The Important of Position in Team Sports

Last week’s premier ship derby in Manchester, between City and United, exemplifies a very important aspect of European football: football teams need a strong central defense. This does not mean that teams need one strong central defender but two in order to protect the goal keeper. The importance of a couple of player positions in sports is what teams need to get right before they become successful. This is also true in other sports like basketball, where a team needs to have a strong leader in their point guard, a strong center because height is important in basketball and finally a shooting guard because in the end, basketball is a sport where the team with the more points wins.

European Football:

Going into the game Manchester United were faced with a tough game plan because the number one central defender in the world, Nemanja Vidic, was suspended for the game after he received a red card the week before. If you add in the fact that their other central defender, Rio Ferdinand, is past his prime time you have a recipe for disaster. It the human inclination to blame the goal keeper for letting six goals in but in reality any goal keeper in football needs to have support around him in the form of a strong central defense.

This manifestation is also present when you look at FC Barcelona, the team I support in Europe, and their performance this season. You can say that they are in good shape because they are currently only one point behind Real Madrid, but what is important to note is that in the two games that FC Barcelona did not win this season their central defense looked terrible. Carlos Puyol and Gerald Pique are two of the best central defenders in the world, we know this because FC Barcelona and Spain have been extremely successful in the last five years. However, this year the two players have been plagued by injuries and Pep Guardiola is having a hard time fixing the void in central defense. Javier Mascherano and Sergio Busquets are not specialized in central defense; their specialty is playing between the midfield and the defense. That is what Mascherano’s value add is to any team and that is why the most successful football team in the last five years bought him from Liverpool.

If you move from central defense to another very important area of success for football teams, central midfield, you can paint a similar picture. Take Arsenal as an example and the void that they currently face with two of the best central midfield players playing for their Champions League rivals Manchester City and Barcelona. With the departure of Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri, Arsenal collapsed in one of their first premier league games against Manchester United. Somehow their smart coach, Arsene Wenger, was able to sow the wounds over the last month, and today’s performance against Chelsea gives hope to Arsenal fans and to premier league fans that want to see seven or eight top teams competing against one another throughout the entire season.

Basketball:

In the sport of basketball, the concept of position plays just as an important role but I want to discuss it from a different angle than I did with basketball. It is more important to consider the point guard (PG), Centre ( C ) and shooting guard (SG) positions in the sport and how teams need those three positions filled in order to have stability and success.

The point guard is one of the more important players because he is the leader of the team, he needs to have the ball control and the vision in order for a basketball team to succeed. The vision is important because of the need of finding an individual in the tight space that is created when ten players fill half the basketball court. The ball control is just as important for a basketball team because that ensures that a basketball team does not turn the ball over during the game. As an example of this, one can look at Derrick Rose during his playing days for the Memphis Tigers, Rajon Rondo with the Boston Celtics, Chris Paul with the Hornets and list continues.

The center position is another very important position that needs to be addressed before a basketball team can be successful. The center is needed for rebounds (possession of the basketball), blocks (preventing the other team from scoring) and physical presence in the zone when his/her team is playing defense (to scare the opposing team away from going to the basket). The best example of this is Dwight Howard, or Hitrec in Croatia who wakes up every day believing he is Dwight Howard, I love you Hitrec! Dwight Howard is the most dominant center in the NBA right now because he not only is a shot blocker, but he is an excellent rebounder and he scares opposing teams away. There is a reason why low post players around the world work on their post up game as well as their physical stature, it is because they want to beat a strong centre or low post defender. No wonder the hook shot is one of the better invention’s in the low post game in our time – it is one way you can prevent a low post defender from being more powerful then the low post player with the ball.

