Big City Team Wins With Bad Soccer

Over the last weekend, a record for soccer was established in Europe where Chelsea FC won the European Club Champions Cup (UEFA) cup after beating Bayern Munich of Germany. In that win, Chelsea FC established its own record because this was the first time that Chelsea are the soccer champions of Europe. Many journalists also noted that it marked the end of a jinx where the English team and teams based in England have consistently lost to German opposition in penalties.  

Typical of events such as these is that the analysis captures trite issues with every pundit attempting to explain why the victory and loss were altogether inevitable. To my mind, the one factor that only very keen analysts would have noted and even explored is the fact that this event marked the break with big cities winning this championship. This obscure fact is one that I realized while reading this book by Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski. In one of the chapters, they state the curious fact that none of the soccer clubs based in Europe's largest cities such as London, Paris or Istanbul have had a team win that trophy while teams domiciled in smaller cities such as Marseilles, Manchester  and Milan have achieved that feat. 

With Chelsea's improbable win, it is clear that some change has taken place and big-city clubs outside Madrid may have found a way to crack this problem. The event is also an achievement in the sense that it proves that a team that consistently pumps a single-investor's money into soccer in Europe could ultimately win that prize even if it makes no profit while doing that. Without data and more incisive analysis, it is possible that pundits are making too much of a single event but one sees that many teams will probably be encouraged to be pragmatic in terms of game strategy and win regardless of the aesthetics. Maybe south American soccer will be what helps the game retain the claim to being the beautiful game. Chelsea are winners but won with no style or respect for entertainment value. Since the club is making no money while at it, I am not thrilled that the better team, Bayern Munich, lost.