prophecy kind of way. Cause, you know, Kevin has been really laying it on the last couple of weeks and getting all the plaudits for, um, his hard work. And that just seems monstrously unfair to me, someone who hasn’t bothered to do anything during that time.

As usual, I’m going to keep all the latest rumors out of this post. With, ahem, the exception of that last self-link. The point of these posts is to discuss the league from a perspective that might not be generally done by most posters and not concentrate too much on Barcelona’s current state of affairs. That is to say, I won’t be looking much up on Barceloogle.

So far, the league has disputed 18 of the total 114 possible points, meaning we’re 15% of the way through the league (2/19ths) and not particularly close to crowning a champion. Nor should we assume that the basement dwellers are necessarily headed down.

Let’s start with those subterranean clubs, though, where things have been going pretty much according to plan:

20. Real Betis 2pts (0W-2D-4L, 4GF 8GA, -4GD)
19. Sporting Gijon 3pts (1W-0D-5L, 8GF 20GA, -12GD)
18. Recreativo Huelva 4pts (1W-1D-4L, 2GF 10GA, -8GD)
17. Numancia 4pts (1W-1D-4L, 5GF 9GA, -4GD)
16. Osasuna 4pts (0W-4D-2L, 2GF 4GA, -2GD)

Of these teams, two (Sporting Gijon and Numancia) are new to this year’s edition of the league so it’s not particularly surprising to seem them so far down the table. The other Segunda call-up, Malaga, is in 12th with 7 points. I can’t say I saw the Real Betis tank job coming this early in the season, but their dismal performance point-wise isn’t actually all that bad statistically. Tim Stannard pointed to this in a previous column, but it bears a little bit of repetition.

Real Betis have now played 6 games (just like everyone else); their first two opponents were Recreativo Huelva and Getafe and they managed an 0-1 loss and a 0-0 draw. Then came the hellish 4 weeks that absolutely everyone must endure twice during the season: Sevilla, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Villarreal. If you’re at home to one, the next week you’re away to the other and vice-versa. Betis drew with intercity rival Sevilla 0-0, lost to Barcelona 3-2 at the Camp Nou through a late Gudjohnsen goal, were barely edged out by Real Madrid on a 90th minute Ruud goal, and lost to Villarreal at El Madrigal 2-1 thanks to a come-from-behind victory. They outshot both Sevilla and Villarreal and were only one shot behind Real Madrid. This does not a disaster make, says the statistician in me. If you can compete at that level against 4 of the top 5 sides in the league (we’ll get to Valencia in a minute), I’m going to put my money on you staying up by beating the pants off several weaker sides.

Sporting Gijon’s route to survival is, well, exactly the same as Betis’, only it takes place a week earlier. Their only win (in fact, their only points) come from a win at Mallorca after having been soundly beaten 1-2 by Getafe, 4-3 by Sevilla, 1-6 by Barcelona, and 7-1 by Real Madrid. They’ll probably scrape a few points together against weaker opponents, but I still don’t seem them ever really recovering from those twin ass-kickings metted out by the big boys. That they did, in fact, compete at Sevilla is a testament to their testicular fortitude. Take out Barcelona and Madrid from their schedules and their stats are 6GF and 7GA. That’s not half bad, really. Does anyone blame them for losing at home 0-1 to Villarreal? Only those two major losses suggest deeper issues of quality and, um, depth. We’ll see starting next week when they host fellow strugglers Osasuna if their win at Mallorca was a fluke or the real deal. My guess, to be honest, is fluke — perhaps only because I’m hedging my bets, though.

If there’s a team that’s showing its true colors already, it’s probably Recreativo Huelva, a team that has played only one team in the European spots (a 1-0 loss at Almeria) yet has collected only 4 points out of a possible 18. On the surface this would seem to be better than what Gijon and Betis have done, but take a look at Recre’s opponents: @Betis, Espanyol, @Atleti, Athletic, @Almeria, Malaga. They won the game at Betis and drew against Athletic, but were summarily stomped by Atleti and Malaga 4-0. Thus they’ve shipped 11 goals while only scoring 2. Because Athletic and Betis are in the bottom quarter of the table, success against them can only be viewed through that lens, not as serious success. Based mainly on their inability to score (ranked last) rather than their poor defense (2nd to last), I predict a bottom 3 finish for them. After all, who do they have that they can rely on? One of their keepers is named Riesgo!

