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New York Times
6 days ago
- Business
- New York Times
Can Jeremie Frimpong boost Liverpool's 2025/26 Champions League winner odds?
For more stories like this, click here to follow The Athletic's sports betting section and have them added to your feed. In the 2011 movie 'Moneyball,' Brad Pitt, portraying Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane, sits in the middle of a conference room table surrounded by scouts during an off-season meeting. As the discussion of the team's direction unfolds, Beane is abruptly cut-off by a scout concerned about their ability to replace a crucial player: Jason Giambi. Advertisement 'Billy,' the scout says, 'we got 38 home runs and 120 RBIs to make up.' 'Guys listen,' Beane interrupts, 'We're still trying to replace Giambi. I told you we can't do it. Now what we might be able to do is recreate him — recreate him in the aggregate.' Losing a generational player like Trent Alexander-Arnold is not something even a club like Liverpool can shrug off. Despite his departure, the Reds still have the best odds to win both the Premier League (11/5) and Champions League (11/2). But should they? With Jeremie Frimpong already in the fold and the potential acquisitions of Florian Wirtz and Milos Kerkez on the horizon, Liverpool's plan to replace their homegrown star is coming into view. Let's explore if it'll be enough to find value in their current odds. It sounds silly, but Alexander-Arnold is truly a footballing unicorn. A right-back who could hold his own defensively but also doubled as one of the world's best ball-progressors and chance-creators is a rarity. To come in with expectations that Frimpong is Alexander-Arnold's successor would be quite unfair — they're not remotely the same player. Alexander-Arnold ranked 17th in Europe's big five leagues with 65 passes into the penalty area this season. Despite playing as a wing-back in the Bundesliga, Frimpong had just 29 this year. To put that into context, the player in 16th was in the running for the Ballon d'Or — Raphinha — most of this past season. Alexander-Arnold was essentially an attacking midfielder hiding as a right-back whereas Frimpong is, well, not. When it comes to progressive passes (passes that move the ball at least 10 yards closer to the opponent's goal), Alexander-Arnold ranked 19th and was once again surrounded by a bevy of talented midfielders like Nicolò Barella and Youri Tielemans. Frimpong ranked 10th…on his team. Even Leverkusen's defensive midfielder Robert Andrich had more progressive passes than Frimpong this season. Advertisement It's at about this point where you're probably asking, 'So what does Frimpong do exactly?' The answer to this is simple: He runs, quite often and quite fast. According to PFF FC's physical metrics provided to The Athletic, Frimpong sprinted more than any other player in Germany last season. In total, the new Liverpool signee had 800 sprints (classified as runs that exceed 25 KM/hr), 15 more than the next closest player. That willingness to run is far more reminiscent of Andy Robertson than Alexander-Arnold, except that Frimpong is an absolute speed merchant. The 24-year-old was clocked with the second-highest max speed in the Bundesliga last year — 35.33 km/h — only bested by FC Heidenheim's Sirlord Conteh. Alexander-Arnold's on-ball orchestrating is gone, but Liverpool still need someone to play right-back. If you can't replace Alexander-Arnold, you might as well find a player with an elite trait at a cheap price. That's what Liverpool have done. But it's clear with the interest in Wirtz and Kerkez, the Reds know they will need more help to fill the Alexander-Arnold-sized hole. Heading into the 2025-26 campaign without Alexander-Arnold puts a lot more on Mohamed Salah's shoulders. Salah's scoring streaks get plenty of acclaim, but his shot-creation for teammates is underappreciated. The Egyptian led Europe's big five leagues in expected assists while also leading Liverpool in passes played into the penalty area. A large part of Liverpool's success stemmed from Salah's ability to work in concert with Alexander-Arnold. Salah's 488 progressive passes received topped Europe's big five leagues and were fueled by his former right-back's ball-progressing prowess. For anyone who watched the team, the formula was obvious: Alexander-Arnold moved the ball up the pitch to Salah, and then the two of them combined to terrorize opponents in the final third. In order to find value in their title-winning odds, Liverpool need to recreate this dynamic. With Alexander-Arnold headed off to Spain and Frimpong not the creative type, Salah needs a new partner-in-crime. Enter, stage-right: Wirtz. While the odds suggest this transfer is far from sealed, the reason for Liverpool's aggressive pursuit of the 21-year-old is obvious. The Reds' recruitment team likely put far more thought into this, but if Alexander-Arnold was the 17th-best player in the world at playing the ball into the opponent's box, it makes sense to go after the player who finished one spot behind him — Wirtz. Advertisement The problem for Liverpool is that Wirtz alone can't replicate all of Alexander-Arnold. The German midfielder is more of