Market Value of Players and Clubs

It is very hard to compare soccer clubs from different leagues and by extension players in one league versus players in another league.

In continental competitions, there can be some indicators of relative strength. For instance, the top Spanish teams have dominated European Champions League so they are regarded as the strongest. However, how does the 3rd and 4th place Spanish League teams compare to the top 4 in other leagues? Head-to-head competition gives clues but it is hard to be sure. Anyway, it is this concept that drives the "UEFA club coefficients" which is the soccer analog to NCAA basketball's RPI. From those stats, one can see that the 3rd and 4th place Spanish league teams compare very favorably to the rest of Europe.

But when you get beyond the handful of top teams in the top leagues, it gets harder to compare. And it is even tougher to compare MLS in the USA relative to what is happening in Europe.

One attempt to rate strength is "market value" of players and clubs. Using the wisdom of the crowd the German web page TransferMarkt.com rates teams and players.

What I've done is do screen captures of the top 11 players of an assortment of clubs. Note the "market value" of the players listed are in Euros and they do not correspond to their actual salaries. Rather it is a rating of how much the player might gain in an open market sale of his services.

Here are the numbers for Brentford FC, a mid-table club in the English Championship (2nd tier).

Here are the numbers for Elfsborg IF, a mid-table and sometime competitor for the top part of the top league in Sweden (Allsvenskan).

Here are the numbers for LAFC, a new club in MLS in the USA.

Here are the numbers for LA Galaxy, the established MLS club in Los Angeles.

Finally, here are the numbers for Rosenborg BK, the top club in the Norwegian league (Eliteserien).

A few observations about the numbers from these 5 clubs:

LAFC and LA Galaxy have some very high market value players.

Once you get past the highest market value players (the top 2 or 3) in the two MLS clubs, the market value of the players are somewhere between Rosenborg and Elfsborg.

In fact, the 11th ranked player on Rosenborg's roster has a market value that would be 4th highest on LAFC and 6th highest at LA Galaxy.

The highest market value player at Elfsborg would be 3rd highest at LAFC and 6th highest at LA Galaxy.

Rosenborg has consistently higher market values across its top 11 compared to Elfsborg.

Brentford has very consistently high market values across all 11 players compared to the other four clubs in this discussion.

Based on market value, who would win on the field?

Brentford across its top 11 has higher market value players. However, LA Galaxy and LAFC have one or two specific players that have higher market value than any Brentford player. Since soccer is a team sport you would think Brentford would win.

Based on market value, you would think Rosenborg would beat Elfsborg. 

The comparison is most difficult in regards to how LA Galaxy and LAFC would compare to the other three. LA Galaxy and LAFC have one or two players that are stronger than any of the players at the other three clubs. But players 2-11 or 4-11are somewhere between Rosenborg and Elfsborg. 

In a group stage of LAFC, LA Galaxy, Rosenborg and Elfsborg, who would win?

And in a best of five match up against Brentford, how would LAFC and LA Galaxy do?

Star Trek Discovery - Episode 15 Season Finale spoilers and opinions about season 1 overall

The breakneck pace of episode 13 was going to be hard to top and indeed episodes 14 and 15 seemed almost a let-down yielding a somewhat muddle-headed finish in episode 15, "Will You Take My Hand?"

First off, hats off to the actors.

Doug Jones and Mary Wiseman are clear fan favorites and I would second the vote to declare them the break-out stars of this flavor of Star Trek.

Anthony Rapp, Shazad Latif, Jason Isaacs and Michelle Yeoh have been very solid especially Yeoh who got to play BOTH a very admirable and good Georgiou and a deliciously very evil Georgiou.

Sonequa Martin-Green has also been very good. Thus, I hesitate to detract from her fantastic performances but unlike other editions of Star Trek, the story lines rested very heavily on the singular character of Burnham and her choices. Yes, the Original Series was mostly Captain Kirk but Spock and McCoy had their own stories that were quite substantial and Kirk's development as a character rested very heavily on his interaction with Spock and McCoy. The same could be said of TNG, DS9, VOY, and Enterprise captains. Thus, I cannot fault Sonequa Martin-Green's acting but I can fault the show runners who placed so much of the shows various plot points to develop her character arc in the season. It is those plot points that at times got them into trouble in the story telling.

Essentially, episode 15 was round two - "What will Burnham do this time?"

