The Expatriate Cup and what foreigners in the Premier League can teach us about Jack Wilshere

How will Belgium fare in the inaugral Expatriate Cup?

For a long time I've felt as though the cries of 'There are too many foreigners in the Premier League and they're stunting the development of English players' has had a strong whiff of xenophobic jingoism about it.

That's not to say that I don't agree with the concept, merely that it has been oversimplified and possibly overstated.

To simply lump all foreign players in the same basket labelled 'problem' lacks nuance, and similarly, to say their presence adversely affects all English players is unhelpfully reductive.

What exactly are we talking about when we say there are too many foreigners in the Premier League? Are all foreigners the same or are some better (more acceptable) than others? Does it matter what country the foreigners come from? Are all positions on the field affected equally? And if they're not, what does that tell us about the 'market' for players, both foreign and domestic? It is now commonly accepted that English players are 'overpriced' in the Premier League economy, but what does that tell us about the value of those English players that actually make it into their club side on a regular basis?

No doubt I could have (and probably should have) got Opta to provide me with a whole lot of advanced statistics and pretty graphics that would give definitive answers to most of these questions, but where's the fun in that?

Instead, I'm advocating that we scrap pre-season tours and instead replace it with a biennial (in non-World Cup or European Championship years) Expatriate Cup, in which the foreign players in the Premier League would band together by country and face off against one another for our entertainment.

(Just so we're clear at this point, I appreciate that this can never actually happen given the reluctance of clubs to release their players for even genuine internationals, the amount of money earned important training that goes on on pre-season tours of Asia and America and the general stuffiness of FIFA, UEFA, the FA and the Premier League, but it's my blog so you'll just have to suspend your disbelief and go with it. I promise it serves a purpose.)

So, what would be the point of this Expatriate League?

1. It would give us a snapshot of which country (or countries) were impacting the Premier League at any given time. In 1992/93 the country (outside of Britain and Ireland) providing the greatest number of footballers to the Premier League was Norway with eight. Spain and France gave us one player each, and Italy and Belgium provided none. The Expatriate Cup would not have worked in 1992/93.

By 1998/99 there were 26 French players (the most from a country outside of the UK and Ireland, a trend that has continued), 22 from Norway and 17 from Italy. Italian strikers and Norwegian everything was in vogue. This season there are 35 French players, 32 from Spain, 13 from Belgium, eight from Italy and four from Norway.

2. It would help us identify trends in the type of foreign player in the Premier League. Whilst there are a number of factors at play when clubs choose to buy foreign, don't discount the idea of certain countries simply being fashionable and the reliance on stereotypes. As alluded to above, for a time Italian strikers were all the rage. Now, it's Spanish midfielders. I'll go into this more shortly.

3. It would help us to identify where the FA (and whoever else we choose to hold responsible) were doing well and were they were doing poorly in providing English talent. The clubs argue that they buy foreign because they can get better quality for lower price. In this sense, it is a question of supply and demand. When domestic supply is low, then you are faced with a choice of paying a premium or shopping in a market where supply is higher.

England need to accept that, at least they way they currently develop talent, their players fall victim to stereotype. This country produces a disproportionately high number of physical centre-halves and good old-fashioned English centre forwards. Assuming that clubs still wish to employ such players (the demand side - and while this is debatable, the likes of Sam Allardyce continue to demonstrate that such demand does still exist) they will be relatively cheap because the supply is relatively high, hence less need to look overseas.

It would also help to demonstrate those English players who are truly world-class. If you are an English player that has managed to rise to the top despite the presence of a large number of cheaper high-quality foreign imports then you clearly have something that is not easily replicated. I'll revisit this idea at the end of this column.

4. Anything would be better than watching Chelsea take on the Indonesia All-Stars on a waterlogged pitch in Jakarta.

So what would it look like?

Without further ado, here's what the 2013 Expatriate Cup would look like:

The six teams able to field a full team plus subs would be France, Spain, Holland, Brazil, Belgium and a combined Scandinavian team.

The three other teams that came closest to being able to field a side were Argentina, Germany (who tried to rope in Poland before realising that all three Polish players in the Premier League are goalkeepers and didn't help them out much in any case), and a combined African team (who fell victim to the stereotyping that goes on with African players and could only call upon a series of defensive midfielders and physically-imposing centre forwards with not a goalkeeper or a wing-back anywhere in sight).

