0:19

Hello and welcome to

0:21

double pivot. most agreeable

0:23

most analytics podcast analytics

0:26

podcast. I am we are coming

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to you. we are coming to

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you I am coming to you from

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the tropics. It is my wife's birthday

0:34

this week. She thought that for

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her birthday, she'd like to take a

0:38

little vacation, a go somewhere warm. go

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So happy birthday to me. I am

0:42

also on vacation, on but I'm just

0:44

taking a quick pause. a

0:47

the beach going out

0:49

later downtown downtown. Then we feed

0:51

the content the content a podcast. a I

0:53

am joined by my by Mike this

0:55

morning, I was like, this morning, I was on something.

0:57

I don't know what. podcast got a newsletter

0:59

coming on Pep. I can't do Pep again. a

1:02

And he said, I can't do And I

1:04

was again. And right, said, Syria -ah. So

1:06

I'm joined by Mike Goodman, the

1:08

the of the topics. topics. There we

1:10

go, the music you you the way

1:12

in as well. way as well is subscribe, make

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us subscribe make .com slash double pivot. Come hang

1:16

out in the pivot, come hang out in in

1:18

the Discord about lots of things. about lots

1:20

of know, sometimes sometimes tell us that

1:22

we're the same person. person, They're like, like,

1:24

how can you you differentiate between the two

1:26

of you? You have the the most

1:29

the most agreeable soccer analytics podcast. you

1:31

You have the same opinions about about like

1:33

everything. and if they they would like to

1:35

know how they can differentiate between us,

1:37

you are going on a nice you

1:39

are going vacation this week. You

1:41

are going to week. You

1:43

are going beaches sand. and sand.

1:45

I am also also going on

1:47

vacation. next week! I'm I'm

1:50

going to about the coldest place on

1:52

earth. on earth. We are taking the the

1:54

kids to meet Santa Santa like

1:56

we will be in northern be

1:58

in northern Uh, so is how

2:00

you can tell us apart. I think

2:03

you got the better end of the

2:05

deal. Yeah, no reindeer here though. Not

2:07

a one. Or dog setting. Have you

2:09

ever been dog setting? Dog setting is

2:11

an incredibly cool activity. It is on

2:14

tap for us. It'll be the second

2:16

time of my life I've done it.

2:18

I highly recommend to all of our

2:20

listeners out there that you do dog

2:22

setting if you ever have the opportunity.

2:25

Well, another thing that we really do

2:27

highly recommend to all of our listeners

2:29

out there is watching Syria off football.

2:31

This is a thing we have done

2:33

together, in person, in a stadium, in

2:36

real life and stuff. That's right, we

2:38

watch the games here at double pivot

2:40

podcast, don't let anyone tell you differently.

2:42

We attend the games and everything. Yeah,

2:44

Syria's wild this year. Like, it is

2:47

absolutely wild at the top of table.

2:49

There's a pack of six teams, basically.

2:51

And, um... Maybe one

2:53

of the best teams in Syria

2:55

is not in that pack currently,

2:57

which is something we will talk

3:00

about in its own right. But

3:02

yeah, the Syria table's nuts. Yeah,

3:04

so there's two things here. One

3:06

is that the Scudito race is

3:08

wide open. Right now, Napoli is

3:10

in first place with 32 points,

3:12

Atlanta right behind them at 31,

3:15

Inter and Fiorentina who are behind.