a threat in the attacking third — he led Leverkusen in shot-creating actions with 5.66 — than he is a contributor to a team's build-up play. Wirtz just ranked eighth for Leverkusen when it came to passing the ball into the opponent's final third, miles behind Granit Xhaka, who led the team in progressive passes. To fill that final hole in the build-up play, Liverpool are turning to Kerkez. At first glance, it's hard to see how Kerkez could come close to matching Alexander-Arnold's ability. The 20-year-old did lead Bournemouth in progressive passes with 159, but that number falls well short of Alexander-Arnold's 232 from last season. However, passing isn't the only way to move the ball forward — players can dribble, too. If you combine progressive passes and carries, Kerkez is much closer to Alexander-Arnold's tier of ball progression. Alexander-Arnold authored 283 progressive movements last season. Thanks to 106 progressive carries to go along with those 159 progressive passes, Kerkez was responsible for 265. If Frimpong fills his actual position and Wirtz takes over some of the playmaking in the final third, it's Kerkez's distribution from deep that replicates the last part of Alexander-Arnold's production. On the surface, fading Liverpool and looking for value in clubs like Arsenal (5/2) or Manchester City (13/5) to win the title next season would seem to be the right move. In this transfer window, other title-contending clubs have been acquiring exciting talent, rather than watching helplessly as a prime-age, generational superstar leaves town. But like Beane did with the A's two decades ago, Michael Edwards and Liverpool's front office were tasked with replacing an irreplaceable player. The transfer window isn't close to finished yet, but if Wirtz and Kerkez join Frimpong, there's a chance Liverpool will have accomplished that seemingly impossible feat. They just needed to do it in the aggregate. Betting/odds links in this article are provided by partners of The Athletic. Restrictions may apply. The Athletic maintains full editorial independence. Partners have no control over or input into the reporting or editing process and do not review stories before publication. (Photo of Jeremy Frimpong: Daniel Kopatsch / Getty Images)
New York Times
15-05-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Playoffs in European football should come with ‘buyer beware' warning
So, are copies of 'Moneyball' that hard to find in France? That was one of my first thoughts with the news that Ligue 1 is considering adopting revolutionary, North American-style playoffs to decide the champion of the French top division. The hope is that more eyeballs on the league will follow. European soccer leagues have long walked a moral high ground over North American leagues such as the NHL, NFL and MLB because they award the league title — and the financial rewards and European competition spot that comes with it — to the team with the best record after the most number of games. And success over a lengthy period is part of what made a revolutionary thinker himself, longtime Oakland Athletics baseball general manager Billy Beane, so notable. Beane spent low on undervalued players and used underlying metrics to predict future success. It led to a consistently strong regular-season A's team that operated on a fraction of the budget of its competitors. The team was documented in a must-see sports movie featuring Brad Pitt, derived from a book by Michael Lewis. Advertisement That's the kind of attention Ligue 1, undoubtedly the fifth-biggest of the big five European leagues, wants, right? So how did Beane feel about the postseason — where MLB teams are truly judged — according to the book itself? 'My s— doesn't work in the playoffs.' What a line. And, if you're a Ligue 1 executive considering the dramatic proposal, it's a line that should serve as a strong case of 'buyer beware,' as well. Because doing away with tradition and adopting playoffs to determine the Ligue 1 champion would completely change the landscape of French soccer. Not necessarily for the better, either. Playoffs, as Beane poignantly alluded to, are so fraught with randomness that the most diligent planning and roster building still can't always prepare teams for the second season. That's become clear to me as I've covered the NHL's Toronto Maple Leafs since 2016 for The Athletic, in tandem with my Canadian soccer coverage. Over those nine seasons, the Leafs have the third-best winning percentage in the NHL's regular season. And they don't have anything close to a championship to show for it. They have iced teams that have finished as strong over a long stretch of games as Beane's regular season teams did. But a few bad bounces and erroneous plays here and there in the postseason (among other, deeper-rooted issues to be sure), and the Leafs have fans as deeply scarred as those of the A's. That's the reality that Ligue 1 must accept. Perhaps it will be happy to do so, given the inherent predictability of having a powerhouse like Paris Saint-Germain, which secured a fourth consecutive Ligue 1 title last season. But anyone who buys into the spectacle of playoffs knows full well: Their entertainment value comes from the heavy dose of