What Makes an Entertaining Game?

Now the reason that you are reading this post and indeed anything related to football is because you like football. Depending on how much you like it, you might love it, like me. In fact, to be more specific, I shall assume that you love football because you like to play football and to watch other people play football. When I say 'other people' I am referring to the players who make up the teams of Barcelona, Manchester United, Bayern Munich and so on. We love watching these teams play because they have the best players. It's quite simple really. However, while we like watching these players on these teams play football, we must ask ourselves the question: what situation would make us like watching these players slightly less than normal (at least for a temporary time). The answer is quite obvious, is it not? It's watching a football match that is boring. I can't say that this is the only situation that would answer the above question but I would guess that watching a boring match is not desirable for the viewers of that match. Now that we (or I) have established this truth (unless anyone wants to disagree with me) there is a whole new branch of questions that we must answer. For simplicity and easy reading I will list these using the magic bullet points:

• What exactly is a boring game? Once we can establish this we can find out;
• What is an exciting game?
• What are the components that make a boring game?
• What are the components that make an exciting game?
• And lastly, how can we make more boring games more exciting?

Let's start by answering the first question. What exactly is a boring game? I don't have to give you a definition of 'boring' because that is a pretty basic descriptive word which is pretty broad in its meaning and interpretation. What is more important is to make the term 'boring' football specific. This is beacuse boredom is relative and you cannot compare being bored by doing school homework in a subject you do not like to being bored by a particular football match. In this example, you cannot say 'I am bored by doing homework and I am bored by watching this match, therefore doing homework is equally boring as watching this football match.' I would hazard a guess that the majority of people would prefer to watch football, rather than do school homework. So this simple example highlights that even though, as a generalisation, a game of football has a superior ability to stimulate our excitement levels, it outweighs homework in terms of our expectaion that it should entertain us. This means that even though on an absolute level, a football match is not boring, it can seem so if it does not meet your expectation. Therefore, a person's expecation levels has a direct influence on the perceived entertainment value he/she recieves. For example, let's pretend there are two games that you want to watch this weekend. The first is between Bolton and Sunderland and the second is between Bayern Munich and Juventus.. Let's assume that your expectation of the two games were very different. For the first game between Bolton and Sunderland you expected a game which was going to be less exciting than the second game between Bayern Munich and Juventus on the (quite reasonable) assumption that the players of the second game were better. Therefore, in theory, the second game would produce better football and more entertainment value. Now let's produce some imaginary results for both games: Bolton 3 - 4 Sunderland; Bayern Munich 0 - 0 Juventus. If we take out the scorelines, the second game is the more desirable game to watch, but if we look at both games with the scoreline included, the first game suddenly seems much less undesirable to watch. To sum up the scenario, if we take games in context of the results, the first game has exceeded our expectations while the second has not reached our expectations. This doesn't mean that the first game was a better quality game of football and I can remember many games which finished scoreless that were more entertaining to watch than other high scoring games. However, while the absolute level of entertainment might have been better in the second game (on account of better quality football), the relative level of entertainment is greater in the first game which had a lower expectation from the viewer. In summary, if match>expectaion=exciting game. If match<expectaion=boring game.

Pheeew! Ok, now let's start to answer the second question in my bullet point list. What is an exciting game? Well, I think I have partly answered this question in the previous paragraph but nonetheless I will expand on it. Firstly, what I already wrote is quite a simplistic model of what a boring game is and I know that there are things you might disagree with. That is fine, but at least it gives us some kind of context to play with when answering this question. The simple answer would be the opposite of this: match<expectaion=boring game. The opposite being: match>expectaion=exciting game. As I've already mentioned, this is a simplistic view so now let's try to go into greater detail. Instead of looking at the scoreline vs the expectation of any single match, let's look at the quality vs the match. Let's get back to our example from above and let's keep the same scorelines of 3-4 and 0-0. While the expectation model tells us that the Bolton-Sunderland match was more entertaining, what will the quality model tell us? Firstly, what constitutes a quality match? Well, this delves into the delicate world of opinion because there can be many indicators, both qualatative and quantatative, to determine the quality of a match. For the sake of this article, I will eliminate the actual players as a possible predetermination to the quality of a game simply because it is dangerous to assume that two teams who have great players will automatically produce a quality game. This of course, does not always hold true. We could use statistics like passes completed, pass completion rate, interceptions, successful tackles, or anything else you can think of to give us an indication of quality. While this is all well, there are two reasons why I will not use statistics in this article: the first is I can't be bothered to reasearch and even if I did it would take me ages to find it and collaborate it, but the second and more important reason is that statistics cannot measure the aesthetic quality of football, one of the few remaining sports where there is still a wide discrepency between what the statistics tell us and what actually occured on the field.