3:17

They both have a game in

3:19

hand. It's against each other. We

3:21

can get into that a little

3:23

bit. But they're at 28. And

3:25

you've got lots at 28. And

3:27

Juventus at 26 on the same

3:30

number of matches as Napoli and

3:32

Atlanta. And you've got Milan at

3:34

22 points. So pretty far from

3:36

any kind of real title contention,

3:38

but who have been quite excellent

3:40

this season in Syria. So you

3:42

have a at minimum. 5-6-team title

3:45

race. And then on top of

3:47

that, the other thing I'd want

3:49

to say before we get into

3:51

these teams is that I have

3:53

really come to enjoy the style

3:55

of football they play in Italy,

3:57

and I do think it's worth

4:01

how watching Italian football is

4:03

just a little bit different

4:05

than watching English football. And

4:07

the biggest thing to me,

4:09

and you can see this

4:11

in some of the past

4:13

completion numbers, there's just a

4:15

lot less. pressing, especially in

4:17

the defensive zone and in

4:19

the defensive half of the

4:21

middle third. Like teams just,

4:23

there is, presses happen, teams

4:25

are capable of pressing, but

4:27

to a great degree, when

4:29

there's a turnover of possession,

4:32

the ball goes the other

4:34

way, and there isn't this

4:36

sort of middle zone of

4:38

pressing football that we've gotten

4:40

very used to in English

4:42

football, and I think it's

4:44

just, even when the games

4:46

are kind of boring, even

4:48

when there's not a ton

4:50

of shots, It gives the

4:52

games a kind of back

4:54

and forth feel, even without

4:56

lots of event in the

4:58

penalty area. That's right. I

5:00

mean, there's a lot of

5:02

like turnover happens, team moves

5:04

into the other team's final

5:06

third, then the contestation starts

5:08

again. Then turnover, you know,

5:10

incomplete cross, cross block, shot,

5:13

blocked, whatever, ball moves. at

5:16

pace sometimes, not at pace other

5:18

times into the other teams, you

5:21

know, attacking and defending third, and

5:23

contestation happens again. And there is

5:25

just not nearly, you know, if

5:28

you think of things along a

5:30

spectrum, right? And on the one

5:32

hand, you still have Bundesliga, we'll

5:34

win it in midfield, they're cleared

5:37

off the line. And then, you

5:39

have Syria on the other end,

5:42

which is we're not going to

5:44

win it in midfield so that

5:46

you cannot break through our defensive

5:48

structure. And then the Premier League

5:50

is very, actually kind of like

5:52

both Premier League and La Liga

5:54

are squarely in the middle in

5:57

very very different ways. England just

5:59

tries to have it always and

6:01

kind of can because that's where

6:03

all the best athletes end up,

6:05

right? So they can like, they

6:07

all sort of believe they can

6:09

contest midfield fully and also recover

6:11

and they're all like kind of

6:14

right. And then what you have

6:16

in Spain is they contest the

6:18

midfield because they hold very high

6:20

lines and they all sort of

6:22

believe that nobody athletically can beat

6:24

them in behind. And

6:26

they're also kind of right, except

6:29

for Barcelona. And so you have

6:31

in very different ways, England and

6:33

Spain sort of sit in the

6:36

middle. But like Germany and Italy

6:38

are sort of on the two

6:40

extremes among top leagues. Another part

6:43

of this, it really is important

6:45

to note, is that the best

6:47

teams in Italy are just a

6:50

lot worse than the best teams

6:52

in England. They're worse than Barcelona,

6:54

certainly in Spain. And this means

6:57

that they don't have quite the

6:59

incredible possession talent players to absolutely

7:01

kill a game with possession when

7:04

they get the ball. Juventus do

7:06

this to some degree, but they

7:08

do it at a significant cost

7:11

to the quality of the team.

7:13

You can't have... the perfect both

7:15

and teams where they're able to

7:18

not take many risks defensively and

7:20

keep the ball and get a

7:22

fair number of scoring chances. There's

7:25

more tradeoffs in Syria management which

7:27

I think leads to in some

7:29

ways better games even if the

7:32

very top of the league is

7:34

not going to be like the

7:36

very best games in the Premier

7:39

League between the best teams if

7:41

those actually like come off. which

7:43

they increasingly rarely do, those will

7:46

be a higher level of competition.

7:48

But that's a pretty small slice

7:50

of games that you're giving up.

7:53

All right, so should we talk

7:55

about some teams here? Let's talk

7:57

with some teams. Let's define our...

8:00

a group of five and

8:02

a half, I think, right?

8:05

Yep. So we've got Napoli,

8:07

Inter-Yulvei, Fiorentina, Atalanta, and half

8:09

of Lazio, right? Lazio, like

8:11

one foot in, and then

8:13

in the table. And then

8:16

statistically, it's those teams plus

8:18

AC Milan, who are like

8:20

pretty clearly and distinctly separate

8:22

from everybody else. We just

8:24

might well go down the

8:27

table here. Yeah, I think

8:29

so. So, monopoly are in

8:31

first, and, you know, they

8:33

have been very, very good.

8:35

There's no question about that.

8:38

What I think really interesting

8:40

about them being very, very

8:42

good is that they are

8:44

very, very good in a

8:46

way that is incredibly recognizable.

