Attitudes Towards League Titles (UK vs. NA)

[Ajaxab]

This quote from Sam Allardyce, manager of Bolton Wanderers, a team who is only 5 points behind first place Chelsea and Manchester United after 10 of the season's 38 games, "We can compete with most teams but when the top boys are on song, it is very different. In the end, the title will come down to a battle between United's flair and Chelsea's resilience. The one who suffers the least number of injuries will probably come out on top."

This comes after his squad lost to Man U on Saturday 4-0. For all intents and purposes this result leaves Bolton just about 2 wins behind the teams ahead of them. With 28 games to go, it seems the difference could be made up. But Allardyce seems to have all but conceded.

In reading comments like these from UK soccer managers over the last decade, it seems that athletes and managers across the pond have a different perception about when to alter their goals for a given campaign. I just have a hard time seeing someone Bill Parcells concede that the Giants and Eagles will fight for the division if Dallas finds itself 2 games back 4 games into the season. Or Ozzie Guillen conceding the division race to Minnesota and Detroit after 40 games when his team is 8 back.

Am I misreading Big Sam's point here and misconstruing what appears to be a broader trend? It just seems extremely early to throw in the towel and declare that it's time to try to get 3rd place.

I suppose an interpretation like this one could have implications for how North Americans respond to the way the media is programmed into FM.

[Tekneek]

Just some thoughts from another yank on the matter, as I don't totally understand it (yet I do like the honesty they are allowed to show over there)...

People over there tend to be much more realistic, from the chairmen all the way down to the fans. I do think you can get a good feel for a club over there and who is the class of the league. They also don't have a problem admitting they can't compete for the title and figuring out what table position they CAN compete for and aiming for that. Which is a much more honest and worthwhile way of doing things than the way it is handled here, IMO. If Big Sam continues to claim he can compete with Chelsea and Man Utd, but the results don't come, he will put his own job in jeopardy and perhaps his sanity will be questioned.

I think the reason there is so much turnover in the coaching ranks in professional sports here is because of the unrealistic expectations. Almost everyone here wants to think they have an above average team each year and it simply isn't true. Rarely does anybody want to admit that a 4-12 season might be what they deserved and nobody actually needs to get fired over it. Good coaches/managers/etc are sacked in North America all of the time because fans/media/owners like to pretend they were actually in contention for their league's championship and they came up short only because this coach/manager stunk the place up.

[twothree]

Interesting observation. I agree that almost no American sports coach is going to predict another team will win the title when his team has yet to be mathematically eliminated. And, most probably believe their team will be able to win the title up until they are eliminated.

[Ajaxab]

Originally Posted by Tekneek

Just some thoughts from another yank on the matter, as I don't totally understand it (yet I do like the honesty they are allowed to show over there)...

People over there tend to be much more realistic, from the chairmen all the way down to the fans. I do think you can get a good feel for a club over there and who is the class of the league. They also don't have a problem admitting they can't compete for the title and figuring out what table position they CAN compete for and aiming for that. Which is a much more honest and worthwhile way of doing things than the way it is handled here, IMO. If Big Sam continues to claim he can compete with Chelsea and Man Utd, but the results don't come, he will put his own job in jeopardy and perhaps his sanity will be questioned.

I think the reason there is so much turnover in the coaching ranks in professional sports here is because of the unrealistic expectations. Almost everyone here wants to think they have an above average team each year and it simply isn't true. Rarely does anybody want to admit that a 4-12 season might be what they deserved and nobody actually needs to get fired over it. Good coaches/managers/etc are sacked in North America all of the time because fans/media/owners like to pretend they were actually in contention for their league's championship and they came up short only because this coach/manager stunk the place up.

I do wonder about the psychological effects on the players of the 'realistic' approach. If Big Sam has already conceded from this realistic position, I'm curious if his players ever play above their potential (however we define what that means). How do they get over this concession and do more than what can be realistically expected?

It's really interesting to think that Allardyce would probably be labeled 'defeatist' over here and possibly on his way out for merely alluding to giving up.

