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In part 1 the focus was on raising the bar of the Jamaican football culture by using fundamental process improvement techniques to drive change and make improvements in the sport. The goal is building a culture of real performance measurement, setting goals, analyzing the gap between goal and performance and developing ways to close the gap and repeating that loop across all levels in the sport.
In Part II we looked further at building atop the performance based system by creating an infrastructure to identify from the earliest ages to the national team level key attributes such as skill, speed and strength, identifying and developing the players with the best brain and body fluidity which enables the fastest learning, faster decision making processes resulting in a consistent transaction speed advantage in ball control and movement.
Part II also focused on building the best technical skills and continually acquiring and accumulating football knowledge, in a quest to spread the culture of measurement across the country leading to a systematic measurement of key attributes as well as of actual performance relative to set goals, all aimed at developing the combination of the fastest, brightest, most skilled players with all the technical skill possessed by all the best football nations via benchmarking of those system in countries such as Spain, Italy, Brazil and Germany.
Now the reality of where we are cannot be avoided and currently we are nowhere near being able to implement this in a rapid enough manner in time for 2014 or even 2018, so as we have done in the past we will cobble together the best of the local players, Jamaicans in pro leagues and what is available from the Jamaica origin pools in the wider diaspora.
Thus with limited options on the development side what can we do now to pick the best players and develop the best side in the short term. In order to do this as best as possible, the way forward is to put in place a measurement system based on the fundamental statistics that are readily available to us that meets our core needs.
First as discussed in (RTB II) we looked at player commitment and work ethic as evidenced through ratios of matches played, minutes played and yellow and red card issued deducted from that score. What we are looking for here is durability through a season and all that comes with that, consistency, constant communication across the organization, being a leader, ability to consistently make your team believe you must play in order for the team to be consistently successful. Thus the more matches played, the more minutes played per match heightens the score, with a maximum theoretical score of 1
The second area is actual average performance over the entire club season, goals scored, assists, team goal differential ratio(GDR) are the key stats, with the weighted breakout differing based onposition. Thus forwards would be weighted higher on goals scored, their primary duty, with assists and GDR in that order.
In midfield assists are first with goals then DGR, but with GDR playing a more significant role in the midfielders score.
On the defenders side the focus is on broken out more evenly with GDR being the highest weighted factor.
The last factor coming into play will be shots on goal versus shots taken statistics to determine accuracy, consistency and soundness of mind in play as when you look at the top players that average is always above 50% when you look at many of our players when we get the statistics it is consistently below 35% which suggest poor decisions or discipline, rash impulsive action as well as poor practice which results in poor execution in this area, wasting valuable team chances at critical times.
The third and probably most controversial area is how do we get an apples to apples comparison of our players across the leagues they play. Here is what will be done here.
1. Premier leagues of every country will start with a 50% score whether it is Andorran premier league or it is EPL the first division (that is, premier division in the country) of every country starts with that amount. The second and third divisions below that in every country get 10% deducted for every level below, we are not considering any player on any club below English league two which is the fourth division, just deduct 20 % of that base 50% number so Championship starts with 40%, ELO 1 starts with 32 % that ELO2 starts with 26%, and, in actually running the statistics between the mid tier teams of each division in England versus the penultimate drop group in each group to determine roughly the difference between leagues the number is roughly comparable with what is suggested here when going from EPL to CL to ELO1 etc thus 20% drop of each base number % below 50% for each drop is as good a gauge as I could derive at this time, open to suggestions on a better way to assign the drop in level with each division .
2. Any league that is professional gets another 10% added to their initial score, professional league from this standpoint means that the average salary of a player in the league is greater than the rough average of the ten highest per capita income countries average which is roughly about $50K US, thus ELO2 makes that standard. (See English football wages by Ahmed Bilal)
3. We consider the quality of football played by the country in which the league resides and for this we use the world cup as the standard, we look at the last 6 cups, that is 24 years to give us a goodwide understanding for the potential quality of ball played in that country, so any country that has made the world cup in the last 6 cups their leagues get another 10%.
4. On the world cup front again, here we lift the standard to a higher level, any country that has made semifinals of the worldcup in the last 6 cups gets another 10% and this benefits all leagues in that country.
5. Next we come to league quality, that is determined by two things, the first is any league that a club that has made it to the club semifinals of their world cup continental group in the last six years gets another 10% and any league that has a club that makes it to the semifinals of the world club championships gets another 10%.
In summary here is what this looks like EPL gets 100% or ascore of 1.0, Brazil serie A would also get 100% or a score of 1.0, English ELO2 would get 56% or .56 score, Jamaica NPL would get 60% or .60, MLS would get 80% or .80, Costa Rica first division would get 70% or .7 as they have made it to the Concacaf region club semifinals levels, Norway ‘s Tippeligaen would come in at 70% or .7.
Lastly is the ranking of the team within the league of play, with the emphasis being on tempering high individual contribution levels on poor teams and ensuring solid contribution on excellent teams gets due consideration. This is based totally on the win, loss and draw record as a% as well so wins are 1 point, draws are .25 point and losses are 0, thus we are emphasizing wins as a premium and draws get something but we de-emphasize their importance relative to how we score them in regular league play at 33% or.33.
Overall the greatest weight is given to commitment and performance scores, the true individual contribution to performance, then league score then team performance within league score in that sequence.
At the end of the day if we can get the statistics of the players, especially on the Jamaican side where many of these stats are not complied kept up with or even discussed, we want to open this side of our football culture so we are measuring performance across the board and we can see how our domestic players stack up, against our locals playing abroad, against diaspora players and ultimately against the best of the best, the best forwards, Ronaldo, Messi etc, the best midfielders, Sneijder, Xavi, Kaka or best defenders Maicon , Terry etc.