8:50

if you watched Antonio

8:52

Conte's teams before the

8:55

most recent period of

8:57

his career. Like,

8:59

they are recognizably a Conti team,

9:02

and the Conti teams have always

9:04

had certain things in common. There

9:06

is a, you know, they play

9:09

a back three, he's played this

9:11

with a back four, but either

9:13

way, it's this incredibly structured way

9:16

of moving the ball up the

9:18

field through the wingers with a

9:20

couple of attackers with three roles

9:23

at the very end of those,

9:25

you know, highly structured, planned roots

9:27

of moving the ball up the

9:30

pitch. But when he was at

9:32

inter and then at Tottenham, his

9:34

teams did this and they took

9:37

a fair number of risks to

9:39

do it. They were willing to

9:42

be open at times defensively in

9:44

order to really commit themselves to

9:46

getting those passing lanes up the

9:49

field and getting those big chances

9:51

for Cain and son for Lukaku

9:53

and Lautaro. And this version at

9:56

Napoli is much more reminiscent of

9:58

his teams for Italy. where

10:01

they will absolutely they will

10:03

grind out zero zeros and

10:05

let that happen rather even

10:08

if it means that Queecha

10:10

and Lukaku are you know

10:12

relatively service-free. Yeah the interesting

10:15

thing to me is that

10:17

at Uventis he had such

10:19

an obvious like talent edge

10:22

in midfield like I mean

10:24

he was running out Pobovidal

10:27

and Pirlo every week with Marcizio

10:29

as like the fourth guy. Like

10:32

he could... dominate midfield and create

10:34

these these chances without having to

10:36

take risks because his midfield was

10:38

so damn good and it's like

10:41

one of my favorite sort of

10:43

analytic periods of soccer because if

10:45

you look at those teams like

10:47

it's the same three guys but

10:49

you can very clearly see it

10:52

go from purelose midfield to Fidel's

10:54

midfield over like three years and

10:56

like But no matter how they

10:58

did it, it was always like

11:01

those three guys were just better

11:03

than the other midfield and because

11:05

of that gravity, you wouldn't have

11:07

to take risks to get the

11:09

front, the very mediocre front couple

11:12

chances. That's not really the case

11:14

at Napoli. It wasn't the case

11:16

with Italy at all, but with

11:18

Italy, it was literally just like,

11:21

He's an international manager doing nonstandard

11:23

tactics. That's where the edge came

11:25

from. 100% of the edge. And

11:27

like, Napoli, it's like, I don't

11:29

know, he's just so some patico

11:32

with Lukaku that that's what makes

11:34

the difference. Yeah, so

11:36

I mean, the midfield, you know, Sambo

11:38

is a good player. He does all

11:41

the different things you need a midfielder

11:43

to do, but he's not like dominating

11:45

in there. And then they have a

11:47

mix of, you know, McNamene, Labotka, Gilmore,

11:50

guys, he can kind of like spot

11:52

in to do a little bit more

11:54

of this or a little bit more

11:56

of that. But it's a little Alex

11:59

Fergusoni in that he's got a lot

12:01

of guys that are sort of like

12:03

good at six out of ten things

12:05

and really bad at two out of

12:08

ten things and they're not the same

12:10

skill sets and then you just sort

12:12

of like pick the bright ones to

12:14

start every week and it's an incredibly

12:17

high degree of difficulty but like if

12:19

you're a really good manager that's where

12:21

Edge comes from. Yeah, that

12:24

and playing very defensively, so

12:26

those guys don't have to

12:28

do too much. Right, but

12:31

the thing is, is that

12:33

like despite that, they still

12:35

get their, like, crafted chances.

12:38

Yep, just enough. Like, again,

12:40

this is a Napolee team

12:42

that is only somewhat above

12:44

average in attack, and absolutely

12:47

fantastic in defense, which is

12:49

the... stereotype of a

12:51

Kante team. It is, you know,

12:54

what, Kante's Chelsea that won the

12:56

Premier League were much closer to

12:58

this. And what he's shown over

13:01

his career is a capacity to,

13:03

a tendency to, like, be able

13:05

to do Kante stuff that is

13:08

more or less defensive, and this

13:10

is very much the defensive version

13:12

of it. I definitely wonder to

13:15

what degree this is a function

13:17

of having quiche. that he can

13:19

just, like, the plan can just

13:22

be give him the ball? I

13:24

mean, one team that we didn't

13:26

really talk about much in this

13:29

context is Chelsea? Yep. And Chelsea

13:31

was not really a risk-taking team

13:33

under Kante, but they had hazard

13:36

and Costa up top. And I

13:38

think this is similar-ish to that

13:40

in that way. I agree. No,

13:43

they don't have Engolocante in midfield.

13:45

So, you know, like, they probably

13:47

could have been riskier. And I

13:50

guess, like, they kind of wore

13:52

in the way that they played,

13:55

like, fairly attacking wingbacks. you know,

13:57

who like, you know, really on

13:59

the right side it was a

14:02

winger and on the left side

14:04

it was Marcus Alonzo who was

14:06

like, you know, the most attacking

14:09

full back in the world. So,

14:12

like, in that way, I guess

14:14

you might argue they took risks.

