Great business Pool

[Assasin]

wrong there Stoni. Stats is One of the major factor. You can't make decisions solely on Stats. You will fail if you do.

[Peter R]

Barca looks more willing (today at least) to make that telling forward pass than they did in the past.

[Stonigut]

Nobody saying stats alone, but we living in the stone age if we believe is a gut feeling thing. Look at what Ghana and ivory coast have produced in past ten years, players that are fundamentally productive in top leagues, how does ivory coast produce drogba, yaya, bony, gervinho in literally one slice of a generation. They are not just producers they are super producers, we can't even find one yard man who can produce on even a third of the level of the weakest of these four. You think is a buck up on the part of ivory coast, jff need to go do some serious benchmarking. There is no doubt in my mind that we are putting our best potential in the garbage can as we are clueless on talent id and development.

[Mosiah]

But you are acting as if I am saying we should throw stats out the window! I never said or implied any such thing.

So you think it was Ivory Coast football that used stats to produce those players?!?

[Assasin]

Yes I am for using benchmarks, but to base people importance on the field on stats you will never see the full game. A player like Shorty Malcolm who will never pass a ball more than 5 yards, who may not have all the right tatics, may not beat a player, may not even hold the ball but you can't measure his importance to his team.

We do need bench mark, but be careful, like the NFL who measure how fast a man run, jump, throw the ball, and everything, yet oftentimes the first round pick end up been a bust and 7 round or undrafted players end up been stand outs and stars.

[Stonigut]

It is a combination thing. Raw stats to understand potential brain to body reaction, physical strength, speed, psych testing, issues like taking instruction, taking responsibility, team aptitude et.

Game stats is most important in development phaseshorty's stats would be more defensive in terms of field performance, ability to close, ability to press, ability to cover, ability to respond when beaten, disruptor qualities, ball hawk quality, etc etc. Must use data to improve initial id process and to separate man from mantu.

[Gamma]

ok Stoni, it has to start somewhere. where no stats exists what begins the process to allow for that assessment and how is it begun?

[Stonigut]

Well, I have long advocated that tracking the assist at all levels is an excellent way to focus and develop the idea of the final pass and developing passing skill in the opponents half, right now the only glory in yard ball is scoring, assists are not tracked thus why assist when you have a shot at glory which is kick for goal, thus a simple thing like tracking assists and giving credit for assist will change the trajectory of the ball game somewhat and we will also be able to identify the best passers by assist production.

That would be a great start, I have about twenty more after that, you want them or is that one enough for you.

[Dunny]

Stoni a little piece on Philippe Coutinho you may find interesting

http://www1.skysports.com/football/n...er-league-star

[Gamma]

Actually it doesn't address my question in the least. It calls for more stats...