This Sunday, Arsenal lost 2-1 to Tottenham Hotspur. In this season and the last, the results have been exactly the same. Arsenal beat Spurs 5-2 at home, and Spurs won 2-1 at White Hart Lane. Cumulatively, the score is 12-8 to Arsenal. Many arguments have been made by Spurs fans that the balance of power has shifted in north London, or that the pendulum has swung in favour of a Spurs team who have improved somewhat under the management of Andre Villas Boas.
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| Interwoven Jenkinson |
So the narrative goes…
What is important is this:
Arsenal: 6 points, goal difference +4
Tottenham Hotspur: 6 points, goal difference -4
These basic figures are the only material results of the
matches and the only figures that will matter in the final analysis and the
battle for a lucrative spot in next season’s UEFA Champion’s League.
The narrative of last season for Arsenal began with a truly
humiliating defeat at the hands of Manchester United, losing 8-2, followed
by a loss to Spurs 2-1. A double-digit point gap opened up and Arsenal was a
club in turmoil. Then on Sunday 26 February, they went 2-nil down to Spurs at
home. The narrative was forging a path to even greater depths of sporting
despair. That was until Bacary Sagna defiantly headed past Brad Friedel to
begin Arsenal’s impressive comeback. Goals from Van Persie, Rosicky and Walcott
(2) turned the score on its head and Arsenal came out the victors 5-2. The phoenix
rose from the flames and over the remainder of the season, Arsenal overturned “the
gap” and finished third, one place above Spurs. The story was complete only
when Spurs were denied entry to this season’s Champion’s League by Chelsea’s
victory in the final of last season’s competition against Bayern Munich (which in
itself was part of the narrative of the last hurrah of Mourinho’s golden squad
and their victory on the final frontier of Roman Abramovich’s financial
football adventurism).
This season, Arsenal is again the crisis club, and trail
Spurs by 7 points in the league. Results have gone exactly the same way between
the two clubs this season. The narrative is being rehashed by the media
and in many cases by the fans – particularly those of Spurs, so desperate to
finally have the last laugh that has for so many years entirely deserted them.
But the same numbers
apply.
Regardless of the narrative, the numbers by which the
ultimate success of either club (head-to-head) are identical and far more
unremarkable than the experience had by those who watched the games. The measures
by which the games are judged in the summation of the season and the eyes of
the fans and media are, whilst based on the same events, so very, very
different.
Points have been split equally, with Arsenal taking a slight
advantage in a superior goal difference, but the narratives, the romance, the
experience of the events transcend the simple figures. The figures do not relay
the discreet experiences of each separate game in the final analysis, and the
satisfaction or despair of the fans is not felt when breaking down the results.
The conclusions from this are quite obvious. The way we interpret sport is very different from
how its success is measured. The narrative is technically redundant, but
absolutely essential for our enjoyment of sport - technically redundant, but
vital for us to engage with sport.
The exploitation of better analytical statistics by the
front office of MLB’s Oakland Athletics is well documented in Michael Lewis’
2003 book Moneyball.
It is a widely read examination of the failure of the traditional baseball metrics
(batting average, stolen bases, runs batted in etc.) to understand the game,
the behind-closed-doors revolution enacted by a few young radicals (Billy Beane and Paul DePodesta being the
most notable), following the heretical wisdom of Bill James (among others). If
you haven’t read it, then read it. If you won’t read it, at the very least
watch the film adaptation. It has Brad Pitt in it.
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| Do you need a Doctor? |
What we learn from Moneyball
is how divergent the practice of winning was from the statistical reality in
baseball: the narrative of the “traditional tools” that “baseball men” searched
for in young draft picks is deconstructed systematically by the calculating new
age. What it displays in the sharpest relief is also how the fans’ view
differed from that of the reality and the narrative that they had bought into. The
romance and history of the game was built on numerous fallacies – fallacies swatted
away by pudgy Oakland A’s players who didn’t have the look. Yet ten years on
from Lewis’ book, and pushing twenty since the rise of Billy Beane the old
narrative still persists. The glitz of the New York Yankees for example, their
narrative, their imagery, is still entrenched in popular culture on a global
scale.
This is indicative of the disconnect between how we
experience sport and the crucial variables that govern how we measure it, and
ultimately arbitrate the line between success and failure. Narrative is human,
fallible, subjective, romantic, cruel, glorious. The narrative is what we use
to give meaning to the dry tables that tell us who is quantitatively better
than the rest. Our enjoyment of sport is a qualitative exercise. It is the
intelligible relation of human action that is recorded and evaluated in inherently
unimpassioned ways. Therein lies the tension between the statistics and the romance.
The win is a
statistic. The victory, the trophy, the celebration is the narrative.
We cannot see panache in the figures (although it is fair to
argue that those who adeptly juggle these figures do so with admirable panache,
but they are motivated by their love of their sport a la Bill James), it is
something that we must experience and attribute to athletes. It is subjective; it
is not something they can attain objectively. It is elusive – read The Inner Ring for a
great insight into its nature.
Thibaut Pinot’s stage win in last
year’s Tour de France spoke panache to me. He was the youngest rider in the
tour, talking back to his manager and winning after disappointment on his
hometown stage. The results of the stage tell us only that he finished 26
seconds ahead of the bunch in Porrentruy. It is how we enjoy the story that exists
around the numbers that bestows upon him the quality of panache. How we
interpret the meaning and nature of the result against the ephemeral
circumstances is what gives Thibaut Pinot romantic form in our spectators’
gaze.
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| Thib-OH YEAH |
Sport is built on the foundations of measurement of athlete
against athlete, team against team, discreet variable against discreet
variable. How we enjoy and interpret these and give them meaning is through
narrative. These narratives are sometimes basic, sometimes complex, uplifting, depressing,
infuriating and at times just plain incorrect.
The narratives of sport make it intelligible to us on a
visceral, emotive, romantic level – even if they fail in the descriptive sense.
They are a veil of beauty, ugliness, excitement over the bare reality of the
numbers game.
But you knew that
already…
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