14:16

But really, like, the talented two

14:18

up top was very much what

14:20

you saw it, Chelsea. Yeah, so

14:22

this is a team that easily

14:24

could win the league. It would

14:27

not be surprising to see them

14:29

win the league. It's interesting to

14:31

see Kante back again doing Kante

14:33

things. But again,

14:35

just with a little tweak, a

14:37

little adjustment to his tail, that's

14:39

sort of what keeps him at

14:42

the top of the game. Man's

14:44

a good manager. Yeah. Second place?

14:46

Second place, Atlanta. Another good manager.

14:48

Seriously, Gas, I don't really, like,

14:50

Gasparides just hit the weird zone,

14:52

right? Where, like, he's just gonna

14:54

be king at Atlanta forever. Like,

14:56

he's not gonna really go and

14:58

leave and take a big job,

15:00

I suspect. But man, what a

15:02

run, they continue to continue to

15:04

have. They continue to have. This

15:07

Atlanta team is by their underlying

15:09

numbers, by the fact that they're

15:11

second in the table, the best

15:13

Atlanta team that we have seen?

15:15

I don't understand. Like, by talent,

15:17

it does not seem the best

15:19

to me. Like, what do you

15:21

mean? Maitaya Rataki is at, you

15:23

know, almost 1, is it, 0.8xG

15:25

and XG and XA per 90?

15:27

He's got another superstar striker on

15:29

his hands. I mean, you know.

15:33

To me, right, it was the

15:35

Papu Gomez teams that always seemed

15:37

to me to have the most

15:40

talent. I don't know how he

15:42

does it. Like he consistently takes

15:44

good but not great strikers, in

15:47

some case worse than that, and

15:49

turns them into incredibly potent attackers.

15:52

I mean, he's got a long-standing

15:54

history. Papu Gomez, who I just

15:56

referenced, was great. a long time

15:59

in Atlanta, but came out of

16:01

nowhere for when he arrived there.

16:04

You know, and you've guys like

16:06

a just like a long track

16:08

record of guys like Zapacosta who

16:11

just like show up in our

16:13

good. Yeah, and you know, the

16:15

other part of this team that

16:18

really makes them work, I think

16:20

we've talked about Gasparie tactics before.

16:23

Yeah. It's like, you know, how

16:25

you do in Sun, gotta overload

16:27

the wings, like it's just figuring

16:30

out new ways to overload the

16:32

wings and using the midfielders on

16:35

either side. and a forward to

16:37

really combine on that wing rather

16:39

than like holding the center and

16:42

Aderson is like the guy that's

16:44

all runs through now. The first

16:46

generation of this was Darun and

16:49

Froyler in midfield and they got

16:51

old and then Froyler left but

16:54

You know, they were, I

16:56

remember when, before Rodry was

16:58

Rodry, and we did a

17:00

podcast on like How Will

17:02

City Replaced Fernando, running a

17:04

bunch of numbers, and Remo

17:06

Froyler was the guy that

17:08

popped up as like most

17:10

similar, and he was like

17:12

29, 28 at the time,

17:15

so it's like it won't

17:17

be him, but like, Like

17:19

for a few years, it

17:21

was like, he's my guy.

17:23

Like, nobody really appreciates Froyler

17:25

in Midfield and all the

17:27

things he does. And, you

17:29

know, Edderson is the guy

17:31

who's just coming and taking

17:33

that mantle. And then they

17:35

get a lot of goals

17:37

out of sort of a

17:39

more Midfieldery creative winner. This

17:42

is Charles de Catellera who

17:44

had a pretty unspectacular season

17:46

at Milan. I'm being generous

17:48

when I say. He was

17:50

a he was a big

17:52

buy for them from Belgium

17:54

and then was sort of

17:56

viewed as like an incredible.

17:58

to the point that it

18:01

was like damning of Milan

18:03

that they would have been

18:05

interested in buying him in

18:07

the first place. Yeah, and

18:09

he's a really weird player.

