The Castrol Rankings - Good idea or a waste of time?

Xavi6

Over the weekend I was contacted by a PR company and asked to write a story on these new Castrol Rankings that were launched on Saturday. They basically measure how effective a player is based on every touch of the ball they have.

http://backpagefootball.com/info/uncategorized/the-castrol-rankings-hitting-the-heights/ *

The Castrol Rankings: hitting the heights

The Castrol Rankings, the world's first 12 month rolling ranking of footballers, was launched by current FIFA World Player of the Year Cristiano Ronaldo in Madrid at the weekend.



The purpose of the Catrol Rankings is to create a table of the world's best performing players. The top 5 leagues in Europe (The English Premiership, La Liga in Spain, Italy's Serie A, the German Budesliga, and Ligue Une in France), along with the UEFA Champions League, will be used to gather the required data.

The contribution of each individual player, either positive or negative, will be determined as every pass, tackle and move of over 2000 players and games every year are used to put together an overall 12 month ranking.

Speaking at the launch in Madrid, Cristiano Ronaldo said that he is aiming to top the rankings in the forseeable future.

"The Castrol Rankings is the ranking that every player wants to top," he said.

"If you can be number one on the Castrol Rankings there can be no arguments, as it is based on fact, not opinion. That’s why I’m aiming for the number one spot – to prove I’m the best!"

How are the scores calculated?

* A team of analysts award each player a Castrol Index score for every league and Champions League game played. The Castrol Index objectively analyses player performance, tracking every move on the field and assessing whether it has a positive or negative impact on a team's ability to score or concede a goal. At the end of each game, players are given a score out of ten.

* The Castrol Index score is then multiplied by a pre-determined 'weighting' which is a value relating to the importance of the particuler match.

Current tournament standings in order of weighting strength are as follows:

1. UEFA Champions League Knockout stage

2. UEFA Champions League Group Stage

3. Spain La Liga Primera Division

4. England Premier league

5. Germany Bundesliga

6. Italy Serie A

7. France Ligue 1

At the end of the football season, the weightings are adjusted accordingly to reflect the strength of each domestic league.

* That points total is then added to all previous points to provide a total for the past 12 months. This total is then divided by the amount of minutes played by the individual to give an average 90 minute score.

Each month the player with the highest total per 90 minutes over the past 12 months will top the rankings and be deemed to be the best performing player. Castrol's team of analysts will be using information provided by OPTA, Europe's leading provider of sports performance data.

A key factor for all areas of performance is which zone on the pitch the action takes place. Players gain or lose points for completed and incomplete passes but the number of points awarded or deducted depends on which zones the ball is passed from and received in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmPJis3kwIU

Barcelona striker Thierry Henry has picked up the first 12 month award following his excellent performances in La Liga. The Frenchman's accuracy in front of goal was a key factor in his success, as 70% of his shots hit the target compared to an average of 42% across the five main European leagues.

Marcel Desailly, an ambassador for Castrol and a former teammate of Henry's, said he wasn't surprised to see ex-Arsenal striker at the summit.

"Thierry Henry has been one of the most consistent strikers in European football for a long time and I am not surprised he is at the head of the Castrol Rankings," he said.

"Of course he is excellent in front of goal, but what makes him such an outstanding player is his overall contribution to Barcelona’s attacking play and that’s what makes him such an important part of that team."

The Castrol Rankings will be made available each month via www.castrolfootball.com and Castrol’s global and local PR offices.

So what do you think? Personally I'm sceptical about something that has Claudio Pizarro ranked in the top 10 most effective players in the world, though it makes for interesting reading.



(*before I get accused of spamming, you don't have to click the link)

Dave!

Berbatov ranked higher than Ibra, Drogba, Kaka, Milito, and Fabregas? Nah, must be bullsh*t

GLaDOS

It's mildly interesting but I'd be sceptical of the accuracy, way too subjective

ccosgrave

John O'Shea as the 95th best player in Europe? I like the sound of that.

Paul Tergat

While I can see its merits I really hate overuse of stats. Some things that are crucial to football are immeasurable like leadership, organisation or stepping up when your team are struggling.

Watching as much football as you can and not a stats table will give a more accurate indication as to who is the best.

JPA

Sounds interesting but then you see the list and it's

Neil3030

Giles is going to love this

Mr.Nice Guy

It's an interesting concept but I don't think it's possible to be truly objective about players, even with extensive use of stats.

Quazzie

Assuming that there is a points reduction for cheating and diving they picked a really bad person to represent them

tomred1

I seen this at the end of football focus on saturday didn't know where they got the stats.Its looks like a good idea but then you see the lists and it doesn't seem right.

stovelid

Apt that Castrol got the oiliest footballer in the world to promote it.

koHd

Good idea for fantasy football. But as people point out it has some players that in the top players in the world that everybody can see with their own eyes aren't the best players in the world.