luck and randomness. The large slate of games on a balanced schedule allows for errors to correct themselves over time. Losing streaks can be swept under the rug if there are positive trends to be found in the losses. Advertisement But in the playoffs, there isn't a rug in sight. One loss, however unfair or owing to a strange bounce here and there, can change the course of a team's season. Say the names Alex Galchenyuk or Travis Dermott in Toronto, and you'll immediately be subject to rants about how these players — on one of the best Leafs teams in recent memory — had costly turnovers in two playoff overtime games in 2021. Each turnover led to a playoff winner the other way. The Leafs had a 3-1 series lead against the Montreal Canadiens but lost momentum, never recovered from those two blunders and improbably, squandered arguably their best chance to win a Stanley Cup since 1967. It didn't matter that the Leafs finished with a much better record over 56 games that season compared with the Canadiens. What mattered were the crucial details in a high-stakes environment and how small the margins become. Or, in more common parlance: That's playoffs, baby. Is Ligue 1 ready to accept that the best teams will not always be crowned champions? Is Ligue 1 ready to accept that the strongest brand it has going for it — PSG — could no longer be associated with consistent titles? Or that the advent of a playoff system and the possibility of heroes turning to goats with one play could scare players away from signing in France? Adopting playoffs could change the way Ligue 1 teams prepare through the season itself. There could now be, in essence, two seasons. This isn't to assume tanking, or, say, not fielding the strongest possible lineup will be an immediate byproduct of playoffs, not with the ever-present threat of relegation. But by its very nature, the regular season would count less, simply because it is no longer the direct route to overall success. Suddenly, the most important factor would be in getting hot at the right time, as hockey's Edmonton Oilers, a sixth seed in the current NHL postseason but on a current streak of seven playoff wins from eight. Advertisement Point is, it's safe to assume some Ligue 1 teams could end up devaluing the regular season as long as they qualify for the playoffs. Even if, of course, team executives and managers might publicly state otherwise. Checks and balances, you ask? Ligue 1 could have these in its back pocket: namely, with Champions League spots continuing to be awarded based on league position, regardless of the playoff outcome. These are options the NHL and NBA, also currently midway through its postseason, don't have. But the excitement surrounding the playoffs could lead to other changes. Consider three words that get fans in North American leagues with playoffs salivating but often draw blank stares from the European soccer community: the trade deadline. Trade deadline day is the last day of the season — relatively close to the playoffs — for teams to make acquisitions via trade. It's the final opportunity to gear up for the postseason. Teams that are in on the playoff hunt buy, and those on the outside looking in usually opt to sell by trading players away. If there is more incentive for teams to win via playoffs, could that lead to more activity in the winter transfer window? It's a window that, generally speaking, doesn't feature serious movement like the summer window. But if there are eight teams that fancy their chances at winning the title midway through the season compared with a smaller number traditionally, the desire to add pieces could increase. Smaller teams could benefit from an influx of cash by selling players in the winter. Relegation evens things out, but more buying and selling in a quieter window probably isn't a bad thing for the financial health of the league. It's also worth wondering whether teams will place greater importance on what type of players they might acquire. More common parlance in North American leagues? 'They're playoff performers.' The types of players who elevate their games late in the season. Who don't cower under pressure. Who might not be the flashiest or most skilled players but are rich with intangibles. Advertisement Could playoff-bound Ligue 1 teams learn to sacrifice glam for grit? Could players who know how to win ugly but get results become in vogue? And, looking ahead, could that change the aesthetics of the Ligue 1 game? Watch enough playoff Game 7s (which feels like what the Ligue 1 playoffs will end up being), and they all strike a similar feel. They're cagey. Teams are afraid of making mistakes. They're fun to watch in a 'I have bitten off my nails and am now gnawing at bone' kind of way. And so if the goal is to increase attention on Ligue 1, the notion of playoffs could do just that. But don't be surprised if the league looks dramatically different in the years to follow, for better or worse. (Top photo of Paris Saint-Germain: Mustafa Yalcin / Anadolu via Getty Images)
New York Times
31-03-2025
- Business
- New York Times
Expected Goals: How data metrics can enhance your betting experience