18:11

I think that Retegi being

18:13

this good is just like,

18:15

I don't know man, this

18:17

is just magic. But De

18:19

Ketelera is this like big

18:21

guy who's not really a

18:24

striker, not really a winger,

18:26

not really a midfielder, and

18:29

He can be on the ball more

18:31

than a winger but not as much

18:33

as a midfielder. He can get into

18:35

the penalty area and he's like big

18:37

and strong and you can do that

18:39

and you've just had like he's got

18:41

this role as a quasi winger for

18:43

Atlanta that has really worked the last

18:45

two seasons and Like,

18:47

this isn't, you know, the Charles de

18:50

Caterillera podcast, but you've got a 23-year-old

18:52

with these numbers. It's like, oh, this

18:54

is something, and it is? But he's

18:56

a guy where I'm just so skeptical

18:58

that another manager could get him, get

19:00

this production out of him. Like, this

19:02

feels like gaspery magic in a... explicable

19:04

way, that he's given a role that

19:06

really works for this peculiar player, rather

19:08

than gasparini magic of the totally inexplicable

19:10

kind, which is that Materatagi is just

19:13

a great striker now. Yeah, but I

19:15

don't think either of us would be

19:17

remotely surprised if this was the year

19:19

they won Syria. By my numbers, they

19:21

are the best team in the league

19:23

so far, and they have also been

19:25

that good in the Champions League. Their

19:27

Champions League numbers reflect a team that

19:29

good in Syria. That was the other

19:31

thing I was going to say. I

19:33

don't think either of us would be

19:36

all that surprised if we turn around

19:38

in April and there in the semi-finals

19:40

of the Champions League. like

19:42

I think quarterfinals would be like the

19:44

sort of where they stand like point

19:46

you'd expect them to get to but

19:48

like it doesn't take much to then

19:50

like all of a sudden you're in

19:52

the semi finals and then you look

19:54

around and two times in the last

19:56

five years they've been in the semi

19:58

finals and like, I don't know, maybe

20:00

it's your year. The double pivot telling

20:02

me this could be Edel and this

20:04

year. Don't, uh... We've been doing that

20:06

literally since before I had kids. Or

20:08

I guess when I had kids. Yep,

20:10

yeah. That was how we had a,

20:12

had a, had, had, had, had, had,

20:14

had, had, had a guest then on

20:16

in your place to talk about why

20:18

they were so good. Yeah,

20:21

so they're good. And then after

20:23

them in the table, we have

20:25

Inter and Fiorentina. I had a

20:27

plan to go watch Interplay Fiorentina,

20:29

and I did go to the,

20:32

see with like the, like, Fiorentina

20:34

fan club in New York City.

20:36

It was really fun. That must

20:38

have been a weird time, man.

20:41

Yeah, it was really fun for

20:43

about 17 minutes and then it

20:45

got pretty weird. This is a

20:47

Fiorentino winger Eduardo Bove collapsed on

20:50

the field. The game is suspended.

20:52

He's rushed off of medical care.

20:54

The game is suspended. We now

20:56

know that he had cardiac arrest

20:58

caused by an epileptic seizure. He's

21:00

21, like that's around the age

21:03

that epilepsy can be diagnosed. He

21:05

is now, well, they say that

21:07

he is, there's no obvious ill

21:09

effects, but so that's good for

21:11

him. Hopefully everything continues to work

21:13

out. The medical care handles it

21:16

right. But the ill effect for

21:18

me is that I have no

21:20

takes from watching the Argentina against

21:22

Inter. Yeah, so I mean, let's

21:24

take it team by team, I

21:26

guess. Inter are what

21:29

they've been, which is very

21:31

good, but not great. Yes,

21:33

and just a little bit

21:35

worse, and mostly just a

21:37

little bit worse defensively. which

21:39

was always the question. And

21:42

I think it's just mostly

21:44

because they're a little bit

21:46

older and especially in midfield

21:48

just like the way it's

21:50

been hauled together with duct

21:52

tape and twine is fraying

21:54

just a little bit. more

21:56

in front of that back

21:59

line and since like that

22:01

back three is really like

22:03

not particularly back three-ish it's

22:05

like a back three except

22:07

one of the centerbacks really

22:09

goes full backing away like

22:11

consistently. The amount of overlaps

22:13

that happen in an intergame

22:15

is just spectacular. If you

22:18

watch an intergame just track

22:20

the overlaps of the wingback

22:22

and the wide centerback. It's

22:24

amazing. They just like, they

22:26

keep overlapping each other to

22:28

a degree that feels like

22:30

they should like end up

22:32

off the pitch. It is

22:35

true. I mean, like, we

22:37

need like, the tactical nerds

22:39

need to come up with

22:41

a term for an overlap

22:43

overlap. Yeah. I don't, I

22:45

don't really know what I

22:47

would call it. It's like,

22:49

like a, but yeah. They're

22:52

very very good. They're one of

22:54

those teams where there's a potential

22:57

to sleep on them because they

22:59

are literally no different than they

23:01

have been either of the last

23:04

two seasons. And, you know, I

23:06

think that that puts them as

23:10

among the group of teams that

23:12

can win Syria, but they are

23:14

basically no different, maybe slightly worse,

23:17

and Napoli are significantly better than

23:19

they were last year. This seems

23:22

like a better version of Atlanta

23:24

than we saw last year. Fiorentina

23:26

are, like, I don't have a

23:29

lot to say about Fiorentina. I,

23:31

I, like, I suspect they won't

23:34

be this good for the rest,

23:36

like, like, over the course of

23:38

this season. But it has been,

23:41

you know, they're under a new

23:43

manager with sort of a new

23:46

collection of talent and I'm like,

23:48

I would be pressed to explain

23:50

to you why it was working.