[Critch]

Allardyce is the manager of an over achieving smaller club saying that realistically Bolton aren't going to compete with Man Utd and Chelsea. That's not like Parcells conceding to the Giants and Eagles, or Guillen conceding. It's more like the Devil Rays saying they won't realistically challenge the Yankees and Red Sox.

[Ajaxab]

The way the Cowboys are playing this year...

[Oilers9911]

The players aren't stupid. Bolton's players know that they are not realistic title challengers. I don't think this fact means they don't reach their potential or put in the effort. I'll give you an somewhat unrelated example.

This season our mens league soccer team was horrible in the regular season. Going into the playoffs we knew that we weren't a top team in the league but we went out and just played as hard as we could and beat two of the better teams and made the semi-finals against the best team all year. We knew we weren't at their level skill-wise and as a team but we still went out with the intentions of playing as hard as we could to win. We didn't win but it wasn't lack of belief or effort.

I think that some coaches in North America take the fans and players for fools. I think another factor is that the disparity between haves and have nots in European soccer is much greater than it is in any of the North American professional leagues. The draft system allows poor teams to draft good players and at least hope to get better whereas in soccer in Europe money talks. So if a young phenom comes through the ranks you know Bolton, Watford and Reading have little or no chance of signing him and he will likely end up at Man U, Chelsea, Liverpool or Arsenal.

[Ajaxab]

dola, putting Bolton in the same class as the Devil Rays is an insult to the Wanderers.

[bulletsponge]

Originally Posted by Critch

Allardyce is the manager of an over achieving smaller club saying that realistically Bolton aren't going to compete with Man Utd and Chelsea. That's not like Parcells conceding to the Giants and Eagles, or Guillen conceding. It's more like the Devil Rays saying they won't realistically challenge the Yankees and Red Sox.

or the Tigers or Marlins challenging the Yankees and Red sox..... erm wait


the Soccer system over there is designed to keep the big clubs big

[bhlloy]

This is a completely different ballgame... American sports are set up to encourage parity (revenue sharing, salary caps, draft, comprehensive free agency) Soccer in the UK has none of those. Allardyce isn't being unrealistic or defeatist at all... he has one tenth of the cash of Chelsea and ManU, his squad is one third as talented and he has half as much strength in depth. Any player with half a brain realises that when he signs for Bolton in the first place.

[Desnudo]

like bhlloy said, it's a hard comparision to make. Especially comparing the NFL to the EPL. The NFL is really its own animal with such a short schedule and the fact that in any given season, there are always tons of suprises. Every team is really a key inury or two away from the last place.

A better comparison would in baseball when people are talking about matching up against New York or Boston. J.P. Richard of Toronto was pretty realistic in off-season interviews about his team's chances in that division.

[Jonathan Ezarik]

You also have to take into consideration that there is no playoff system in the EPL. The way things are set up now it really favors the clubs with the most depth, therefore the larger clubs are going to be more successful. If there was a playoff system to determine the champion I think managers would behave like they do over here and hold out hope until it was mathematically impossible.

Also, finishing third in the league is a huge accomplishment. That means getting into the Champions League and all the money and prestige that comes with that. There are also the FA Cup and (to a lesser extent) the League Cup to play for throughout the season, so you can have a more realistic goal than just trying to win the EPL as opposed to sports over here where all you have is the league.

And didn't Alex Ferguson concede the title to Chelsea last year around Christmas? Of course, he might have had some other motives for doing so (encouraging his players, hoping Chelsea would relax and slip up), but I don't think anyone called him out for throwing in the towel so early. I think everyone knew he was right and that no one was going to catch Chelsea unless they completely collapsed.

[Buccaneer]

I think another difference is the emphasis on revenues and ratings here in the US that perhaps drives everything from marketing to publicity (and public perception) to media relations. Many teams would be content being mediocre as long as it profitable. When it ceases to be profitable, then all hell breaks loose blaming everyone from the managers to the fans to the media and whatnot.