Oil index “How to win”: The offside issue and more

The official, ahem, motor oil sponsor of Euro 2008, who also apparently fancy themselves statisticians, have released an instruction guide on how to win the tournament. I’m not going to go into it point-by-point, nor am I going to give my opinion on its validity, but it does raise a few points worthy of mention.

The first is offside calls. Apparently, the Tricolorii were called offside more during the Euro qualifiers than any other team, a surprising 36 times. Only 16 of these were down to Mutu and Marica, so one wonders if Romania’s midfielders might need a lesson in the offside rule. These tournament games often come down to a goal or two, and if you’re going to get them from open play, you need to be able to time those runs perfectly. This stat hints there might be an issue with that, and it’s one worth spending some time on in pre-tournament practice.

A statistic raised in the article that I don’t agree with, though, has to do with the tournament Golden Boot. The writers point out that none of the past four Euro champions have also featured the Golden Boot winner. This is one of those statistics that Mark Twain would have especially despised, the kind that turn a good thing bad. It would have us believe that Adrian Mutu winning the Golden Boot would be damning to Romania’s tournament. Give me a break. As long as there is a solid second option for scoring, having a striker on a goalscoring streak is never a bad thing. Poor use of stats there.

Another that is worth a look is the point about possession, namely that of the six top-possessing teams of the Euro 2004 group stage, only two made the knockouts. As Mutu knows well after his two matches with Rangers, possession may be nine-tenths of the law, but it means nothing in football if you can’t score. Still, as long as possession is used positively, to work the ball down the pitch and create opportunities on goal, I’d rather have my side with the ball than the other.

And finally, penalties. Fair point there. Especially in the knockouts, tournament football can get very cagey, and penalties happen. The Romanians have been pretty spot on from the spot, but you only have to miss one to get sent home early. If you’re nervous, it might be better to pound one low, a la Frank Lampard, then aim for the top corner and miss, like Bobo Vieri.