The shooting guard position, is the third and last of the important positions, within a basketball team. The main purpose of basketball is to ‘put points on the board’ and a team can do so by shooting threes. So a SG that has a high  shooting percentage, hopefully 3 point percentage as well, is needed to facilitate the putting points on the board for a team. The best player to have played in the NBA in my time, is Michael Jordan (MJ). What was great about him was not only his ability to score points but his defense. Just like Kobe and Lebron, MJ was able to steal the basketball from the opponent and make sure that the player he defended, in most cases the best player on the opposing team, could not beat his own teams defense.

When I played basketball in school from 6^th to 11^th grade, the basketball team won the main competition of the year in every single year. Not only did we have a great center, shooting guard and point guard but we also had a great coach who studied the sport of basketball and reminded me of the best coach of the sport during my time, Phil Jackson. One of our offensive options was the triangle offense just like Phil implements in the teams that he has coached during his NBA tenure.

The importance of position and positioning in sports can also be found in other team sports like American football. Protecting the passer, the leader of the team, the Quarterback (QB), is one of the most important parts of the offense. The Patriots offense would not be as strong if the best QB in the sport today, Tom Brady, was not protected by his team mates. If he was protected a couple of years ago when he got sacked and injured his knee, it would have been highly likely that we would have seen the Pats go deeper into the NFL playoffs. If you move into another part of the Pats team this year that needs to be improved before they enter the playoffs, their secondary, you realize that once again we are looking at the importance of a certain position in the team sport. The secondary is as important as a strong QB because otherwise you are letting the opposing team’s receiver catch the football from his QB and score a touchdown.

It is important to note that I am not saying that successful teams only need strong players at PG,SG and C or a strong QB and secondary. In the end team sports is all about building a strong team. The Chicago Bulls dynasty did not include a strong PG or a strong C, it included the best SG that has ever played the sport of basketball. Since he was the best SG and possibly the best player that has ever played the sport, he was able to make everyone around him better. So it is clear that a team can be successful without a strong PG, SG or C, but it is much tougher to do that if the team does not have the best player in the sport.

The San Antonio Spurs dynasty was built around the twin towers of Tim Duncan and David Robinson, the admiral. Once the admiral retired, the Spurs were still strong because they still had the one of the best PF to have ever played the sport on their team. Tim Duncan was one of greatest PF in the sport of basketball, what made him so great was his ability to fill in the C role for his team as well. Some of the numbers he was putting up in the playoffs were unbelievable – 7 blocks, 20 points, 20 rebounds. Those are statistics that make him a hall of fame player, these same statistics are numbers that Dwight Howard and other great C put up. The Lakers dynasty was successful because of Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, a C and SG. Most importantly, Kobe and Shaq were not just any C and SG, they were one of the best in their position.

A team sport is about creating a strong team around a couple of important positions. In European football, these positions are the two central defenders and the two central midfielders. In basketball, they are around the centre, shooting guard and point guard position. In American football they are around the QB, the positions that immediately protect the QB from the opponents rushing defense and a strong secondary that can prevent the opposing receivers from catching the ball. If teams build a cohesive team around a couple of positions in team sport they will be successful.

The Next Great Recession

I was born and raised in Europe and, although I moved to the U.S. about ten years ago, I still have strong ties to the region (where I have family and friends still living and working.).  I am therefore going to state the following through a completely realistic lense: The European Union, both monetary and politically, needs to break up. This statement does not make me proud, and I wish I did not have to say it but I am being realistic and this blog supports my statement.

First and foremost, the idea behind the EU was a great one but it is clear that its implementation has not been and will not be successful.  In my opinion, the wheels cannot be turned back as it is too late to fix the myriad issues currently plaguing the EU. There is a political process in place that does not enable a centralized decision making essential to keep up with the financial markets that due to investor behavior can act very quickly. This in itself is a recipe for disaster, and it will cause another Great Recession, similar to the one in 2008. In my mind this recession will be seen in twenty years to have been triggered not by a crisis in the financial and housing markets, as was the case in 2008, but by unmanageable levels of sovereign debt that partly came about by improper oversight. 