This time she doesn't go it alone and act unilaterally. She goes through proper channels and her stand draws the support of her crewmates. Bravo! All fine and good.

But ….. How did they get into this situation?

We knew from episode 14 that Sarek, Cornwell, and the Federation command made some "deal with the devil" with mirror-Georgiou to be revealed in episode 15. The plot holes were ginormous!

#1. Giving command over to mirror-Georgiou was an interesting move but the writers didn't have the courage of their convictions. All season long they had mirror-Lorca in command pulling off the charade being just nice enough to fool the crew but clearly showing signs of the "dark side of the mirror." Mirror-Georgiou made no effort to "blend" in. Was mirror-Lorca that much more skillful and manipulative compared to mirror-Georgiou? Tilly quickly realized what the score really was. Undoubtedly, the rest of the crew did as well. Everyone is going to be on their guard that something is fishy.

#2. Okay, so you give the volcano bomb to mirror-Georgiou, now what? She isn't going to blow herself up along with some percent of Qo'noS. What was the escape plan? Was she going to transport back to Discovery and fly the ship out and then blow up the bomb? Was she going to plant the bomb and hire the equivalent of an Orion Han Solo to escape and blow up the bomb along with the Discovery? Either way, at some point the Discovery crew will become aware of the plan and have to decide, are we going to stop it? Was Sarek/Cornwell/Federation big heads assuming the Discovery crew would not attempt to intervene once they find out what the real plan was? Or were they planning on sacrificing them in the plot?

#3. Okay, so you manage to stop Georgioiu from detonating the bomb. Now, you give control of the bomb to L'Rell? The potential for double-cross by either side is huge. Would L'Rell really trust the Federation that she is really the only one with the detonator to the bomb? Would the Federation really trust that she won't deactivate the bomb and resume the war?

#4. Okay, let's say we can trust L'Rell to make an effort to stop the war. How does it look to the leaders of the other 23 Houses? L'Rell says to them, I have a bomb that will blow up Qo'noS so you have to stop the war and put me in charge! How are the other 23 Houses going to feel after being given that kind of ultimatum? They might obey for the time being but that is not the basis of a stable government.

#5. Okay, let's say we can trust L'Rell to make an effort to stop the war. L'Rell says to them, the Federation planted a bomb on Qo'noS and gave me the detonator so you have to stop the war and put me in charge! They might obey for the time being but they are going to think L'Rell is a tool of the Federation.

Either way you slice it L'Rell's rulership is not likely to be a stable one. The writers wrote themselves into this corner and wound up having to rely on a rather drastic and implausible way out of it.

#6. After all is said and done, we get this public ceremony where the crew of the Discovery is given awards for their actions. Would the leadership of Star Fleet and the Federation really reveal publicly how the war with the Klingons actually got resolved? Wouldn't the people behind the plan to blow up Qo'noS be quietly forced to resign and the true nature of the final deal kept quiet?

Shoe-horning this episode in Federation-Klingon relations is rather problematic for "canon" freaks.

For the uninitiated, in Star Trek "canon" the Klingons remain foes of the Federation until Star Trek Six - the Undiscovered Country. It is in that movie when the Federation and Klingons sign the Khitomer peace treaty and promise aid to help the Klingons survive the disaster of Qo'noS moon Praxis blowing up. By TNG and beyond, the Klingons are allies with occasional hiccups. In none of the previous flavors of Star Trek was there the sense that the Federation-Klingon conflict ever reached an existential threat to either side as seen in ST-Disco with the exception of the alternative time line episode in ST-TNG "Yesterday's Enterprise."

But you don't have to be a Federation-Klingon canon purist to feel dis-satisfied with the resolution as the plot points to get them to the end of the war was very shaky.

The final teaser to set up season two was the appearance of NCC-1701. Let the speculation begin!

Overall season 1 ratings:

Acting grade is an all-around A and A-.

Production design in the visuals, the sets, and the music. All top-notch A+.

Story telling: on one hand A- and on the other hand C+.

The serialized story-telling can be quite addictive and the pacing of the show was generally quite brisk lending itself to binge viewing that the streaming format counts on. I usually didn't see the show immediately on the day of release but never got more than two episodes behind. However, I can see how it could be easy to knock down three or four or more episodes in a single sitting, hence the A- grade.

