A few years ago, awhile after Michael Lewis's book Moneyball was published on the merits of Sabermetrics and its effects on Baseball, there were teams, in England primarily, who were interested in the success story of the Oakland A's. They looked at how General Manager Billy Beane, a former major league player who left his playing days behind from an early injury, was able to keep his small market Athletics in direct competition with big spending clubs in Boston, New York and Los Angeles by being smarter in player development, using statistical analysis to guide investment, and being wiser in the process of buying and selling players. They saw the gap growing between big clubs like Manchester United, Chelsea FC, and to a certain extent Liverpool and now Manchester City. People wondered how a sport so resistant to statistical analysis as soccer would do with mathematicians rating effective skills and non-effective skills, measuring comparable economic value, cost-to value ratios, etc. They said that American sports had nothing to teach a venerable sport like World Soccer. They were wrong, even if most have since moved on to the next topic of discussion.


The secret to Beane's success was not as most people determined to be just spending less money and getting more out of the market. He established that there was one cohesive, managerial style that had been developed in Baseball, one that most teams had used for decades. It was built on using the instincts and experience of a venerable scouting network of former players, managers and executives that scoured the country looking for youngsters of a certain age, build, temperament, and malleability. It was an inefficient manner in which to do business. The failure rate was too high; the investment hit too great for small market teams to continue with. He thought also that there were certain players that had been over-inflated in their worth compared to others. He would concentrate his efforts on those players, like himself I might add, that had fallen through the cracks, those that weren't valued as highly by the status quo, but might offer more potential in this new breed of Baseball.

It doesn't take a genius to realize that Arsene Wenger has been using similar principles to inform his scouting network at Arsenal in the English Premier League. An early adopter, he's been able to rebuild his teams three times by using players that have value, but aren't necessarily valued by the highly idiosyncratic English. His players are small, quick, skilled on the ball, they hold possession well, skills that are valued highly on the Continent but not so much in England, where managers value stamina, aerial ability, hitting the long pass, fighting for possession, and getting stuck in. It may have been a stylistic preference, but Wenger has been able to succeed because other managers are not competing for the contracts of players they have no use for. It's no secret that the man known as the Professor, has a degree in Economics.

What does this have to do with La Liga then? The competitive gap in Spain is even larger than it is in England. You have Real Madrid, like the New York Yankees in Baseball, that have an overwhelming economic advantage over all but one other major competitor. They have endorsement deals larger than the whole budgets of the rest of the table. FC Barcelona are in a similar situation, so you would think that no other clubs could compete. Look at the tables over the last 10 years. Barcelona and Real Madrid have only finished one and two respectively 50% of the time. More than half that time either have finished out of the race entirely and clubs like Real Sociedad, Valencia, Deportivo La Coruna, Celta de Vigo, Villareal, Real Betis, Osasuna, Sevilla, and Atletico Madrid have stepped into their place. It is a testament to the strength of a league to be able to produce teams that can compete for Champions League places every year. So, how are they doing it?

Some have decided to follow risky financial practices and spend, spend, spend. Clubs like Valencia, Depor, Real Betis and Atletico Madrid have spent way beyond their means. La Real, Celta, and Betis have been relegated as a result. Osasuna was almost forced into la segunda this past year. Yet, there are two names on the list that continue to compete year after year (Sevilla and Villareal) and they do it by being doing things a little different.

• Both clubs were promoted after humiliating seasons in the second division.
• They both have strong and solid financial backing. Villareal and Sevilla are privately owned organizations. Fernando Roig, a building materials magnate in nearby Castellon, has owned the Yellow Submarine since 1998. Jose Maria del Nido has been President of Sevilla since 2002.
• They both have a strong footballing people in charge who are not afraid to sell their marquee players if they do not fit into their financial constraints.
• Sevilla have sold Sergio Ramos, Julio Baptista, Carlos Marchena, Aleksandr Kerzhakov, Seydou Keita, Javier Saviola, and Jose Antonio Reyes this decade alone and have remained competitive because they have bought well: Andres Palop from Valencia, Fredi Kanoute from Spurs, and Alvaro Negredo from Real Madrid. Villareal have sold Pepe Reina, Juliano Belletti, Fabricio Coloccini, Juan Roman Riquelme, and Diego Forlan, but they too have bought well with the money they have: Nihat Kahveci from Real Sociedad, Robert Pires from Arsenal, and Guiseppe Rossi from Manchester United. They also, both have very productive youth academies and they use them to supplement the first team squad, and to facilitate transfers.
• They also target a very specific bandwidth, a skill-set that was being neglected in Spain: physically dominant midfielders, solid wing-play, and an aerial presence in the box, whether from their forwards or from strong, and athletic defenders. They are disciplined. They have a plan, and neither club are bound solely by the wants and needs of its supporters. You rarely seem them committ impulse buying to quiet the ultras.
• Both clubs also use statistical analysis and modern scouting reports to gauge a players worth. They don't just use hunches, they don't take the word of agents or ex-players who have gone back to scout their home countries. They cast their nets wider, they include second and third tier leagues, and they buy players who are ready to make a difference in a top league like Spain.

Some would say this is what has always happened. I don't think so. It's what Billy Beane would have done, and in this new age of recession and competitive balance, more clubs would do well in researching what Sevilla and Villareal have done in La Liga.