Those who are out of the relegation zone aren’t necessarily that much better off. Numancia sits on 4pts, just like Recre, but their overall record and who they have played is much more likely to keep them from going down than Recre’s abysmal start. Los Rojillos will long remember their opening to this campaign, a 1-0 home win against Barcelona and no doubt their goalscorer, Mario, a local boy, is free of bar tabs for at least the rest of the season. Unlike their newbie brethern from Gijon, Numancia have really showed up for the matches against the big boys. They took all 3 points off of Barcelona and managed a 4-3 loss at the Bernabeu and a 1-2 loss at home to Villarreal. This is, of course, where the question of whether or not teams wear each other out fighting against the big guns and thus leave themselves open to getting beaten by worse opponents afterwards by dint of being fatigued. Since playing Villarreal, Numancia has earned only 1 point out of a possible 9, but they have never been blown out. They play Valencia in the Mestalla next, so don’t expect them to move up in the immediate future, just in the resulting few weeks. They may yet slide down, but they have the best shot of the bottom 5 to stay up.

Then there’s the case of Osasuna. They barely survived last year’s relegation battle, ending up 17th by 1 solitary point. Having faced Villarreal to start the year, they got a solid result (1-1 at home), but still have not managed a win. They’ve got 4 points from 4 draws (Villarreal, @Mallorca, Depor, @Numancia), but have also lost twice (@Valencia and vs Racing). No one has yet to score more than 1 goal against Osasuna, who are tied with Valencia and Sevilla for the second-best defensive record in the league: 4 goals allowed). They are, however, tied with Recre for the lowest goals scored (2). That doesn’t bode well if they start leak a few goals here and there, but I have a strange feeling that they’ll put together a nice little bit of magic in front of net at some point during the season and will stay up by those frazzled hairs on their chinny-chin-chins.

There are, of course, 15 other teams to cover, but I’m going to skip upwards, to the top 5, not just to make this a shorter post, but because the middle of the pack is as muddled as always and going through each individual team statistically would be bothersome for you, the readers, as well as for me. 4 points separate the 15th placed team (Racing Santander) and the 8th ranked team (Atleti), meaning there’s very little statistical difference between them. We’ll discuss those teams as they either lunge upwards or slide downward. And I’m also skipping Almeria for the time being because, um, I like things to be symmetrical. And I don’t want to write about Almeria (as exciting as Alvaro Negredo’s output has been).

The top of the table:

5. Real Madrid 13pts (4W-1D-1L, 18GF 9GA, +9GD)
4. Barcelona 13pts (4W-1D-1L, 18GF 7GA, +11GD)
3. Sevilla 14pts (4W-2D-0L, 12GF 4GA, +8GD)
2. Villarreal 16pts (5W-1D-0L, 9GF 3GA, +6GD)
1. Valencia 16pts (5W-1D-0L, 13GF 4GA, +8GD)

If you’re going to pick the La Liga winner and runner up before the season starts, you’re most likely going to put your money on either Real Madrid or Barcelona, no matter who you actually support. The top 5 is really only interesting enough to talk about because those two teams aren’t the top 2, but instead sit at the bottom of the CL spots (for all intents and purposes, Madrid is a CL team because of how close they are to being so and because of how much time is left in the season).

But what of Schuster’s men? Real Madrid is coming off another championship and were looking like finally keeping some semblance of order in their ranks until Cronaldo didn’t make the move and Robinho jumped ship. They’re certainly not floundering, but they haven’t shown themselves to be true world beaters either, at least not in the league. They may not be as flawed as their opening-day loss to Depor suggested, but they’re not necessarily that much better than the sugestion either. Numancia scored 3 times on them in the Bernabeu. Their goals against record is fairly abysmal for a team in the top 5 (9GA, tying them for 4th worst with Numancia), but they’re dealing with a sort of hodgepodge backline and I expect their goal differential to rapidly improve over the next few weeks as people settle in a bit. And they do score boatloads of goals (tied for first with 18). They recently drew with Espanyol in the Bernabeu, which suggests continued struggles, but I don’t forsee that in their future, as players return from injury and find their forms. They have a well-balanced attack that isn’t reliant on any one player, so cutting out their scoring is never going to be easy. They’ll definitely be a CL team next year, if not the champions; a 3-peat is just so damned hard to pull off, after all.

Next, my own beloved Barcelona. I won’t dwell on them too much, since this site is dedicated to the team and has a review of every game they’ve played. Much like their rivals in the capital, the blaugrana suffered a defeat in their opening game, but followed that one up with a draw. Since then it’s been maximum points (12), with the occasional heart-stopper, just in case you weren’t paying enough attention. Though they’ve managed 18 goals in their 6 games (12 of which came in 2 games), they’ve yet to record a clean sheet; still, they’re tied (with 4 other teams) for 7th best defensive record with 7 goals allowed. They are also tied for first in goals scored (18). Of those 18 goals, 10 of them are shared by 2 players (Eto’o and Messi with 5 each). This lack of attacking versatility is not necessarily a hindrance to a championship run as long as the odd man continues to put in goals (5 other players have notched at least one goal). A definite CL finish for this team, but in today’s Liga, nothing is certain.