For more stories like this click here to follow The Athletic's sports betting section and have them added to your feed. Whether you like it or not, expected goals are here to stay. Critics argue that analytics like xG are ruining the game by reducing it to complex metrics. On the other hand, proponents insist that luck and variance play a significant role in unexpected events on the pitch rather than any sort of mystical influence. Advertisement Though the debate between statisticians and purists on whether xG should be used in football has lessened in recent years, one thing is inarguable: if you want to be a better bettor, understanding the data and learning how it may be helpful – and misleading – is essential. Full disclaimer: this isn't just another xG explainer guide. Those exist all over the internet, including right here at The Athletic. Instead, we've created a piece for punters who want to sharpen their skills before placing their next wager. So, let's kick things off with a fitting conversation starter: American baseball (no, really). In 2003, Michael Lewis authored one of the most influential sports books of all time: 'Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game'. For those who refuse to entertain baseball or Brad Pitt movies, Lewis details how under General Manager Billy Beane, the Oakland Athletic's – a financially challenged team trying to compete with deep-pocketed rivals – used analytics to reshape the sport's competitive landscape. One example that contributed to the A's successes was their recognition that on-base percentage (OBP) mattered far more than the batting average. Beane pivoted away from the traditional emphasis on hitting skills (measured by batting average) and instead focused on acquiring players who excelled at getting on base (as measured by OBP). Richard Scudamore has joined Moneyball's Billy Beane in group aiming to buy a Premier League club • RedBall have raised £440m to help the purchase • One dealmaker describes the company as 'fascinating' 📝 @mjshrimperhttps:// — The Athletic | Football (@TheAthleticFC) August 22, 2020 As cutthroat as American baseball is, it's absurd how this rudimentary statistic provided such a competitive advantage in the early 2000s. What would be just as outlandish is to think that you can now use xG in the same way to beat the bookmakers when wagering on the Premier League. Unless you were among the handful of xG enthusiasts in the early 2010s lurking in the far corners of the internet and blogging about a new way to analyse football, you've likely been wagering in an era where the bookmakers are utilising that metric much better than you are. Advertisement Simply betting on a club underperforming their underlying xG totals or against one unsustainably exceeding theirs isn't a competitive advantage anymore. Bookmakers' models are better than yours, Billy, so don't believe that in working with xG in 2025, you've discovered something as groundbreaking as OPS was in 2003. So, what is the best way to use xG in the betting sphere? For starters, it's important to understand how it might deceive you. Mark Twain likely had no knowledge of the impact a defender's position has when a shot was taken on a football pitch, but his words serve as a reminder that becoming overly obsessed with xG is not always a wise idea. Like any statistic, xG numbers don't reveal universal truths – they're merely a tool that needs context to be useful. The better you understand the context, the more likely you'll be able to uncover value. One of the places xG can often deceive you is in individual game results, as its predictive power is rooted in the aggregate. Give a respectable xG model 10, 20 or 30 games, and it remains one of the most predictive sports metrics. Take too much from a single match, however, and it can often do more harm than good. In a single game, minor moments that tend to even out in the long term – a back pass gone awry or a bumbling clearance producing a point-blank chance – can skew xG totals. Take, for example, Bournemouth's 1.67 xG total against Manchester City in last weekend's FA Cup quarter-final. If the Cherries can create nearly two goals worth of chances against a regrouped Pep Guardiola side, they should have no trouble against 18th-place Ipswich Town in their upcoming midweek league fixture. Considering Bournemouth's shoddy defending against the Citizens, the over of 3.5 goals for Wednesday's clash at the Vitality Stadium at 7/5 odds look even more appetizing. Yet dive deeper into that 1.67 xG total and you'll find a glaring red flag. Almost the entirety of the Cherries total xG came from two shots from the same sequence in the 21st minute of the game. Outside of those two chances, Bournemouth created a paltry xG of 0.22. Still feeling good about that over wager? Advertisement If letting games rack up to ensure more predictive power from xG favours the bookmakers' models and individual results are too misleading, there's only one place left to use xG to inform your bets. Small sections in games where a significant change has occurred seem to be the sweet spot. Whether it's a new manager stepping in, a season-ending injury or a new formation, introducing variables to the status-quo can nullify even the best models and offer more lucrative betting value. The best place to let xG