So their system needs working on.

But good to see a system is being worked on. It's a bit of fun. Especially for fans of fantasy football or football manager and the like.

orourkeda

You dont need castrol GTX to know or form an opinion on a player.

Whatever happened to the good old opta stats

Rekop dog

I'd be more in the sceptic side as well!

Luca Toni in 8th was the biggest shock for me!

I like the idea of getting a mark out of ten for every game and then getting an average at the end of a season but their means of calculating points is very flawed IMO! Henry may have been more accurate in front of goal then most but his influence on games over the season was know way better than Messi Xavi or Iniesta!

I really don't understand the passing within zones bit if anyone can ellaborate any further than they have!??

Ferris_Bueller

I voted good idea because I dont see how it can cause any harm, could be a bit of fun etc. But I do think its flawed and not a very fair way of judging players

pwd

according to the list, glenn whelan and keith andrews are better than damien duff and richard dunne.

cashville

It looks like gock to be honest, but Claudio Pizarro is an absolute goal machine for Bremen. I wouldn't question him being one of the most effective strikers in Europe.

Rekop dog

pwd wrote: »

according to the list, glenn whelan and keith andrews are better than damien duff and richard dunne.

Lol
that's about the most damning indictment of the ridiculousness of the list!

One Cold Hand

This list is clearly wrong. Paul McShane is OUTSIDE the top 1000. :eek: Baffling!

Cake Man

Bit pointless IMO. I don't relly need stats to tell me who's a good player and who's not. Tbh, when I watch a football match, I don't take a huge notice in stats, I just watch the game. Think they're just digging too deep with things like these.

HalloweenJack

I'm a bit sceptical of a ranking system that is "sponsored" by a big company.

Pro. F

What a loada me hoop.

I'm interested in statistics and I always like reading about new uses of statistical analysis. But I rarely see even half decent statistical analysis in football.

This project looks like nothing more than a marketing gimmick.

After I read the blurb on their website I went to look for their statistical work but i couldn't find it. I couldn't even find the names or qualifications of the people who designed this system. As well as reading their site I spent a fair amount of time googling the whole thing but all i could find was marketing shìte. (I'm open to correction on this - if their work has been published and peer reviewed and refined then i'll have a look and maybe take back this criticism.)

They claim that their system of analysing player performances only deals in facts and that it's totally objective but there's no evidence of this. They're trying to give the impression of academic integrity and reliability but I can't find any sign that they have followed any of the basic steps that that requires (ie showing their work and defending it).

So, somebody (we don't know who) at Castrol has come up with a statistical system for analysing the player data from Opta. They haven't published this system and so no other mathematicians have been able to review it and provide criticism and further developement. The chances that the Castrol system is actually objective or even sensible are slim to none imo.

Although Castrol haven't made public the statistical basis for their index, there is a a bit of a clue to the quality of the work they base their index on when they talk about the weightings given to different competitions. As I understand it all games in a given competition are given the same weighting. So, a title deciding league game against Barcelona would be given a lower weighting compared to a CL quarter final game against Athletico Madrid. Even worse, a game against a table topping English Premier league side would be given a lower weighting than a game against a religation zone Primera liga side because of the relative weightings given to the different leagues. That type of inaccuracy completely invalidates their results.

If you want to see what statistical analysis looks like when it's used sensibly in sport, check out the amount of work and discussion that goes on in developing the
chess ranking systems. I know chess is totally different to football but the principles of statistical work are the same. Here's somebody making an argument for one ranking system over another. Check out the amount of detail and debate that is going into this work in chess. There's lots of different, highly qualified people, working openly to ensure objectivity, trying to develope the best statistical system for analysing chess results. And all that work in chess is only going into the analysis of game results, never mind performances within the games, like we're trying to do in football.

Really what Castrol has given us here has as much to do with statistics as me hoop.

Xavi6

orourkeda wrote: »

You dont need castrol GTX to know or form an opinion on a player.

Whatever happened to the good old opta stats

They use OPTA stats to help get the results. Says it in the article....

Dave!

Xavi6 wrote: »

They use OPTA stats to help get the results. Says it in the article....

Yeah but the article is tl;dr

Dublin_Gunner

I call BS.


http://www.castrolfootball.com/experts/

No Giles, Dunphy, Souness or even Whelan.

mormank

ah guys you all seem to be missing the point. this is to judge the best performing players of the year, not the best. Best player does not always = best performing player!

yahoo_moe

mormank wrote: »

ah guys you all seem to be missing the point. this is to judge the best performing players of the year, not the best. Best player does not always = best performing player!

I think they're missing the point when they claim that a mark out of 10 given by experts is "completely objective". The point of any system like this should be to eliminate the human element - instead they've just overloaded the experts with stats that they still might not take into account (preconceptions are very powerful things).

And as Pro. F has pointed out very well, their methodology has obvious flaws.