Then there’s the case of Sevilla. For the past few years, Sevilla has appeared to be one of the powerhouses of La Liga, at least for the first few months, if not for the entire campaign. Still, they are a force to be reckoned with when they’re on form. At home they’ve only allowed 3 goals, all 3 of which were scored by Sporting Gijon of all teams. While they haven’t faced the toughest of opponents (who has, though?), they’ve put up good numbers against most opponents. They have yet to lose, have drawn only twice (opening day @Racing and @Betis), and in their 3 wins not against Sporting Gijon have outscored opponents 7-0. Naturally it’s Freddy Kanoute who is atop their scoring chart with 3, though he is tied with the ever-resurgent Javier Chevanton (at what point does one stop being resurgent and get regarded as just plain good?). Despite their next game being against Almeria, who sit in 6th, Sevilla has a fairly easy road for the next few jornadas. November 23 starts their run when they face Valencia, Barcelona, Real Madrid, and Villarreal in 4 consecutive matches. That’ll be fun. By then, though, they should be fairly well positioned to withstand any loss of points that may (and probably will) occur, though the only away game of those 4 is at the Bernabeu. Not bad. Expect to see them in Europe this year, though the CL could be so hotly contested that even a team as good as Sevilla gets the shaft and falls to the ~~NIT~~ UEFA Cup.*

Onward and ever upward, we next encounter Villarreal, the Yellow Submarine whose place in the hearts and minds of all underdog-lovers was so very nearly cemented forever, but was summarily blown by, of all people, Juan Roman Riquelme in the CL semis against Arsenal. Anyway, JRR is gone, and has been replaced by Marcos Senna, who, instead of missing that PK, would have kicked Jens Lehmann in half. Until they at least get close to overcoming that defeat, Villarreal seems destined to be that other team from Spain; they’re not flashy, they don’t sell players for a gazillion dollars to other teams, nor do they buy them for much. But they are solid and their current record speaks volumes to their ability to find talent where others haven’t (Santi Cazorla, Joseba Llorente). They lead the league in goals allowed (3) and have yet to allow more than one in a game (meaning they have 3 clean sheets). They’re also tied for 6th (with Almeria) in the league in goals scored (9). Their schedule for the next few weeks isn’t particularly easy (@Espanyol, Atleti, @Athletic, Almeria), but they should get maximum points from 3 of those games, keeping them at least tied for 1st going into their easiest stretch of this half of the season, before heading over to visit Sevilla. They’ll be back in the CL next year.

And then there was one: Valencia. Where did Los Che come from? They’ve always had the talent to compete, but last year they were such a disaster I thought for sure they’d be a midtable club throughout the season. Apparently I was wrong, at the very least about the beginning of the season. They started the season with a 3-0 home win and then drew away to Almeria; since, they’ve outscored their 4 opponents 8-2. They are 3rd in the league in goals scored (13) and tied for 2nd in goals allowed (4)**. Valencia beat Depor La Coruña 4-2 (granted, at the Mestalla) and plays Numancia next. In about 4 weeks we’ll be able to compare what Valencia has done to what FCB and RM have done, but for now they’re leading based on merit, rather than on anything else. Their leading scorer, David Villa, has nearly half their goals (6) and is the current Pichichi; they’ll have to diversify their scoring a bit if they want to maintain their pace, though 5 others have scored at least once, so that’s not bad (Mata has 3, everyone else has 1).

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*If you’re unfamiliar with the NIT, visit the Wikipedia page to see why I roll my eyes whenever anyone mentions it or the UEFA Cup.

**I’ll point out here (not for the first time) that Barcelona and Real Madrid are tied for first with 18 goals scored. This is actually a HUGE statistical difference, except that 6 of Barcelona’s goals and 7 of Real Madrid’s came against Sporting Gijon, a team Valencia has yet to play.

[Note: If anyone has any statistical category they'd like to help me track, I'm all for it. Currently I track win/loss/draw percentages as overall/home/away as well as using those three categories for GF/GA/GD. I'd like to be able to keep track of shots on goal, corners, fouls/cards, as well as passing percentages, but I know of no resources that provide that sort of information. If anyone knows, please send me an email at barcelona[at]theoffside[dot]com or post a comment below. I think that these State of the League posts would be much more useful if there was a much stronger statistical backbone (complete with charts, of course, which I’m going to design for the next post). Thanks, Isaiah]