Each of the six teams involved selected a manager (who also had to be a foreigner at a Premier League club, although not necessarily from the country they are coaching), who then chose their squad.

France had the largest pool of players to draw upon and selected none-other-than Arsenal's Arsene Wenger to manage them (narrowly edging out Newcastle's Alain Pardieu for the role). Wenger selected a team comprising almost exclusively of Arsenal players, former Arsenal players and Arsenal targets. The biggest problems he encountered was the lack of a reserve goalkeeper for Tottenham's Hugo Lloris and who should start at left-back. Here's how the squad looked:

FRANCE: H. Lloris; B. Sagna, P. Evra (c), L. Koscielny, M. Sakho; Y. Cabaye, M. Sissoko, M. Flamini; H. Ben Arfa, S. Nasri, O. Giroud. Bench: S. Distin, G. Clichy, E. Capoue, M. Amalfitano, L. Remy.

Spain called upon the canny Roberto Martinez to manage them and as poor Roberto quickly found out the Spanish have a surplus of midfielders (tiki-taka innit) and (more surprising) left-backs but almost no centre-backs. Martinez also had to make the somewhat difficult call to omit Fernando Torres in favour of Roberto Soldado and Alvaro Negredo up top on the basis that the latter two can look themselves in the mirror in the morning without falling into a paralysing episode of self-doubt and rocking back and forward in the foetal position in the corner of the room.

SPAIN: D. De Gea; C. Azpilicueta, L. Enrique, Chico Flores, C. Cuellar; S. Cazorla, J. Mata, D. Silva; J. Navas, Michu, R. Soldado (c). Bench: Adrian, J. Amat, J. Garcia, M. Arteta, A. Negredo.

Holland turned to Martin Jol to run their side and the Fulham boss had to contend with a challenging lack of wide-men, which eventually resulted in him playing Manchester United's Alex Buttner as a left winger. Jol also had a surplus of goalkeepers (in a possible hangover from the thinking that went 'That Edwin van der Sar's quite good, perhaps we should get ourselves one of those) and carried both Tim Krul and Martin Stekelenburg on the bench.

HOLLAND: M. Vorm; D. Tiendalli, E. Pieters, J. Heitinga, R. Vlaaar; J. De Guzman, V. Anita, M. van Ginkel; R. van Wolfswinkel, A. Buttner, R. van Persie (c). Bench: T. Krul, M. Stekelenburg, L. Fer, L. Bacuna, J. Hooiveld.

Jose Mourinho campaigned to be coach of a strong looking Belgian side only for Kevin De Bruyne and Romelu Lukaku to veto the move and Moussa Dembele and Jan Vertonghen to convince everyone that Andre Villas-Boas was a better option. The Spurs boss asked Vertonghen and Nacer Chadli to play slightly out of position at right and left-back, but otherwise had the luxury of a well-rounded squad that could afford to bring Lukaku off a admittedly somewhat short bench. AVB also put an end to the row over Adnan Januzaj's international eligibility by calling him up for Belgium here.

BELGIUM: S. Mignolet; J. Vertonghen, N. Chadli, T. Vermaelen, V. Kompany(c); M. Fellaini, K. De Bruyne, M. Dembele; K. Mirallas, E. Hazard, C. Benteke. Bench: R. Lamah, A. Januzaj, R. Lukaku.

Mourinho immediately sought revenge for Belgium's snub by offering his services to Brazil, who gladly accepted the offer of the Portugese-speaking boss. But the Brazil side was nowhere near as well-equipped as Belgium, facing an excess of midfielders, no strikers, few central defenders and poor goalkeeping options. Here's what the Special One cobbled together, relying heavily on his Chelsea squad:

BRAZIL: H. Gomes; Rafael, Fabio, D. Luiz(c), Sandro; Paulinho, Ramires, Fernandinho; P. Coutinho, Willian, Oscar. Bench: Lucas Leiva, Anderson, Guly Prado.