Second, a quick look at the history of Europe shows why the EU is bound to fail. The EU is a conglomeration of between 15-20 different cultures that date back thousands of years. One need only look at Italy, whose culture has been around since the times of Ancient Rome, to understand the inherent difficulty in trying to assimilate nations with such entrenched cultural, political and social norms. Or look across the map and think about Greece.That culture has been around since "before Christ" as well. How can a country’s decision making be changed after it has been framed by CENTURIES of history?! Even if you believe that the EU came together around a common idea, you are still faced with the issue that each  part of that union thinks differently because of the pride of being part of a particular country. 

As an example of how each country within the EU does not think alike, just read the current discussions behind whether or not Greece needs to be bailed out by the rest of the countries within the EU. A central issue in this debate is that individual nation leaders will likely face severe backlash and suffer political consequences if their own taxpayers were to bail another country out of their own mess. This political system is not sustainable and is just another reason why the EU needs to break up.

Moving from the political discussion of the EU to the monetary union, you will find that the story does not change all that much. At the bottom of the current PIGS (Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain) crisis is the issue of the European Central Bank (ECB) not monitoring the progress of the members of the union.  It seems as if the ECB had stringent measures on what a nation needed to do economically (3% of Debt to GDP, or whatever the number was for example) to enter the union, but once the nation entered the union, there was no monitoring or compliance mechanism in place. This is outright ridiculous. It is akin to an investment management company having a legal team in place but then having a dysfunctional compliance process.  Such an investment management firm would certainly not be in business for too long.

We see this issue in other aspects of the economy. In 2008, we saw a situation where banks were left alone by the political system for over a decade (a political system under  two different presidents: Clinton and Bush Jr.), which resulted in very risky behavior by the financial system. Another example of a recipe for disaster! No matter what political party or religion you believe your views align more closely with, you cannot believe in a system that has insufficient oversight. This oversight has to be present, whether it is paid for by taxpayers or  by the private sector.As is the case with clearinghouses in the derivatives market, there needs to be oversight!

This lack of oversight will bring an end to the EU, and unfortunately, it will lead to Greece defaulting on its debt. Greece has been bailed out already, and bailing them out is not the answer this time around.  Why? 30% of the Greek economy is a shadow economy, (this was also apparent in 2010 http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/jul2010/gb20100728_303459.htm). What this means is that 30% of the government revenue is not being accounted for. You might think to yourself, who cares if the Greek government is losing 30% of their revenue because they are corrupt anyways, but that is not the point. The point is that there has been a culture for many decades not only in Greece but in other countries around Europe of being “lazy.” Cultures cannot change overnight and cultures will not change in two to three years. If you think the financial markets will wait until a culture changes, please let me know what your reasoning is behind it is, because I would like to believe in that as well.

There is a Croatian saying,  ‘Pomalo’, which means ‘bit by bit’ or ‘relax, calm down.’ I live by that saying not because I choose to be slow or lazy but because I choose to be relaxed and I don’t like dealing with stress; stress inconveniences me. The Croatian saying refers to a culture of relaxing on the beach, drinking wine, watching the sunset every day.   It  is a lifestyle that I am proud to have and I will never stop liking it. And it is also a lifestyle that most of Europe has adopted.  In the end, cultures cannot be changed by other countries.  The only way they can be changed is by force. I don’t think that any country would like to lose their sovereignty and let others forcefully change their mentality or way of doing things.

This is the case with Greece today and it may be the case with other PIGS nations but I have not read enough to accurately analyze the situations in Italy, Spain and Portugal. It is clear that bailouts need to occur to prevent panic from spreading in the financial markets but the ECB and the EU need to understand that there are Lehmans out there on a sovereign debt level as well. If there are a lot of Lehman Brothers out there, then the authorities and decision makers in Europe and internationally (like the IMF) need to let them ‘go down.’ One can ‘pick the losers and winners,’ but decision makers need to be smart and rational. In this case, the rational thing to do is to break up the union, and I do not like saying it!