Again for the sake of this article I need to make a few assumptions about our two example games. The first assumption is that the high scoring game between Bolton and Sunderland was a poorer quality game than the second game which was a scoreless draw between Bayern Munich and Juventus. If this was the case, how does that change how exciting the games were in relation to each other? To put it another way, knowing both the scoreline and quality of the games, which game would you rather watch? Rearranging the question again, I could ask you which kind of football watcher are you? Are you the kind who doesn't mind the scoreline as long as the quality is good or do you get easily bored by watching two top of the table teams battle out a high quality but dour scoreless draw. I believe that a persons' knowledge of the game as well as the reason for their interest can affect their opinion of a game. For instance, a person with an intimate knowledge of the game, whether through playing, watching or coaching, will have an empathy and therefore an appreciation of good football. On the other hand, a person with limited knowledge of the game might find he/she misses the finer details of the skill, technique and tactics of the game and think that the whole point of the game is who scores more goals. The reason a person watches football can also dictate their perceptions of the game. For example, a football coach would watch football because he wants to learn about the game and obviously loves the games of football. In contrast to the football coach, a girlfriend who is only watching the game because her boyfriend insists, would not appreciate the game in the same way. Getting back to our example, if we use the quality model instead of the expectation model, the 0-0 between Bayern Munich and Juventus would be the more exciting game. But if we were to ask our girlfriend to choose which game she would prefer to watch it would come as no surprise if she chose the more "exciting sounding" game with the 3-4 scoreline. So maybe the answer to the question "what is an exciting game?" depends on three things: your expectations of the game, your knowledge of the game, and the reason you are watching the game. Even by answering these three factors it is still not certain that we can know exactly how we will feel after every match. Perhaps-no, not perhaps-that is exactly why football is so addictive-because it is so unpredictable. Not only can the outcome of the match be unpredictable, but how it affects us emotionally as well.

Righto, now that we have some idea about why we find certain games entertaining and others not so much, we can now go into a bit more detail or a bit deeper if you wish. What are the elements that are common throughout all the classic games? Indeed, is there a pattern among the good games and a pattern among the bad games to watch? Can we use this to predict (or at least guesstimate) which matchups will be more likely to entertain. We all know that in all sport, especially in the last decade or two, that people will hype up some games more than others. When I say people I mean the media, the fans and the players and coaches. A classic example is the build-up to the El Clasico which is huge. Thinking about this, I made up a poll asking which hypothetical match-up would produce the most exciting game. I broke up these matchups into three categories. The first is the strength of the two teams, either weak or strong. The second is the type of fixture which can either be a competitive fixture or a friendly. The last category asks you to decide on a trade-off between the quality of a match (i.e. high technical quality displayed by the players whether due to the skill level or weather conditions etc.) and how many goals scored. In other words, the poorer the quality, the higher the goals scored and the higher the quality, the lower the goals scored. In my poll published on a club fan site, there were 114 votes cast and here were the results:

The first thing to note is that people were not interested in seeing a game containing a strong team and a weak team playing a friendly match with only 6% of the vote. Not far behind that option was the option of having two weak teams playing a competitive match with only 8% of the vote. The other four options all fell within 7% of each other, so people were not entirely convinced that a there was an obvious combination that should have won the poll by a landslide. Another interesting thing to note is that only two of the six options did not give you a say in the type of team. That means that 42% of the 114 who voted did not care about the strength of the teams involved as long as their demands for either a high quality match or goals galore were met. All-in-all this simple poll demonstrates that their is a wide variety of opinions concerning what people think makes an entertaining game. In this regard, it is difficult to pinpoint exactly what fans want to see in a game of football and one cannot account for the unpredictable things that can happen on the field which can perhaps inflate the underlying entertainment value based on a single incident like a controversial red card or penalty.