Finally, the charismatic Michael Laudrup got the Scandinavian nations to put aside the rivalries and band together for a shot at the Expatriate Cup. Possibly because they offer a cheaper version of the good old-fashioned English centre-forward, Scandinavia were quite top heavy although without any wide-players and they also lacked anyone to play at right back, despite an abundance of centre backs, forcing Martin Olsson to switch wings for the tournament.

SCANDINAVIA: A. Lindegaard; M. Olsson, J. Riise, B. Hangeland, D. Agger(c); S. Larsson, A Tettey, C. Eriksen, J. Guidetti, A. Kacaniklic, N. Bendtner. Bench: T. Sorensen, J. Olsson, J. Okore, N. Helenius, A. Cornelius.

How would it play out?

With Spain and France given a bye to the semi-finals Holland were drawn against Belgium and Scandinavia against Brazil.

In the first game Belgium ran riot as Robin van Persie grew increasingly frustrated with his lack of service. Goals from Kevin Mirallas, Christian Benteke and a penalty from Eden Hazard after Ron Vlaar had crudely taken out the winger were enough to see Belgium advance 3-0.

In the other match Brazil dominated but Scandinavia took a lead through Christian Eriksen following a long-ball knocked down by Nicklas Bendtner. However, Laudrup's team were overrun in midfield and eventually went down 2-1 courtesy of goals from Ramires and Oscar.

In the semi-finals Spain were drawn against Brazil while France faced Belguim.

Spain ended up beating Brazil comfortably with the midfields somewhat cancelling each other out but Brazil's lack of a cutting edge failing to cause Spain's weak defence any problems. At the other end Silva and Navas caused problems all day and laid on goals for Michu, Soldado and Negredo (off the bench late) to see Spain advance to the final with a 3-0 victory.

Belgium and France was a much closer affair with Arsene Wenger's side taking the lead through Olivier Giroud just before half-time thanks to a great through-ball from Yohan Cabaye. But with time running out in the second-half Vincent Kompany got away from Laurent Koscielny to head an equaliser from a corner and send the game to extra time. Andre Villas-Boas brought on Romelu Lukaku for Christian Benteke and it was Lukaku who grabbed the winner half-way through the added period as Belgium triumphed 2-1.

That saw Belgium take on Spain in the final where they ended up running out fairly comfortably winners on the day. Spain dominated possession and took the lead through Roberto Soldado, but Belgium went on the attack and the Spanish defenders had no answer for Hazard, Mirallas and Benteke. Benteke grabbed a brace and Hazard added the decisive goal late as Spain pushed for an equaliser as the game finished 3-1.

So there we have it, an Andre Villas-Boas-led Belgium take out the inaugural Expatriate Cup triumphing over Spain in the final much to the chagrin of Jose Mourinho, who brings Lukaku back to Chelsea after his loan to Everton but spitefully refuses to play him, temporarily turning him into this generation's Winston Bogarde before the Belgian left on a free-transfer for Barcelona where he went on to win back-to-back Champions Leagues.

So, what did we learn?

1. Belgium and Spain are currently the strongest foreign presences in the Premier League (although we probably knew that already).

2. France provide a large quantity of players to the Premier League and many are very good but presently few are of the absolute highest quality.

3. Dutch goalkeepers, Scandinavian centre-forwards and Brazilian and Spanish midfielders are in vogue. (Also Polish goalkeepers and African defensive-midfielders and strikers).

4. Spanish defenders, Dutch wingers and Brazilian strikers are not in fashion. The days of Italian strikers being a must-have are long gone.

5. Don't cross Jose Mourinho.

I find Spain the most fascinating example. The cult of tiki-taka (coupled with a tanking Spanish economy and a surplus of high-quality players in the position) means that everyone wants (and can probably afford) a Spanish midfielder. The Spanish style of play doesn't really mesh with the good old-fashioned English centre forward though, so since they're also relatively cheap we should probably also bring over some Spanish strikers who know how to play with Spanish midfielders and bang in the goals, or so the thinking appears to go.

The pattern clearly doesn't extend to Spanish centre-backs however. For the most part, a British centre-back (or their knock-off Scandinavian equivalent) will probably do just fine.

What does this mean for English players?

