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City may just have had their Hollywood moment but it’s a story that’s already been told

City may just have had their Hollywood moment but it’s a story that’s already been told

11th July 2019 By Rick Waghorn 6 Comments

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Amid all the natural euphoria over the last few weeks, there were two lines that struck a chord with me.

The first was delivered in a Mick Dennis look-back when he cited City’s sporting director Stuart Webber as saying that Emi Buendia first popped up on the radar via the club’s data analytics team. The young Argentine – now armed with a new, five-year deal on the back of last season’s heroics – didn’t arrive at his desk via an agent’s video or a scouting report from the nether regions of the Spanish Second Division but as a statistical anomaly, a number that stood him out from the crowd.

The second line was a more general lament from Stewart Lewis that last season wasn’t a Hollywood movie script; that City’s ride to the top of the Championship pile was a film-maker’s dream – if only there had been someone there to record it.

Put the two together – Buendia’s unusual route to Norfolk and City’s promotion story being the stuff of the movies – and I think you can find a movie that charts the City story as well as any and that movie is Moneyball.

Moneyball is a baseball movie – one that tells the true-life story of the Oakland Athletics’ record-breaking 2002 season.

At the start of the campaign, the As’ general manager Billy Beane – played with beautiful understatement by Brad Pitt – is forced to watch his star players – Jonny Damon, Jason Giambi and Jason Isringhausen – leave for the fatter wage packets of the bigger clubs. Think James Maddison. There is an inevitability to certain player moves.

And the As had fallen foul of three of them. The question now was how could they ever compete when it came to finding replacements.

And the answer came by playing the numbers, doing the research data-wise on the players that made a difference.

In this quest, Beane recruited a Peter Brand, a young Yale economics graduate with radical ideas about how to assess player value and together they ripped up the rule book in terms of scouting and recruitment practice and handed the head coach the template for a winning side.

Needless to say, opposition was fierce as Beane and Brand brought some of the league’s bigger misfits to the fore and demanded they be given another opportunity. Much in the same way that many would not have given Teemu Pukki another look after his underwhelming spell at Celtic, so unorthodox pitcher Chad Bradford, the ageing David Justice and the injured Scott Hatteberg were recruited into the fold.

Suddenly on-base percentage (OBP) was king; the head scout was fired as his dissent mounted – recruitment was to be done the Beane way. As losses mounted initially so it required a considerable act of faith from the As’ owners to stick with the plan, but their reward was not long in forth-coming as the As’ went on a 19-game unbeaten sequence to tie the longest winning streak in American League history.

Beane never watched the games. For the 20th, however, he is persuaded to watch the match unfold by his young daughter.

From 11-0 up at the end of the third inning, the As let the Kansas City Royals back into the game to tie at 11 a-piece before a walk-off home run by Hatteberg sees Oakland home for a record-breaking 20th consecutive win.

The team of misfits – brought together by the data science geeks – were walking it and the rest of baseball was forced to sit up and take notice. Just as the rest of football might have woken up to the ‘Norwich Way’ this summer.

It is not long before the big boys come a-calling. Beane is courted by the Boston Red Sox with an offer to become the highest-paid general manager in the history of the game; he turns it down preferring to stay close to his family on the West Coast.

The Red Sox take up his ideas anyway and duly go on to win the 2004 World Series.

It is not all about the data. It is also about not being a d1ckhead; the no d1ckhead rule was enforced mid-season at the As as one-star hitter enjoyed one too many a Vegas party and was promptly shipped out without much ceremony.

It is a rule that Webber and Co appear to have valued above all others as the Class of 2019 deliver the goods on and off the field.

And the system appears to be underpinning transfer-policy to this day. Someone will have crunched Patrick Roberts’ numbers and liked what they saw – his possession stats, his pass completion rate both conspiring to put the loan wheels in motion.

It is a fascinating parallel. Between the worlds of pro baseball and pro soccer; between what mid-sized clubs have to do to compete with their bigger city rivals.

And the As’ model doesn’t really account for home-grown talent – their success wasn’t in part founded on bringing the likes of a Max Aarons or a Ben Godfrey through to the ranks of the first team.

But could Billy Beane be Stuart Webber? For sure. And will the equivalent of the Boston Red Sox come a-calling – particularly if Norwich hold their own Premier League-wise this season. For sure.