lead you is the string of results after one of those events reshape a side, like a key injury. Let's use a hypothetical with one of the best non-attackers in the league: Newcastle's Bruno Guimarães. Newcastle square off against Brentford this week as firm favourites to win with odds of ¾. With a fully fit squad, there may not be much value in taking that bet. But if their star midfielder Guimarães had recently missed several games, and the Magpies xG numbers simultaneously took a dip, Thomas Frank's men would weigh in at an enticing 17/5 pick. Guimarães doesn't cost Newcastle much in regards to scoring metrics. The Brazilian international ranks sixth for the club in xG + xA (expected assists) statistics per 90 minutes, barely ahead of midfielder Joe Willock. Bookmakers may tweak the Magpies odds in the absence of their injured talisman, Alexander Isak, but don't expect any seismic shifts in the markets for anyone else. Most of Guimarães' value lies in his passing. The 27-year-old leads the league in passing quality with a 96.3 rating out of 100, per PFF FC's player grading scale. Since the link between ball progression and chance creation is still somewhat of a mystery to many in world football, there's a chance sportsbooks won't be aware of the value either. Advertisement This is the perfect recipe for the 'xG sweet spot'. Bookmakers won't radically adjust Newcastle's odds after just a handful of games with middling results. Yet players like Guimarães do have a notable impact on how a team produces and contains chances that come out over specific periods of time. Go to the xG trend too early, and you could fail to capitalize on a payout. Go too late and the bookmakers will eat your lunch. Find the right balance, however, and it could be a good way to enhance your betting strategy. (Photo of Bruno Guimarães: George Wood / Getty Images)
New York Times
19-03-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
How ‘Moneyball' and ‘Sugar' Altered the Baseball Movie
From 'Eight Men Out' to 'Field of Dreams,' baseball movies are usually enraptured by the past. Steeped in traditions, these films celebrate homespun heroes whose anything-is-possible journeys toward a championship elevate our spirits. But two baseball movies from the last 20 years had something else on their minds that would alter how the sport was looked at onscreen. Bennett Miller's 'Moneyball' (2011), based on a true story, and Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck's 'Sugar' (2008), aren't about tenacious winners or mythic achievements. Instead, they're fascinated by failure and community. That notable shift defies a subgenre built on uplift. A baseball movie will often spin a yarn about a band of misfits coming together for an unlikely title run ('Angels in the Outfield'). They can also center once-talented players given one more chance at greatness ('The Natural'), or recall life-changing summers ('The Sandlot'). They tout the majesty, poetry, superstitions and purity of the sport, appealing to truisms lodged in our cultural understanding of fairness: three strikes, you're out and, as Yogi Berra said, 'It ain't over till it's over.' Following the Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt), 'Moneyball' aims to critique an unfair system not by yearning for the past, but by deconstructing the present. Beane is an executive whose small market ball club can no longer compete monetarily with big spenders like the New York Yankees, so he hires the nerdy Yale economics graduate Peter Brand (Jonah Hill) and turns to the teachings of Bill James, a writer who preached sabermetrics as a statistically informed way to maximize talent. Beane and Brand's unorthodox approach puts them in opposition to the team's irritable old school manager (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and the craggy scouts who rely on their ingrained biases to evaluate players. Pitt plays the Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane. Credit... Melinda Sue Gordon/Columbia Pictures While Beane deconstructs the business of baseball, assembling a stacked roster of discarded players, 'Moneyball' the movie also disassembles the subgenre by not really being about baseball. Partway through the film, Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin's patient screenplay introduces Beane's young daughter, who hopes the team wins enough for her dad to keep his job. Pitt is wonderful in these scenes, softening Beane's rigid executive exterior for a kinder, sweeter approach that slowly builds the importance of this father-daughter relationship to the point of Beane turning down a higher paid position with the Boston Red Sox (coincidentally, the A's are leaving California in 2028 for a lucrative offer to play in Las Vegas). Seeing Beane's embrace of fatherhood recalls an imperative moment in Ken Burns's 'Baseball.' In that documentary mini-series, Mario Cuomo, the former New York governor, describes baseball as a 'community activity,' in which 'you find your own good in the good of the whole.' As much as Beane prizes winning in 'Moneyball,' his journey becomes about cherishing family. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? Log in. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