Jack Wilshere is a scarce commodity for England

I'm sure there's a much more economically refined way of making this argument, and no doubt someone is working on it as we speak, but this is what I think this means for English players in the Premier League:

You're best chance of making it in England at the moment remains as a centre-back or a good old-fashioned English centre-forward. With all due respect to John Terry, Phil Jagielka, Andy Carroll and Rickie Lambert, you played the odds right and came out on top. 

There's enough of these type of players around that it is not necessary to turn to foreign imports (although if we can find similar players cheaply in Scandinavia for example, then of course we will go after them).

However, some of these players are likely to be amongst the best in their position (at least for their style) world-wide because few other countries specialise in producing them. These are areas in which England's supply is high (although unlike other countries England fails to 'export' its surplus - think Spain with Xavi and Iniesta staying in Spain but David Silva, Juan Mata and Santi Cazorla exported to England).

The inverse also applies however. With high-quality Spanish midfielders flooding the Premier League market, it says all the more about British players who can hold their own playing a similar style. The player that comes to mind is Jack Wilshere. He may no surpass Silva, Mata and Cazorla but he can certainly hold his own with those players. And for an Englishman, that makes him very, very scarce and very, very valuable.

The FA are therefore faced with choice: Play to England's traditional strengths and bore everyone half to death with outdated but potentially successful long-ball tactics that allow the good old-fashioned English centre forward to thrive (Sam Allardyce for England with Tony Pulis as his assistant?) or work harder to create greater supply of domestic players in the areas where foreigners are currently dominating.

I accept that this is something that cannont be achieved overnight, and that the FA are almost certainly already aware of. The emergence of players like Wilshere and Ross Barkley offers hope.

But let's not resort to cries of 'foreigners are ruining our game' without taking a closer look at what their presence really means and what we can learn from it.

Is fantasy football in Britain actually holding back the real thing?

Liverpool and Boston Red Sox owner John W. Henry gained an insight into the benefits of sabermetrics by playing fantasy baseball

England and America: Two nations separated by a common love of fantasy sport

George Bernard Shaw once said that England and America are two countries separated by a common language. Strangely, the same thing can probably be said of the two nations' love of fantasy sports. And British football (i.e. the Premier League and Football Leagues) may be suffering as a result.

Living and working as an online sports journalist in the UK, I am highly aware not only of the British obsession with all things football, but also of the way that this passion is often understood through a prism of 'fantasy' football.

Whether at work, where we have a hotly-contested office 'mini-league', or playing social football with a diverse bunch of mates on the weekend, I am always slightly surprised by the extent to which news and results are evaluated and discussed solely on the impact they have on one's fantasy team.

Arsenal's Jack Wilshere goes down with another injury and the thoughts go immediately not to the impact on England's attempts to qualify for the next major tournament but rather to whether I have enough substitutions remaining to get him out of my line-up; Chelsea and Manchester City play out an incredibly tedious 0-0 draw, but I'm delighted because Joe Hart's clean-sheet helps keep me in contention; and most predictably of all, Manchester United's Robin van Persie bangs in a hat-trick against lowly Hull and everyone can celebrate because they all designated him to be their captain this week and therefore earned double points for each of his goals.

I do not live, and never have lived, in the United States but I do participate in fantasy sports leagues based on American sports, and I am very much under the impression that fantasy teams in the States are equally pervasive in the way sports are consumed in that country, if not more so.

Not only do almost all the major sports networks have their own fantasy leagues across all the major sports in the US (not unlike in Britain) but there are also websites (such as Rotoworld) dedicated soley to providing news and advice to fantasy sport participants.

Fantasy Sports have leaked into popular culture with television sitcoms such as 'The League', and sports journalists such as Grantland's Bill Simmons regularly referencing their involvement in fantasy sports leagues. 

But it doesn't stop there. In 1999 the Fantasy Sports Trade Association was established to represent the fantasy sports industry in the United States. Today, the Association claims to represent 140 member companies with a reach of over 33 million adult Americans.

In 2006, a study estimated that fantasy sports had a $3–$4 billion annual economic impact across the sports industry in the US. It is likely to be significantly greater than that now given the way fantasy sports has grown in the last 20 years, largely thanks to the internet.