23:53

Yeah, I mean, as far as

23:55

I can tell, the way it

23:58

is working, they moved. Italiano took

24:00

the Bologna job, they have a

24:02

more defensive manager, and Moise Keene

24:05

is having a huge season. Yeah,

24:07

I mean, it may just be

24:10

that like Moise Keene at 25,

24:12

26, not as old as you

24:14

think, given that he's been around

24:17

since he was 18, almost being

24:19

a star for four years, and

24:21

then totally being an afterthought for

24:24

four years. it's

24:26

just having a great year and maybe

24:28

he's just finally having a great year

24:31

and that's that explains it all. Yeah

24:33

I mean he's he's he accounts for

24:35

well over a quarter of the team

24:38

shots averaging more than four shots per

24:40

90 these are good shots in good

24:42

positions you know and they've got a

24:44

bunch of guys who feed him the

24:47

ball. They've got wingers like Bovey, they've

24:49

got Gosens as one of their full

24:51

backs, like, you know, that's what they

24:54

do. They feed the ball the keen

24:56

and it works. And I don't know

24:58

how long that can really last. They

25:01

defend well and feed a good striker,

25:03

but it's not bad. I mean, it

25:05

is somewhat interesting that they have looked

25:08

at Moist Kane and been like, yep,

25:10

he's a good striker and we're going

25:12

to feed him the ball a lot.

25:15

Because like, I think most managers have

25:17

not done that with him. Yeah, they

25:19

also, he hasn't been playing all the

25:22

time, but they do have, you know,

25:24

green bars fade yassine oddly. Yes. In

25:26

midfield, and he is. A green bar

25:29

merchant. Green bar merchant, you want to

25:31

move the ball forward up the pitch?

25:33

Give the ball to yassine oddly, and

25:35

he'll also keep the ball at a

25:38

reasonably good good clip while he's doing

25:40

it. Top cops, Yuri Tillman's, Angela Stiller.

25:42

Pedry like this is the Tom Kearney.

25:45

It's a great top four cups like

25:47

gets enough shots creates can create for

25:49

other people and moves the ball to

25:52

field well and isn't a complete zero

25:54

defensively. It's a really clear set of

25:56

skills. I think that because he's not

25:59

like 100% or 50% possession, he doesn't

26:01

become like a target. But yeah, this

26:03

is again, you know, defensive setup where

26:06

you sometimes just need the ball, move

26:08

the ball of the field quickly. That's

26:10

a great set of talent to have.

26:13

So that's the first of our, like,

26:15

difficult to explain teams. And we're now

26:17

coming to the, well, I guess, let's

26:20

say, let's say, eventus before we get

26:22

to the rest of the difficult to

26:24

explain portion of the program. You talked

26:26

earlier about how like maybe Uventis are

26:29

the only team that can kill games

26:31

off with possession after they go ahead

26:33

and like the secret to Uventis's success

26:36

is that they are killing games off

26:38

with possession before they go ahead. Like,

26:40

that is the entirety of what they

26:43

do. I mean, I think Diego motto

26:45

would point to their past completion percentage

26:47

best in Syria. I think maybe the

26:50

best in the top leagues. And you

26:52

know, what else could they, what else

26:54

could they need to do? I believe

26:57

we've talked about this a bit on

26:59

social media, but it is incredibly fitting

27:01

to be that he has inherited the

27:04

mantle of football pervert manager from football

27:06

pervert Frank Lampard. And yet they are...

27:08

Absolutely opposite in what their proclivities are.

27:11

Like could not be more on opposite

27:13

ends of the spectrum on what their

27:15

unusual desires for a football team are.

27:17

Chase Meg did that great. My desires

27:20

are unconventional. Show me and then it's

27:22

the passing map for the ball never

27:24

goes near the penalty area. That was

27:27

Bench doing a very good job. Yeah,

27:29

man, like they just like keep the

27:31

ball. We were

27:34

discussing how Syria has this

27:36

sort of half-court feel to

27:38

it, that is it defensive,

27:40

necessarily. It's just, teams kind

27:42

of taking terms with possession.

27:44

1980s-ish, 90s-ish, stereotypical Syria is

27:46

that except incredibly defensive. Like,

27:48

you can't lose if the

27:50

other team never gets a

27:52

possession. And it's like, well,

27:55

what, if we lose the

27:57

ball, we have to defend

27:59

deep in our own third.