Next the ranking of our players across leagues based on performance.
In Part II we looked further at building atop the performance based system by creating an infrastructure to identify from the earliest ages to the national team level key attributes such as skill, speed and strength, identifying and developing the players with the best brain and body fluidity which enables the fastest learning, faster decision making processes resulting in a consistent transaction speed advantage in ball control and movement.
Part II also focused on building the best technical skills and continually acquiring and accumulating football knowledge, in a quest to spread the culture of measurement across the country leading to a systematic measurement of key attributes as well as of actual performance relative to set goals, all aimed at developing the combination of the fastest, brightest, most skilled players with all the technical skill possessed by all the best football nations via benchmarking of those system in countries such as Spain, Italy, Brazil and Germany.
Now the reality of where we are cannot be avoided and currently we are nowhere near being able to implement this in a rapid enough manner in time for 2014 or even 2018, so as we have done in the past we will cobble together the best of the local players, Jamaicans in pro leagues and what is available from the Jamaica origin pools in the wider diaspora.
Thus with limited options on the development side what can we do now to pick the best players and develop the best side in the short term. In order to do this as best as possible, the way forward is to put in place a measurement system based on the fundamental statistics that are readily available to us that meets our core needs.
First as discussed in (RTB II) we looked at player commitment and work ethic as evidenced through ratios of matches played, minutes played and yellow and red card issued deducted from that score. What we are looking for here is durability through a season and all that comes with that, consistency, constant communication across the organization, being a leader, ability to consistently make your team believe you must play in order for the team to be consistently successful. Thus the more matches played, the more minutes played per match heightens the score, with a maximum theoretical score of 1
The second area is actual average performance over the entire club season, goals scored, assists, team goal differential ratio(GDR) are the key stats, with the weighted breakout differing based onposition. Thus forwards would be weighted higher on goals scored, their primary duty, with assists and GDR in that order.
In midfield assists are first with goals then DGR, but with GDR playing a more significant role in the midfielders score.
On the defenders side the focus is on broken out more evenly with GDR being the highest weighted factor.
The last factor coming into play will be shots on goal versus shots taken statistics to determine accuracy, consistency and soundness of mind in play as when you look at the top players that average is always above 50% when you look at many of our players when we get the statistics it is consistently below 35% which suggest poor decisions or discipline, rash impulsive action as well as poor practice which results in poor execution in this area, wasting valuable team chances at critical times.
The third and probably most controversial area is how do we get an apples to apples comparison of our players across the leagues they play. Here is what will be done here.
1. Premier leagues of every country will start with a 50% score whether it is Andorran premier league or it is EPL the first division (that is, premier division in the country) of every country starts with that amount. The second and third divisions below that in every country get 10% deducted for every level below, we are not considering any player on any club below English league two which is the fourth division, just deduct 20 % of that base 50% number so Championship starts with 40%, ELO 1 starts with 32 % that ELO2 starts with 26%, and, in actually running the statistics between the mid tier teams of each division in England versus the penultimate drop group in each group to determine roughly the difference between leagues the number is roughly comparable with what is suggested here when going from EPL to CL to ELO1 etc thus 20% drop of each base number % below 50% for each drop is as good a gauge as I could derive at this time, open to suggestions on a better way to assign the drop in level with each division .
2. Any league that is professional gets another 10% added to their initial score, professional league from this standpoint means that the average salary of a player in the league is greater than the rough average of the ten highest per capita income countries average which is roughly about $50K US, thus ELO2 makes that standard. (See English football wages by Ahmed Bilal)
3. We consider the quality of football played by the country in which the league resides and for this we use the world cup as the standard, we look at the last 6 cups, that is 24 years to give us a goodwide understanding for the potential quality of ball played in that country, so any country that has made the world cup in the last 6 cups their leagues get another 10%.
4. On the world cup front again, here we lift the standard to a higher level, any country that has made semifinals of the worldcup in the last 6 cups gets another 10% and this benefits all leagues in that country.
5. Next we come to league quality, that is determined by two things, the first is any league that a club that has made it to the club semifinals of their world cup continental group in the last six years gets another 10% and any league that has a club that makes it to the semifinals of the world club championships gets another 10%.
In summary here is what this looks like EPL gets 100% or ascore of 1.0, Brazil serie A would also get 100% or a score of 1.0, English ELO2 would get 56% or .56 score, Jamaica NPL would get 60% or .60, MLS would get 80% or .80, Costa Rica first division would get 70% or .7 as they have made it to the Concacaf region club semifinals levels, Norway ‘s Tippeligaen would come in at 70% or .7.
Lastly is the ranking of the team within the league of play, with the emphasis being on tempering high individual contribution levels on poor teams and ensuring solid contribution on excellent teams gets due consideration. This is based totally on the win, loss and draw record as a% as well so wins are 1 point, draws are .25 point and losses are 0, thus we are emphasizing wins as a premium and draws get something but we de-emphasize their importance relative to how we score them in regular league play at 33% or.33.
Overall the greatest weight is given to commitment and performance scores, the true individual contribution to performance, then league score then team performance within league score in that sequence.
At the end of the day if we can get the statistics of the players, especially on the Jamaican side where many of these stats are not complied kept up with or even discussed, we want to open this side of our football culture so we are measuring performance across the board and we can see how our domestic players stack up, against our locals playing abroad, against diaspora players and ultimately against the best of the best, the best forwards, Ronaldo, Messi etc, the best midfielders, Sneijder, Xavi, Kaka or best defenders Maicon , Terry etc.
Next the ranking of our players across leagues based on performance.
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