Unfortunately, I am not aware of similar statistics for the United Kingdom although according to a 2008 study by Ipsos, the number of British fantasy sports players aged 16–64 is estimated to range between 5.5 and 7.5 million.

In short, this is big business on both sides of the Atlantic.

But in very important ways the British and American approaches to fantasy sports couldn't be more different and it just might be holding back football in the UK.

The differences between US and UK fantasy sports

In the UK, fantasy football almost universally consists of starting out with a 'budget' and then assembling a squad whereby players are attributed values. Whilst there may occasionally be limits imposed as to the number of players you can have from one real team, there are generally very few parameters aside from making sure the accumulated values of people in your squad do not exceed your budget.

How crafty a manager needs to be relates solely to the relationship between the value of the players in that league and the generosity of the allowed budget (i.e. it is a lot harder to justify selecting Robin van Persie as one of your eleven squad members when valued at £15m if your total budget is £60m than if your total budget is £100m).

To a certain extent, this approach is designed to reflect the way British football operates, with managers being handed a budget to spend on acquisitions and then, with the exception of Arsene Wenger at Arsenal (sorry, Gunners fans), actually spending that money to bring in the best players available in each position.

Likewise, American fantasy sports reflects the way sports work in the States with a draft system (like that used to distribute athletes graduating from college sports to the professional franchises) being a much more common means of assembling a team.

This means that a 'mini-league' is established in advance and then the managers in that league take turns at picking players to make up their squad, with each player only being able to be picked once.

This eliminates a common phenomena in many British fantasy football leagues (at least in my experience) where many teams, even in a mini-league, will have several of the same players.

As I alluded to earlier, a player like Robin van Persie who is a frequent goalscorer for Manchester United (last year's Premier League champions), currently gets selected by a large proportion of fantasy teams in the UK.

While this no doubt adds to the collective sense of success whenever Van Persie does well, he provides essentially no competitive advantage to any one team because he is owned by so many. Any points he accumulates for your team are cancelled out by the fact that most other teams in your league also benefited from his goalscoring exploits.

Under a draft system only one player per mini-league could own Van Persie and the rest of the league would have to try an assemble a squad without him. On the flip side, whichever team ended up with Van Persie would likely be denied other elite fantasy players (say, Sergio Aguero or Eden Hazard) as they would be chosen by other members of the league.

In my fantasy NBA (Basketball) league this means that only one member is privileged to have LeBron James as part of their squad in any given season, but if you don't get James you could still get Kevin Durant, Chris Paul or some other almost equally good player to build your squad around.

As a brief aside, I should note that many fantasy sports leagues in the States also use an 'auction' system as an alternative to a draft whereby league members have a budget and bid against each other to acquire a certain player for their team. Whilst I don't have much experience of using this system myself, the basic premise - that each real-life player can only be selected for one fantasy team in a mini-league at any given time - still applies.

Head-to-head competition based on statistical categories

There is however one further important difference between American and UK fantasy sports that is truly holding back an analytical revolution in British football.

Interestingly, fantasy sports in Australia is caught somewhere in between the American and the British model.

This past season I took part in a fantasy NRL (Australian rugby league) mini-league where we employed a draft and whilst I think everyone recognised the benefit of having a unique squad, the competition still lacked some of the lustre of the American fantasy leagues with which I am involved.

Part of the reason for this is that many fantasy league members lose interest in actually managing their team after the initial thrill of selecting a squad and are content to just watch their total points accumulate largely irrespective of how they are doing relative to anyone else in their 'mini-league'.

American fantasy sports circumvent this problem by eliminating total points and pitting league members against each other across a range of statistical categories on a weekly basis.

In my NBA fantasy league for example, every week I compete against a different member of the league across nine statistical categories. In basketball, these are things like points, rebounds, three-pointers made, free-throw percentage etc.

I do not accumulate total points for each of these things. Instead, they only matter relative to how the fantasy team I am competing against is doing that week. I am trying to outdo my opponent in as many of those statistical categories as possible. A 'win' is when I beat my opponent in five or more out of the nine categories.

This opens up a whole new world of complexity and tactics that (in my experience) keeps league members engaged, often obsessively, throughout the season.