Perhaps the last thing I want to touch upon is whether we can predict which games will be entertaining and which ones will end in a bore game. No we can't. Well, not perfectly anyway. We can however make life easier for us if we understand our psychology. Firstly, have a go at the poll-which option would you pick if you could only pick one. Or if you want, pick either option 1 or 2, 3 or 4, 5 or 6. Secondly, ask yourself if you have high expectations in terms of the level of entertainment you need to feel satisfied. Thirdly, ask yourself if you have a high knowledge of the game or a poor knowledge. A good way of knowing this is by looking in your cupboard and seeing how many jerseys you have. The more jerseys, the higher your knowledge (I am kidding of course). Fourthly, ask yourself why do you watch games on a game-by-game basis. I find that if you watch a game because you are utterly bored sitting on your couch and have done nothing for the whole day, you will tend to become less stimulated and therefore less entertained than if you were in a good mood watching a game with your friends because you have invited them over to watch the game. Another way of looking at it is if you have many options and you choose football, you are more likely to be entertained than if you had to choose football because their were no alternatives. Once you have answered these questions about yourself, I think you will find that you will now start to be aware of the emotional aspects of watching a football game and therefore start to understand more about yourself. Once you understand, you can manipulate and hopefully avoid the boring games and enjoy more exciting ones.

I leave you with a quote from the Sherlock series from BBC which I find quite amusing and only slightly relevant to this article. Happy watching!

[John comes in to Baker Street, where Sherlock is casually shooting up a smiley face on the wall]

John Watson: [comes in] What the HELL are you doing?!

Sherlock Holmes: Bored...

John Watson: What?

Sherlock Holmes: BORED! [continues to shoot wall] BORED! BORED! [stops, hands the gun to Watson] Don't know what's got into the criminal classes. Good job I'm not one of them.

John Watson: So you take it out on the wall?

Sherlock Holmes: Oh, the wall had it coming.

John Watson: What about that Russian case?

Sherlock Holmes: Belarus? Open and shut domestic murder. Not worth my time.

John Watson: [dryly] Oh, shame!

Are Spain Boring?



They don't look boring

 It is unbelievable, at least to myself, that there have been quite a few rumblings complaining that the Spanish national team are boring to watch-huh? Have their mesmerising passing brand of football really become boring to watch? Back in 2008 when they were European Champions, they were hailed as an attacking, entertaining, highly skillful and brilliant team to watch and were regarded as the model to follow for all national teams. However, as of the day before their Euro 2012 final clash against Italy, many fans are complaining that all Spain do is pass, pass and pass, with no end product and no goals. Forget the fact that they haven't had to score many goals to win games, since they've only conceded one goal so far this tournament, Spain are a defensive team all of a sudden they said. Excuse me! Defensive? How could the most talented team in the world, whom half the squad are made up of Barcelona players, be accused of playing defensively? The critics claim this is true because in the past Spain used their possession to create many goalscoring chances, whereas today they merely use possession as a defensive ploy to keep the opponents from scoring goals against them. Forgive me if I come across a bit harsh, but I want a few paragraphs to dispute the critics.

Was it not just a few months ago when Pep Guardiola declared he was to leave Barcelona, a team he built which was uttered in the same breath as Ajax under Michels, Sacchi's Milan and Puska's Madrid. Was it not in the last four or so years where Barcelona's football was the pinnacle of football, where their football was the most sophisticated, technical and most seductive form of football in the world. Was it not every nations dream to cultivate players who could reproduce their type of football and use it to strengthen their national team. They say imitation is the best form of flattery. Perhaps the biggest compliment and ultimate form of respect that Barcelona could recieve is that they have impacted the way the world thinks about football. No longer is it acceptable to play negative football, not least in the top leagues. To support my point, I give you the example of the criticism Chelsea received when they won the champions League. Even Roberto di Matteo was second choice to Guardiola for the position of manager. So what do Barcelona have to do with Spain. If you haven't figured it out yet, Barcelona and Spain are very similar to each other and that gives us a direct comparison to evaluate. If the two teams play similar football, why is it that Spain are boring and Barcelona are entertaining. It doesn't make sense. Keep in mind that Barcelona have been the most successful club team in the past four years and Spain are the most successful national team in the past four years. So why is their a distinction between these two different (but similar) teams?



