ANALYSIS: How Pinoy football can catch up, using Moneyball and futsal

 

This is the third of a series on the future of the Azkals and Philippine football. Check out Part One and Part Two of the series.

 

Grassroots is always a long-term project. Building a vast network of national academies, youth teams, and facilities takes a lot of time and investment. And if other countries have been doing this far better than the Philippines and are only likely to improve, how can the Philippines ever catch up?

 

An answer comes in the growing statistical analysis in sports, as immortalized in Michael Lewis' book "Moneyball," which documented how one of Major League Baseball’s poorest teams, Oakland Athletics, found ways to work the system and spot undervalued talent. Conventional scouting wisdom favored subjective qualities like athletic build and homeruns, while the A’s found key statistics such as slugging and on-base percentages were more important to win. Using this method, they built a team which went on the longest winning streak in Major League Baseball since 1935. 

 

In many ways the Philippines are in a similar position, and in some ways a much worse one; other countries’ budgets and experience are far greater, and in experience and infrastructure we’re decades behind. To catch up to the best in Southeast Asia, the likes of Thailand, Vietnam, and Malaysia, we need to find our undervalued talent and develop them faster than they’re developing theirs. 

 

And this is why a Filipino version of Moneyball isn’t just the most effective way to bridge the gap, it may well be the only way.   

 

There are a growing number of studies using statistics to analyze players, transfers, and development. One example comes from Lille FC’s Science Director, Chris Carling, whose study over two years of French Ligue 1 games shows some interesting insights into how modern football is played. 

 

On average, players received the ball 47 times in a game: strikers the least (35) and fullbacks the most (56). Each possession averaged two touches, for just over a second. Players received the ball in four meters of space, usually at mid-high speed and they accelerated as they held control of the ball. 

 

The study shows that an individual player only had the ball for a total of 53 seconds in a 90 minute game. This means that running off the ball and positioning make up over 99 percent of a player’s game. 

 

And it also shows what type of players make the most of those 53 seconds to actively win games. If you average two touches per possession, your first touch needs to be excellent, as that’s half of your touches. If you’re on the ball for a second you need to think very quickly. If you’re receiving the ball at pace, in tight spaces, you need to be technically sound. 

 

The key, then, is developing players that would have the skills to make the most of those 53 seconds. But how to develop them?

 

Perfect for the modern game

 

Futsal may provide an answer. Futsal, and small-sided games more generally, condense the 11-a-side game into a more action-packed version. It’s quicker, you get a lot more touches, develop better technical skills, more creative thinking, and get used to sprinting to receive and release the ball. Futsal allows you to practice those 53 seconds of possession six times more effectively within a shorter amount of time. And this is to say little of how the heavier, smaller ball only further develop these skills.

 

For the way the modern game is played, futsal couldn’t be more perfect for young kids.

 

The success of Brazil is the go-to example for how free, uninhibited play in small spaces develops quality talents. With a futsal court in practically every favela, kids have time and space to practice, and they do it in a more effective way than most. The latest World Cup notwithstanding, the Brazilian way, joga bonito, has made them the most successful country in footballing history – and often the most entertaining to watch. 

 

With top quality attacking talents such as Neymar, Thiago Silva, Oscar, Willian, and Diego Costa (who was born in Brazil before becoming a Spanish citizen), Brazil get most of the plaudits for futsal's success story.

 

But futsal was apparently invented by a Uruguayan coach to help players train during the rainy season, and the rest of South America has widely adopted futsal. 

 

The results include Sergio Aguero, Alexis Sanchez, Arturo Vidal, James Rodriguez, Luis Suarez, Radamel Falcao, Angel Di Maria, and Lionel Messi. Of the top five scorers in the top division of English, Spanish, and Italian football, at the time of writing, 10 are South American, and just five are European. 

 

In fact, this has led to the BBC asking if England, with its abundance of pitches, should embrace futsal to help them find their own Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo. Here, they point out Messi and Ronaldo both started on futsal while Brazil, Argentina, Spain, and Italy use futsal extensively for youth development – and have won seven of the last eight World Cups between them. 

 

There are a couple of examples the Philippines can really take note of. A charity called Wallsend Boys Club produced England internationals Michael Carrick, Alan Thompson, Peter Beardsley, Fraser Forster, and the Premier League’s all-time top scorer Alan Shearer, along with many other professionals. They did so with just an indoor futsal court nicknamed the "sweatbox." 

 

Also in the North East of England, Simon Clifford brought futsal back to Leeds after studying the secrets to Brazil’s long-time success. His young team later beat the Irish and Scottish national youth teams. 

 

Long-term and cost-effective

 

The Philippines will struggle to catch up in many facets of domestic and international football. But building futsal courts in strategic areas across the country, particular poor communities with a decent football team already, would provide a long-term, cost-effective way to develop a large pool of quality players – not least because a futsal court requires less than a 10th of the space of a full-size field. This would increase the number of players and fans substantially, and provide venues for regular training close to kids’ homes.

 

There is a final reason why futsal fits the Philippine context particularly well. A large population can be a big plus, as it increases the potential pool of players and fans, but when young prospects spend a couple of hours in traffic before training and a couple more hours on the way home, they’re spending twice as much time in traffic as on the pitch. Filipino footballers aren’t going to become experts in football at that rate, they’ll become experts in traffic. 

 

And that’s because a summary of studies on success shows to master their craft, elite performers spent roughly 10,000 hours practicing. From athletes and musicians, to lawyers and programmers, the people at the top of their professions spent roughly 10,000 hours training, found a competitive advantage, and with a huge slice of luck worked their way to the top. For perspective, 10,000 works out to four hours a day, five days a week, 200 days a year, for a decade. 

 

Today, the typical kid in a barangay simply has nowhere to play football. So no matter how good the coach, or how many festivals there are, players can’t reach the 10,000 hours. 

 

And if you want to be elite, there’s no way around it: you need 10,000 hours of training. Malcolm Gladwell’s "Outliers" has a good summary of this, where the conclusion is that elite performers of any profession are always made, not born. 

 

"It’s sometimes claimed that a team like Brazil is successful because of some special DNA their players have," said coach Tom Byer, who was instrumental in the development of Japanese grassroots football over the past couple of decades.

 

"That’s crap. It’s because they work on their technique incessantly. Many have done their 10,000 hours by the time they’re 13."

 

The good news is that with the right environment, the Philippines can produce elite footballers. The tough news is that no football star is going to be born; we have to develop every single one of them. And this is why such facilities would be perhaps the most important part of a Philippine grassroots vision. —JST, GMA News

 

The fourth and final part of this series of articles will look at how to find the undervalued talent in grassroots football... and how the Philippines can one day qualify for the World Cup.