Beane turned the big money down. Somethings money just can’t buy. Whether the same proves true of Webber only time will tell.

But Norwich City have had their moment of Hollywood fame; their story has already been told.

You just need to know where to look.


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Filed Under: Column, Rick Waghorn

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Comments

  1. Ed says

    11th July 2019 at 9:34 am

    A great article and an interesting analogy Rick. Didn’t Brentford embark on a similar project a few years ago by using data to identify the best players???

    The way in which DF has resurrected the failing careers of players is astounding and off the top of my head – Leitner, Pukki (obviously), Zimmerman, Stieperman and Vrancic. Also, he has given youngsters a chance and who could have predicted how well they would perform over the strains of playing so many games, culminating in Aarons winning young player of the season – unbelievable.

    MANY on here and on various other Forums were lamenting the necessary sale of the JMs, who between them had scored over 60% of meagre goals total in the 2017-2018 season and were rightly fearful as to where the goals were coming from last season. On one particular forum, in my most optimistic of moods predicted in August that we’d score more than 80 goals.
    The $64,00 question – can we stay up!!! IMO, of course we can and I’m confident that even when we are on the wrong end of a hammering from one of the top 6 or whoever, DF will stick to his tactics and playing style that got us promoted.

    Finally, it is great to see that the majority of the players who got us promoted have signed new and improved contracts, rather be lured by the £Ms being offered for their signature elsewhere. I would imagine that nearly every player is now worth at least £20M and Pukki considerably more!!!

    1
    Reply
  2. martin penney says

    11th July 2019 at 9:56 am

    Well we’ve sure come a long way from the time when Bryan Hamilton (allegedly) recruited Raymond de Waard from a video “showreel”…

    … and look how that one panned out!

    A very good read, and if I knew more than seven tenths of bugger all about baseball I would have enjoyed it even more:-)

    Reply
  3. Alex B says

    11th July 2019 at 11:56 am

    Hi Rick

    An entertaining read while watching England v Australia in the ICC World Cup this morning – just wish I was at Edgbaston.

    As Ed said, Brentford did the number-crunching as well as Barnsley and both had minor league success but have sold players on for large profits.

    A traditionalist might look at it and say Moneyball takes away the skills of recognising a talented player by a scout but surely once a player has been deemed a possible recruit for the team then the scouts will watch them numerous times to make sure they fit the profile and a background check on his temperament.

    Moneyball and data selection has its place in football but the traditional skills of a scout must not not be overlooked. How many times has a scout been checking on one player and suddenly noticed another that has slipped under the radar?

    Webber said he has a project at City and that is 4 or 5 years and they are slightly ahead of schedule – can we expect him to jump ship for more money with less overall command at a club similar to City? I doubt it. Could he go to Man U? Again not sure as his role would be minimal.

    All in all Webber will be a hard act for someone to follow, his dream job would be back at Liverpool, and they wouldn’t give him the freedom to run things that he gets at City. Some wealthier club than City might take a gamble but he would have to think long and hard about what he would give up here.

    The Webber/Farke debate whenever it happens will be an interesting one and possibly a few malcontents will creep out of the woodwork, but until the debate is needed, lets enjoy the ride.

    Onwards and upwards

    OTBC

    Reply
  4. David Bowers says

    11th July 2019 at 1:48 pm

    I was watching a video on YouTube ~a year ago about the company that provides the service you talk about. It’s widely used and has been for a long time. I’m sure Webber has a better grasp on it than most.

    This wasn’t what I watched, but looks pretty interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLcXH_4rwr4

    I’ve dropped this in a comment before, but personally I think this is a better rags to riches baseball film (and possible closer analogy) and the system pre-dates Billy Beane… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RA76b5Hhvxg

    Reply
  5. Stewart Lewis says

    11th July 2019 at 6:05 pm

    Brilliant, Rick. Don’t know why I didn’t make the connection before; it’s spot-on.

    Reply
    • Michael D says

      11th July 2019 at 10:39 pm

      Well Connor Southwell has made the link before back in this MFW article from Feb 2018

      https://norwichcity.myfootballwriter.com/2018/02/01/scandinavian-lessons-to-be-learned-fc-mitjylland-blazing-a-trail-that-many-including-city-may-well-follow/

      Interesting though to read more about the original moneyball than i had read before.

      Reply

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