Sacchi talking with his players

 One fascinating aspect of human psychology is that we are very fickle. We expect too much sometimes, especially when we have experienced a lot. Perhaps this applies to Spain as well. You see, we have been spoilt by Barcelona and by extension, Spain with their possession and unbelievable technical passing skills. While this led to opposition teams being crushed and goals flowing freely, we celebrated their philosophy of football. However, when there are a few games in succession where they haven't been able to score as many, the fans all of a sudden start to doubt- or perhaps a better descriptive phrase is 'grow impatient.' It's not that we get impatient with Spain's possession style of play since we never grew tired of it four years ago, rather it is a negative response to the type of football match that Spain inadvertently create- predictable. By that, I mean the flow of the game is slowed down as a consequence of Spain's unyeilding possession. And this is the issue when Spain play. Unless Spain can create additional excitement, in the form of goals, the match becomes predictable and loses the reason why sport has become a multi-billion dollar entertainment industry. That reason is unpredictability. It is the reason football is so popular worldwide. Football creates unpredictability like no other sport because of the very foundations of the sport. It is a free flowing sport, where their are no phases of play and its unstructured, unlike American football. Perhaps the reason that American football is so popular in that country but not in any other is indicative of their culture and their people. Even sports like basketball, baseball and ice hockey are much more structured sports than football in almost every aspect. In baseball for instance, their is a clear start-stop flow to the game where play resets after every phase of play. The fans of football and the culture of football demands a blank canvas where the creativity of the players can be expressed by the players and seen by the audience without artificial interventions like phases of play, timeouts and even specific positions on the pitch. (Teams in the NFL play with two teams - one for the offensive phase and one for the defensive phase). The feeling with Spain is that the canvas is already half painted with the La Fura Roja enjoying the possession of the ball. There is not much different you can paint on the other half, exept to complete the canvas by more painting more Red Fury.

It is a symptom that Spain have created for themselves. It is a bit like a catch-22 situation where Spain have become so good at what they do, that they simply are better than everyone they play. They have become so good at passing the ball and keeping it that they have gone beyond the point of using it as a style of play which suits them. It has become precious to them, a philosophy, a way of thinking, a way of living even. The two entities, the players and the system, have ceased to exist as two autonomous entities. Instead, they have morphed into one body, they have entangled between each other and are engrained so tightly that it may never be able to be separated. Like a woman and her baby, the bond is universally strong. The system does not change with the players and the players do not change with the system. The players are the system that they play and the system are the players that play within it. It's the same way we associate Neil Armstong with the Moon. We associate possession tiki-taka with Spain and no other team. Spain have become the sole rightful holders of their way of football and no-one can take it away from them. It has become almost a secondary goal of any match they play, where they want to keep their soleful right of their way of football. If they don't, they lose their identity, and many of the worlds conflicts are the direct consequence of people fighting for their identity. As in life, people tend to stick with what's worked in the past, and for Spain, possesing the ball has won them two major trophies in two years and they are in the final for a third in a few hours time. Spain's football is not boring and has never been boring. It just so happens that some people find watching Spain playing matches in a constant fear of losing their identity boring.

I've heard the phrase familiarity breeds contempt. I would like to change it to familiarity breeds boredom. Perhaps this simple phrase can explain how people who hailed Spain as the brilliant modern version of football can now claim to be bored by the very same football. Trust me, Spain are not boring and I certainly don't find them boring. Instead, I find their passing football brilliant and I urge you to enjoy it until their generation of brilliant footballers end and we are left to lament that they are gone. I am bored of people saying that Spain are boring because they are just not.

Prandelli doesn't think Spain is boring-http://www.goal.com/en/news/2898/euro-2012/2012/06/30/3211321/prandelli-expects-spain-to-try-and-suffocate-italy-insists

Who's the Better Manager, Pep or Jose?