However, though one can say the show had a lot of "sizzle" but when digested a little bit, you do wonder if the "steak" was very good. This was most evident in episode 15. Hence the OTOH C+ grade.

Star Trek Discovery Episode 14 - relationship status: "Its complicated" and other things

Episode 14 was a break from the shot-em up action of episode 13 and soon to drop season finale episode 15 on Sunday that will probably have a fair amount of shot-em up.

Thus, it was a time for some heart-to-heart talks among the cast and crew.

At the center of it all was Tilly. She talks to Tyler and others join in. She talks to Burnham to get Burnham to talk to Tyler.

Meanwhile, Saru continues to grow as a character as he is now the captain of the ship and shows his blend of getting the job done in the opening when he quickly sized up the situation in the transporter room. He also exhibits compassion as she filled Burnham in on Tyler's condition. He continued to display his generosity and firmness in the sickbay conversation with Tyler.

Stamets took center stage for a scene with Tyler and his response was what you would anticipate from the character we have seen develop through the series. Well done by Rapp. He also steps in with his engineering acumen with the terraforming the dead moon to grow his beloved spores.

However, the script-writers really dropped the ball for the lines they fed Anthony Rapp when Cornwell asked him to jump to Starbase 1. Stamets says something like: Starbase 1 is 100 AU from earth and a little over a light year from our current position.

If I heard that right, the science consultant on the screen writing team should check his or her astronomy notes!

In our world, 1 light year might as well be a 100 light years as it is simply too far to travel. But in Star Trek world 1 light year is like crossing the street! If you are visiting star systems in various parts of the Alpha Quadrant, you have to be traveling hundreds of light years in a matter of hours or days. So 1 light year is nothing and the nervousness about traversing that distance doesn't make sense.

As for 1 AU, that is an astronomical unit, the distance from the sun to the earth. Thus, 100 AU is beyond the Kuiper Belt. This means Starbase 1 is not very far from earth. Discovery arrives at Starbase 1 to find it has been taken over by the Klingons. If the Klingons are that close to the earth already, that is pretty bad for the Federation! This would be like the tanks circling around Paris in World War II. This is equal to the Allied Armies closing in on Berlin. The earlier comment of having lost 20% of Federation territory is bad but to have the Klingons pounding on the front door of earth is very very very bad.

We shall see if episode 15 reveals the "deal with the devil (mirror Georgiou) that Sarak and Cornwell have made. Sarak has a wonderful scene with Burnham as he leaves ship. Well played by Frain and Martin-Green.

The premise of mounting an attack on the Qo'noS, the Klingon home world, may make for good drama, but in terms of military tactics that would be somewhat unrealistic. It would be like trying to launch an massive attack on Berlin prior to D-day. Of course, the Allied air forces were able to launch night bombing raids on Berlin and other German cities but there is a huge difference between air raids and sending in ground troops and tanks.

Discovery sneaking in there to map out Qo'noS and gain other intelligence data is fine. They can sneak via the spore drive technology. But the rest of the fleet would have to get there the old fashioned way and would(!) (should?) be detected on the way there.

One would assume the Klingons have good defenses at Qo'noS and would have robust layers of defense around it. Perhaps, the 24 Klingon houses are so divided that they don't bother to defend their home world? Perhaps, only one of the houses defend the home world? Dunno.

But the premise of attacking your opponent's home world is unrealistic unless you have some aspect of military superiority that the Federation at this point do not have.

Anyway, will see where episode 15 leaves us. I suspect there will be a cliff hanger to set up season 2 so more surprises to come.

Episode 14 ends with the delicious irony of mirror Georgiou taking the bridge with only Cornwell, Saru, and Burnham knowing the real truth. Episode 1-2's arc had Burnham taking matters into her own hands against Georgiou to the dismay of Saru. This time around Saru and Burnham may need to team up to prevent mirror-Georgiou from leading the Discovery and the Federation into a disaster.

Liverpool at a Crossroads

Liverpool FC plays Southampton (Liverpool South!) on Sunday and then Porto on Wednesday in Champions League.

LFC wants to stay in the hunt for a top 4 spot in the Premier League and beating a relegation zone Southampton would be very helpful. On the other hand, you want a fresh squad for the Porto match on Wednesday.

So one suspects Klopp will not play his strongest 11 on tomorrow but how many of the usual players will get the start? How many will be available on the bench? How many won't even be named to the 18 to rest them entirely?