28:01

So, like, we can't ever

28:03

lose the ball, because there's

28:05

no other options. And, like,

28:07

the spirit of that is

28:09

alive and well in Tiago

28:11

Mata. Played for many years

28:13

in Italy, and that it

28:15

reflects those traditions, it's miserable

28:18

to watch. One reason it's

28:20

not as bad as it

28:22

could be, just in terms

28:24

of quality, is that in

28:26

Coopminers, they do have a

28:28

guy who takes risks on

28:30

the ball. They've got the

28:32

one guy who's allowed. The

28:34

one guy who's allowed to

28:36

do that. And Vlauovich can

28:38

kick a ball very hard.

28:41

And what Coopminers does when

28:43

he takes that risk, because

28:45

he tries to play a

28:47

risky pass to Vathash. That's

28:49

the whole attack. That's the

28:51

whole. And now

28:53

we can go to the like,

28:56

how, they can't keep getting away

28:58

with this portion of the program.

29:00

Yeah, what the hell is up

29:02

with lot? You told me you

29:05

had a lotsio theory because I

29:07

don't. Well, I don't have a

29:09

theory of how they're doing it,

29:11

but what they're doing is, they're

29:14

not like a particularly good shot

29:16

differential team. And

29:18

I have no idea how. Because

29:20

it is not a roster you

29:22

look at and you're like, oh

29:25

yes, Nuno Tavares is an incredibly

29:27

creative player who will obviously create

29:29

only the best of shots for

29:31

Lazio's attackers. But Nuno Tavares leads

29:34

Syrianists. I don't know. I don't

29:36

know how they have put this

29:38

squad together. I don't know if

29:40

there is some bit of tactical

29:42

brilliance that I am missing. But

29:45

clearly what they do is they

29:47

take. way better

29:49

shots than you expect them

29:52

to take given their overall

29:54

profile. And they concede way

29:56

less like like way. shots

29:59

for the opposite. Like, you

30:01

know, they are very, very

30:04

good at giving up only

30:06

bad shots for the opposition.

30:09

And I don't really know

30:11

how, to be honest. Yeah.

30:14

The one thing that is

30:16

not notable to me is

30:19

the number of minutes that

30:21

they get for guys who

30:24

are quite strikeery. Like Castellanos

30:26

is a pure striker, so

30:28

more or less is Boulogia,

30:31

and the two of them

30:33

have combined for about 20-90s

30:36

in 14 matches. They get

30:38

two strikers on the pitch

30:41

a lot. Leda as a

30:43

winger, kind of, and the

30:46

shape of his production is

30:48

striker-shaped, but they don't lose

30:51

anything defensively. And

30:53

that's confusing to me. Yeah, I

30:55

don't know. It doesn't, like, I

30:57

get that you could create better

31:00

chances and have a better attack

31:02

by having two strikers on the

31:04

pitch and having like a ten

31:06

in a winger. Like, Zakani is

31:09

a quite attacking winger. You know,

31:11

they're feeding the ball up to

31:13

them and you've got a... We

31:16

know that he's good at running

31:18

forward and crossing and cutting the

31:20

ball back. That is what he's

31:23

good at. But you pay the

31:25

price for that because he's bad

31:27

defensively. And I... And one thing

31:29

about Lazio, and we talked about

31:32

this when we saw them live,

31:34

actually, they have a very old-school

31:36

tactical build-up approach where... Most teams

31:39

are not doing this anymore, where

31:41

the centerbacks split wide and one

31:43

of the midfielders, often Ganduzzi, but

31:46

not always, drops between them to

31:48

sort of captain the buildup. And

31:50

I think that does go some

31:53

way to like explaining to virus's

31:55

success, right? Like he's very freed

31:57

in that system to get upfield.

31:59

But like, the reason teams are

32:02

not doing that anymore is that

32:04

it is very exploitable. And it

32:06

just seems to me that nobody

32:09

has exploited it. And so maybe

32:11

what you've got going on is

32:13

like Newcastle Light from a few

32:16

years ago, when we were looking

32:18

at Newcastle and Newcastle's numbers were

32:20

amazing. And the two of us

32:22

were sitting here kind of like,

32:25

I think that when teams start

32:27

to game plan for Newcastle. and

32:30

don't just sort of like treat

32:32

Newcastle as a replaceable midtable team,

32:35

this won't keep working. And I

32:37

wonder if that's what's going on

32:39

with Latvia. And so,

32:42

and the other thing with

32:44

Laozio is that they have

32:46

played a relatively easy schedule.

32:48

So this weekend they are

32:50

at Napoli, the next weekend

32:52

they are home to enter,

32:54

and they also have a

32:56

match shortly after Christmas, home

32:58

to Atalanta. So, like, and

33:00

so if you are correct,

33:02

which I find very plausible

33:04

that they've been doing some

33:06

tactical stuff that has been

33:08

working surprisingly well, against teams

33:10

that haven't quite expected it.