Hypothetically, I'm up against Player X this week and I know his team (made up of a completely different set of players than my own) are particularly strong in categories 1, 2, and 3. Therefore if I want to win this week I need to tinker with my squad to ensure that I can compete in statistical categories 4, 5, and 6 and, for example, hope for some luck in categories 7, 8 and 9.

In fantasy football goals remain paramount, with lesser points usually available for assists, clean sheets and negative points for yellow and red cards.

However, given the wealth of statistical data now available it would be easy to come up with a number of categories, in which fantasy teams could compete against each other each week.

In addition to goals, assists, clean-sheets and cards you could add shots on target, pass completion rates, tackles and even things like crosses, successful 'take-ons' and playing time (all available via Opta).

Moneyball and the rise of statistical data

There was a time in the not too distant past that many British football fans were of the view that the only "statistic" (said with derision) that mattered was the score.

They sneered (sometimes rightly so) at some of the terminology employed by American "soccer" commentators, including the idea that someone could "assist" on a goal.

However, perhaps in a sign of the influence of fantasy football in the UK, the idea of an assist has become much more commonplace in the sport. It is still unlikely to be referred to in live commentary in this country, but with many fantasy leagues incorporating points for an assist, the term has filtered into the popular consciousness and gained some esteem.

Indeed, the rise of companies like Opta and ProZone means there is now a wealth of statistical data available for football stretching far beyond the basic things like goalscorers, bookings and corner kicks.

Several attempts to explain the success of the Spanish national football team (relative to other nations like England) has lead journalists and fans alike to look into statistics about percentage of possession and pass completion statistics.

Much as Arsene Wenger has been credited with revolutionising player diets after banning the traditional pre-match meal of baked beans and Coca-Cola after arriving at Arsenal in 1996, Sam Allardyce has been credited with leading the statistical revolution in British football, using ProZone to analyse player and team data to refine his managerial craft at Bolton, Newcastle, Blackburn and most recently West Ham.

As Tottenham boss Andre Villas-Boas has pointed out, Allardyce's statistical interpretations haven't always lead to the most attractive brand of football and have often failed to endear him to club owners and fans, but they have resulted in largely impressive results.

Meanwhile, Liverpool (with a little help from Brad Pitt) are the club that has brought the concept of 'Moneyball' to the attention of many British football followers after being purchased by the Fenway Sports Group (FSG) in 2010.

Moneyball, for the uninitiated, is a book by the exceptional financial journalist Michael Lewis that follows Major League Baseball team the Oakland Athletics in their pursuit to remain competitive through the use of 'sabermetrics' (essentially advanced in-game statistics).

As well as being a highly entertaining read, and now a film (starring the aforementioned Pitt), the book helped popularised A's (as the Athletics are often called) manager Billy Beane's approach and documented the reduction in competitive advantage as bigger teams like the FSG-owned Boston Red Sox also adopted a more statistically-based approach.

Since 2010 there has therefore been a lot of media speculation about the extent to which FSG would try to implement a similar approach in British football at Liverpool, particularly given the competitive advantage that may exist in the short term in an environment where other teams were not paying as much attention to statistics.

Earlier this year Liverpool managing director Ian Ayre clarified the club's transfer policy, stating that they were relying on statistical information a lot more, but denied the term Moneyball had ever been used internally at the club in an interview with American publication Sports Illustrated.

The origins of Moneyball

Something that is often overlooked in all of this are the origins of sabermetrics in the first place. 

Bill James is credited with being one of the pioneers of the statistical revolution in professional sports and coined the term sabermetrics after SABR, the Society for American Baseball Research. 

James, who is now a Senior Advisor on Baseball Operations for the Boston Red Sox, started out self-publishing an annual journal entitled The Bill James Baseball Abstracts after becoming frustrated with his attempts to get newspaper editors to publish his unconventional articles before gaining greater popularity.

James defined sabermetrics as "the search for objective knowledge about baseball" as he sought to answer questions like  "which player on the Red Sox contributed the most to the team's offense last season?".  

Indeed, James is credited with creating a number of new statistical categories in baseball as part of his attempts to comprehensively answer such questions.