This is an interesting question which many football fans have argued over for a few years now, with Pep having just quit Barcelona and Mourinho about to manage in his third season at Real. In many ways, this debate is just as interesting as the Messi vs Ronaldo debate, but perhaps less discussed and certainly much less tedious that the debate surrounding the two best players in world football. In many ways, the two managers reflect the two individuals they are managing, or in Pep's case, managed. Like Ronaldo, Mourinho has been well traveled with stints in Portugal, England, Italy and Spain currently. In Guardiola's case, he has been a one club man like Messi. Mourinho has been a top flight manager for 12 years whereas Pep has been Barca head coach for just four. While this does not necessarily mean that Jose has learned more throughout his career and therefore has accumulated more knowledge than Pep, it does mean that by definition, Jose is more experienced than Pep in that regard. Whatever your opinion is, it is hard to argue that Jose has experienced different tactical cultures and other things not related to anything on the football field, for instance, the media, supporters and even different styles of referees. While these factors certainly do make anyone a great manager on its own, it certainly contrasts with Pep's only experiences of these kind being restricted to Champions League games. Taking these things into consideration we can now start to judge more important things like results and style.

Let's start with the style of teams that these managers have gotten their teams to play. It is quite blatantly obvious that there is one clear winner here: Barcelona. Pep got his team to play football that has not been seen since Johan Cruyff's Dream Team. Pep is quite well known as a believer in the possession orientated philosophy, but one thing is to dream and another to actually implement and achieve. With players like Xavi, Iniesta, Busquets, Alves and Messi in his team, Pep redefined the term "possession football." He managed 246 games in four years and his side have had at least 50% possession in every one of those games, quite incredible. But was this the result of Pep's brilliant skills as a coach or was it simply that he inherited an unbelievable group of talented footballers. I would tend to steer clear of accusing Pep as a lucky man who happened to stumble across these said players. There are countless examples of teams who have had a great bunch of talented players but could not produce football to match. Pep is a smart man and he figured a way integrate and mold the players to produce the football they do. Perhaps his biggest quality is that he believes in a single philosophy and would never change it. His belief in this system and the way he made his players believe in it as well was the crucial element and the starting point of the making of his team. To go along with style, he has overseen a team that has won a total of 14 trophies including 3 Liga titles and 2 Champions League titles. It also included the famous sextuplet in his first season as head coach. It is these trophies which has led to the labeling of this edition of Barca as the best ever. While Pep's records are undeniably impressive, Mourinho has won more trophies in his career, a total of 19 including seven league titles across four countries. This equates to 1.58 trophies per season for Jose and 3.5 for Pep. While Pep's average is better, I point to the fact that Mourinho has had 8 years longer as coach than Pep and he has won trophies in four different countries. While the value of each manager's trophy tally is debatable, most people would agree that Mourinho's influence on his teams in terms of aesthetic style is dwarfed by his Catalan counterpart. Mourinho famously made his Chelsea team a highly organised and extremely watertight in defence. In 185 games in charge of Chelsea, they conceded a miserly 119 goals which is a very low number. This theme has continued across his time at Inter and Real Madrid with a prime example of this defensive prioritisation represented in the 2010 Champions League semi-final first second leg between Pep's Barca and Mou's Inter. That night, Inter defended for their lives and Barca completely dominated the game. Eventually, Inter made it through courtesy of the first leg result. In many ways that game summed up the two managers perfectly. Mourinho wanted to get the desired result no matter the method while Pep stuck to his guns and failed, or more like refused to adapt, like a child who refuses to eat his spinach. Ultimately, Jose is a master tactician but Pep is a purist of the highest order.

Whatever may bring Pep in the future, his time at Barcelona has revolusionised the old philosophy of tiki-taka football and brought in into the modern context. Jose on the other hand has revolutionised football coaching for different reasons- by being one thing: a winner. I guess it comes down to personal preference in terms of what kind of football you want to see. In fact, Jose's Madrid actually play quite nice attacking football so there might not be reason to doubt the prettiness of his teams' football, but that's for another post!  At the proverbial end of the day, I love football and I understand football. So in that sense I appreciate Mourinho just as much as I appreciate Guardiola and I appreciate Pep just as much as I appreciate Jose. So who's better? Who cares. They're both awesome!