33:12

These are teams that should

33:14

be in possession in position

33:16

to exploit it. Like what

33:18

would make a lot of

33:20

sense to me is that

33:22

if the neck when I

33:24

run the power rankings table

33:26

in at the end of

33:28

the month, they will have

33:30

fallen down out of like

33:32

solidly in the top group

33:34

but one of the weaker

33:36

ones. So that's Lazio. And

33:38

I said solidly in the

33:40

top of my power rankings,

33:42

you know, you've got Atlanta

33:44

at the top, and you

33:46

definitely have a little, a

33:48

tiny little gap down to

33:50

Lazio, and then a tiny

33:52

little gap down from them

33:54

to Fiorentina. But in that

33:56

really good group, along with

33:58

Napoli and Inter and Juventus,

34:00

is Miller. you looked at

34:02

the table, you wouldn't know

34:04

it. If you looked at

34:07

the... Like, nobody who supports

34:09

Milan is like, we're a

34:11

great team that's gotten unlucky.

34:13

Like, there is nobody who

34:15

really sees what the numbers

34:17

see in Milan. Like, me

34:19

too? Like, I don't really

34:21

see it? I mean... I

34:24

think to some degree what's going

34:26

on is the same thing that

34:29

is going on with Christian Polisik,

34:31

right? Which is like you look

34:33

at Polisik's numbers and they're legit

34:35

because he's taking not all that

34:37

many shots but only great shots

34:40

and they're going in the net.

34:42

And you're like, there's nothing mechanically

34:44

about that statistical profile that suggests

34:46

it has to progress, right? It's

34:48

not like overperforming your XG where

34:51

you're just like, hey, look, this

34:53

doesn't keep happening. This could keep

34:55

happening. But it is the kind

34:57

of profile that you look at

34:59

and you're like, I don't think

35:02

this is going to keep happening.

35:04

And that's sort of where I

35:06

am with like Milan and then

35:08

they've dropped points so that they're

35:12

Overall record doesn't really reflect their underlying

35:14

numbers, but more closely reflects kind of

35:16

like where I think they're gonna end

35:18

up. Maybe not quite as bad as

35:20

actually their their points total is now,

35:22

but not like one of the top

35:24

teams in Syria. Yeah, and layout was

35:26

having a bad finishing season. Yes, which

35:28

then adds to the bad vibes around

35:30

him, but he's like. in the aggregate

35:32

he's been quite productive. And so, you

35:34

know, team that is mostly defensive, like

35:36

they've got that sort of very suriilla

35:38

thing where they are quite defensive without

35:40

defensive talent. Yes. But just everyone is

35:42

able to willing to the manager to

35:44

make them scale it all back a

35:46

bit defensively take up. defensive

35:48

positions when they play,

35:50

okay for so it

35:52

works Right, and for the thing

35:54

about them is thing about

35:56

them is that

35:58

they don't really attack

36:00

in numbers, although

36:02

Teo Hernandez can certainly

36:04

get forward from

36:06

left forward But back, almost

36:08

always playing a

36:10

group of four attackers

36:13

with a lot

36:15

of flexibility. And like

36:17

you see this you see this with

36:19

right, who like nominally on the

36:21

right wing wing often, occasionally on the

36:23

left wing when layout doesn't

36:25

play, but it's like free to

36:27

follow the game and free to follow

36:29

the the and and really do

36:31

a lot of getting on the

36:34

ball in attack. But they

36:36

also do it where they they also

36:38

of run a they like system

36:40

out of it, where whether it's

36:42

whether it's, um, Morata sort of what

36:44

he's healthy, playing as a 10

36:46

slash striker, or or of playing

36:48

as a of slash striker, or

36:50

the out moving from a

36:53

wing and staying very, very high

36:55

as almost a second striker. a

36:57

second a lot of flexibility. a lot

36:59

of All right. right. Well, thank

37:01

you. Mike, thank you everyone listening. That

37:03

has been our coverage of

37:05

the Soria title race that is

37:07

also a top a race that

37:10

is just a lot of of

37:12

fun. I am I am going to

37:14

head to the courtyard and

37:16

get some sort of frozen drink.

37:19

If you are on I I

37:21

recommend you do that. If you

37:23

are not, you can go

37:25

to can .com slash double pivot, where

37:27

we have done a bunch

37:29

of have profiles recently and there

37:31

is more to come. and there is more

37:34

to come. There is more double pivot out there. Cheers y'all.

37:36

Cheers y'all. There

37:50

is