But according to Lewis in Moneyball, it was Bill James' desire to beat his friends in fantasy baseball that was his "chief motive for his original rethinking of the game".

As Lewis describes it, fantasy baseball lead the fans to become more keenly interested in the information they needed to make intelligent baseball decisions.

Lewis writes: "They needed [good information], or they thought they needed it, to win their fantasy games."

Fascinatingly, Lewis goes on to detail how John W. Henry, the principle owner of both the Boston Red Sox and Liverpool Football Club (as part of FSG), was not only a keen reader of James and his Abstracts but also continued to take part in a sophisticated fantasy baseball league even after taking control of the Red Sox.

According to Lewis, Henry employed "Jamesean tools" (i.e. sabermetrics) and "cleaned up"in his fantasy league every year but initially failed to employ the same thinking in his running of the actual baseball club he ran before seeing the error of his ways.

The crux

Importantly, this is where English football is missing a beat. American sports essentially crowd-sourced a statistical revolution by harnessing the true potential of fantasy sports.

Seemingly ordinary people across America with otherwise no interest in maths were and are spending hours every week pouring over statistical data about athletes in a bid to beat their friends in a fantasy league.

The particularly obsessive or mathematically inclined may go on to develop that interest in the same way that James did, to the point where he now holds an esteemed position one of the biggest sporting franchises in the world (and has been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame).

In the NBA in particular there has been a recent swathe of fresh, young General Managers and coaches being appointed to teams on the back of their reputation in statistical analytics, and whilst this is not to say that these individuals are not unusually talented and intelligent, I suspect that many of them first developed their passion for sports-based statistics in much the same way as James did - the desire to get the upper hand over a group of friends in a fantasy league.

In recent times there has been a bit of a pushback against the statistical revolution, with many suggesting that even advanced statistics can never compare to good old-fashioned scouting and 'the eye-test'.

But as new Philadelphia 76ers boss Sam Hinkie points out, and as Ian Ayres mentions in the interview with Sports Illustrated, in the hugely competitive world of professional sports, statistics may not be everything but you would be foolish to ignore them in your search for even the slightest advantage over your rivals.

It may be that British football has simply skipped the fantasy step having learnt from their American counterparts and now employ all of the same statistics anyway.

But it seems that the game in this country does itself a disservice by overlooking an opportunity to get literally millions of minds thinking in a more in-depth way about the sport they already love.

This is not to say that every fantasy football manager would become a Bill James or a Billy Beane were we only to change the format, but I wonder how many brilliant minds have been lost to football clubs in this country through the lack of something to really engage with.

Although I am far from a brilliant mind, we are only three weeks into the current Premier League season and already I have lost interest in my fantasy team, largely because it is irrelevant how many goals van Persie scores because my team is nearly identical to everyone elses and I'll keep on accumulating points irrespective of how much attention I pay it.

Some might say that now I can go back to focussing on what really matters - the actual results of the actual games.

But for a Liverpool, and to an even greater extent a Norwich, a Crystal Palace or other smaller clubs throughout the league system, wouldn't it be of even greater benefit if I (and thousands of others) was spending my time trying to find a less coveted player at another club who offers me essentially the same thing as van Persie?

The Economist recently published some very interesting statistical data that looked at over 190 different types of tackle, pass and shot for more than 500 players and were able to show, for example, that Gareth Bale could be suitably replaced at Tottenham by either Manchester United's Danny Welbeck (somewhat unexpected) or Southampton's Gaston Ramirez (a much cheaper alternative).

This is a very interesting development but I imagine this information would have been known much sooner and more widely had fantasy football managers been genuinely required to look for an alternative to Bale rather than just blindly slotting him into their line-ups much like everyone else.

So what?

There are any number of fantasy football leagues currently running in the UK (and some based in the States) but none currently offer the American model of fantasy sports as outlined above.

I accept that a lot of fantasy football fans are comfortable with the format they currently use and the mere thought of a draft and statistical categories is both overwhelming and abhorrent, but surely there is not a lot to lose by one of the big operators at least offering an alternative, as well as if not instead of what they currently offer.

The model is there and if it doesn't take off it could quickly be scrapped.