Clash of Philosophy

It is startling to read about so many comments on various footballing websites to the tune of 'Chelsea were lucky' or 'Chelsea do not deserve to be champions.' To me, it seems that in this day and age it not only enough to win trophies to earn the respect and applause of the general spectating populous. You have to win with style as well. Easier said than done. It seems that the globe has been spoilt rotten by Barcelona and their once in a generation mesmeric style of football, better described as 'tiki-taka,' where playing the 'right way' is to keep as much possession as possible (usually mid 60%) and to never play the ball long, but always keeping the passes short. Uruguayan football journalist and pundit Jorge Ramos who works for ESPN Deportes, recently presented his top ten teams in world football right now. Who did he put first? Reigning European champions Chelsea? Nope. Runners up Bayern? No. Real Madrid, winners of the La Liga? Not a chance. Number one on his list was Barcelona. Where did Chelsea fit in his top ten? He placed them number six. Fellow ESPN pundit Tommy Smyth was asked to compile his own top ten. On his list, Chelsea were number one and Barcelona were number seven. For the record, Barcelona have not won a trophy this season whereas Chelsea have won two. In this example one can assume that Ramos places more importance on the 'means to an end' philosophy in evaluating the greatness of a team. On the other hand, Smyth places more importance on an 'end's to a mean' mentality. Whatever your view, one thing is clear: not every team can play as good as Barcelona. This is not to be confused with playing like Barcelona. The criticism of Chelsea is not because they are not as good as Barcelona, but because they chose not to play football the 'correct way' in the final. That is, they chose to 'park the bus' and play 'ten men behind the ball.' The other side of the argument tells us that defending is just as important as attacking and the ultimate aim of football is to win. But that seems to not impress modern football fans.

The clash between Chelsea and Bayern Munich represents a fundamental evolution of football. This theory of football evolution can be described as a clash between teams who represent the Chelsea model and those who represents the Barcelona model. In simple terms- attack vs defence. This clash is viewed out on the pitch, but when two polar opposite football philosophies clash, it not only represents just another game. The game represents a clash between two two ways of thinking. Two opposite ways of thinking. History is littered with clashes on the battlefield that represent more than just a battle for geographical position-it represents two ideologies between different nations. That is why there is so much discussion and opinion when games like this happen. This year- defence won. It also won in 2010 where Inter Milan beat Barcelona on their way to the Champions League, where coincidentally they beat Bayern in the final. Barcelona won the trophy in 2009 and 2011. When Inter or Chelsea win, it is a travesty to football. When Barca win, they are worthy winners. There are those who argue that efficiency in front of goal and taking your chances is part of the game. Chelsea scored from their only corner of the game. Bayern could not score a single goal from over 20 corners. In that sense, Chelsea deserved to beat Bayern. Former Australian goalkeeper Mark Bosnich often tells us that football is played in the middle of he field but it is won in both boxes. Quite true. Smyth's top five teams have all won a trophy this season: Chelsea, Real Madrid, Man City, Juventus and Borussia Dortmund. Ramos' top five are: Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Man United and Man City.
Who will win next year's Champions League? Or more importantly, which philosophy will triumph?

Here's a link to Tommy Smyth v Jorge Ramos
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/video?cc=3436

Hello! My first post

Welcome my fellow football lovers from across the globe! This is a brand new blog about the beautiful game and this is the very first post on Stop Talking Nonsense. To briefly introduce myself: I live in Sydney, Australia but I am obsessed with football and love to ramble on about it so I decided I needed to blog about the world game- from the craziness of Balotelli to the tactical intricacies of Barcelona. And everything in between. Just to be clear, I support Chelsea. After Chelsea's heroic win four days ago in the Champions League final against Bayern Munich, I decided it would be a great time to start posting my thoughts to the scary world out there. I am here to write about interesting things-not merely to give you match reports and tell you the possession and shots on goal statistics from the previous game. So I look forward to sharing my thoughts on the beautiful game. Don't be afraid to leave your views and comments as well. And I never talk nonsense!