If nothing else, I'm surprised that John W. Henry has not pushed for this more himself. Not only does he have the media connections to make it work (he also owns the Boston Globe), he knows first hand both the joy and the potential benefits to sporting franchises of a more advanced fantasy sports game.

Liverpool may be trying to downplay the Moneyball tag, but in doing so maybe they should think about whether they are in fact holding back both the future of the club and football in general in Britain.

Sports fan-dom doesn't need to be a dick-swinging competition

Just because I don't have my team's emblem tattooed on my
face doesn't mean I'm not a sports fan                

I love sports. Unashamedly and unequivocally. There's something about the sporting contest that captivates me, and has from about as early as I can remember.

But I have a friend, a (former) sports fan, who has given up watching sport on philosophical grounds. He argues that there's something abnormal about thousands of people gathering to simply watch sports. To watch a few people run around on a patch of grass with a ball.

His argument is that he doesn't want to spend his life watching other people do things. He wants to actually do things himself. If it's sports, then he wants to play sports. And if it's not playing sport, then he feels his time can be used more meaningfully actually doing something else, as opposed to watching someone else do something.

And, I have to say, I find his argument compelling. If I'm completely objective about things, I have to admit he's got a point. But I can't subscribe to his point of view. And I can't give up watching sport.

I've played any number of sports over the last 25 years or so. I still play football every winter. And I admit that the experience of playing sport gives me something that I could never get by merely watching it.

At the same time, playing sport can be immensely frustrating. Bound by our own limitations, and those of our team-mates (which we often prefer to focus upon), we seldom, if ever, reach the heights that we aspire to. Whilst we may all have moments of glory, most of us will never be Lionel Messi.

And that is the hole that watching sport fills. It is our aspirations realised. It is what we know to be possible played out. It is someone doing the things that we can only imagine doing ourselves. And it is beautiful.

Sure, it's voyeuristic as hell. Sure, there's an element of us that is living vicariously through the professional athletes that we admire. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't enjoy it.

At the other end of the spectrum though, I have another friend who takes sports fan-dom to another level. It defines him. It is his identity. It is all that matters. Watching football with him is a painful experience because he celebrates each goal for his team as if his life depended on it, which to a certain extent, I guess it does.

The sad thing is, this friend is not alone. I know plenty of people like this. This attitude is not uncommon in today's society, especially among males. In fact, many people would consider it part of what makes someone 'a real man'. And I can't abide it.

I am not a 'casual sports fan' because I haven't watched every live televised game in the English Premier League this season. In truth, I haven't watched any live football thus far in 2013. But that doesn't mean I don't care, don't have any idea what's going on, or that my opinion is invalid. And it certainly doesn't make me less of a sports fan (or a man).

I rate my knowledge of sports highly and am confident having an informed discussion about the merits of SC Heerenveen as the real nursery of Dutch football, of whether the Golden State Warriors are a legitimate threat in the NBA's Western Conference this season, and whether the Cronulla Sharks can build on last season to be a Premiership force in this year's NRL.

I admit that part of the thrill for me of watching sport is testing my opinions and allegiances against reality. For games which don't feature a team of which I consider myself a fan, I will still have a preferred winner, and I experience heightened emotions based on how my preferred team performs. And I confess, even when watching sports on my own, I still get slightly anxious about the outcome, based on whether the team I'm backing will ultimately prove victorious.

Southampton vs Manchester City? Come on the Saints! Pakistan vs the West Indies in an ODI? Get up the Windies! Australia vs anyone at anything? Just don't let the Aussies win!

But whilst I enjoy the spectacle, care about what happens, and revise my opinions based on the outcome, at the same time I recognise that, at some level, none of it really matters. Not in the greater scheme of things.

And I'm sick of feeling like I'm competing with people for who it all seems to matter just a little too much. If anything, I wonder if such people really enjoy watching sport at all, or do so out of some perverse sense of obligation where failing to do so would discredit them not only as a sports fan, but also as a human being.

No, I didn't watch the Australian Open tennis final. No, I didn't watch the Super Bowl. And no, I didn't watch all of the football on Super Sunday.

But you know what? The fact that you did is starting to come across as a little forced and I don't really want any part in this weird dick-swinging competition that's going on in your head.

I love sports. But I'm not going to prove it to you.