Karius now appears to be the #1 goalkeeper for Premier League matches and for Champions league games.
As for the back 4 for Sunday?
Probably Virgil van Dijk and Lovren are in to face their old club?
At left back? Moreno? With Robertson for Porto?
At right back? Alexander-Arnold

What about midfield?
Is Can, Henderson, Milner the "A team" for Porto?
Thus, Wijnaldum, Chamerlain, Can for tomorrow?

And what about the front three?
No question Mane, Firmino, Salah are the "A team!"
Anyone gets a break tomorrow? Solanke and Ings start with Firmino?

Go Reds!

Zlatan to Galaxy? Yea or Nay?

The rumors have been going on for a couple of seasons already and so it was no surprise they have popped up again. With Zlatan now relegated to the bench and maybe not even to the game day 18 at Manchester United, he is looking to his next destination.

How much is he worth to the LA Galaxy? To the MLS?

The downside is that he could be injury prone and simply not play many minutes and his salary would be on the bench or not even in the game day 18. That could be okay if the marketing madness he provides brings fans to the stadium. The worst case scenario is that he is a headache in the locker-room.

Certainly, he is no longer DP worthy as his injury was pretty serious and he simply hasn't shown signs he is anywhere near what he was before. From a strict "what does the LA Galaxy need perspective," he could serve as a backup for Ola Kamara and perhaps in some circumstances the two of them could be up at the front together.

One could envision some scenarios where you might have:
a back three for defense
a five man mid-field of the Dos Santos brothers and Alesandrini being attack minded, Kitchen being defense-minded with Lletget judging the situation to push forward or hang back
a front two of Kamara and Zlatan with Zlatan being like QPR's Matt Smith scaring defenders senseless with his size.

I wonder if I am the only blogger in the WHOLE world comparing Matt Smith and Zlatan Ibrahimovic! 8-) In terms of salary, would Zlatan get similar wages to Matt Smith? I suspect Zlatan would get more? And Zlatan would get many off-the-field opportunities to earn some dollars!

Star Trek Discovery episode 13 - the Star Wars episode

That was an action packed episode!

Am still behind an episode as I finally saw episode 13 while episode 14 has already been released.

Anyway, all appears answered regarding Lorca.

(1) Indeed, the cross over to the Federation universe was due to a transporter accident during an ion storm just like in ST-TOS, Mirror Mirror.
(2) He was through and through an evil-hat villain purely out for his own power.
(3) He said a "Star Wars" like line to some so-and-so about that person's lack of vision much like Darth Vader did in Episode IV about finding some flunky's lack of faith disturbing.
(4) His attempt to draw Burnham over to the "dark side" was somewhat like Darth Vader trying to pull over Luke Skywalker.
(5) His falling to his death in the spore reactor looked a bit like the Emperor falling into the reaction chamber in Episode VI. The Engage - the Official Star Trek Podcast guys are speculating that maybe falling into the spore reactor might be a crazy way to keep the character alive for the future in some strange scenario. I hope not.

The giant Emperor Starship was a bit of a mash up of the Death Star and the Gigantic Imperial Star Destroyers. Also, the attack against the reactor core was straight out of the Star Wars Episode IV.

Regarding Georgiou and Burnham, they wind up teaming up to fight Lorca. The climatic hand-to-hand fight with the two of them on the same side against Lorca and Landry was just like the fight in episode 2 against Voq and T'Kuvma. This time however Georgiou survives the battle with Burnham's help. Georgiou's mirror character was certainly no saint but she did recognize her time as Emperor was up and was willing to fight for a cause other than her own. Though I suppose revenge against Lorca may have been the dominant motivation. How that will play out in the following episodes will be interest to see.

Doug Jones as Saru continues to amaze as he absorbs the news of Lorca's betrayal and responds with strong leadership for the crew. He gets to give his version of the St. Crispin's Day speech to rally the team. In that speech, he put a twist on the old Klingon proverb of "this is a good day to die."

Here is the whole speech from the UK Independent's recapper:

“It is well-known that my species has the ability to sense the coming of death. I do not sense it today. I may not have all the answers. However, I do know that I am surrounded by a team I trust. The finest a Captain could ever hope to command. Lorca abused our idealism. Make no mistake: Discovery is no longer Lorca’s. She is ours. Today will be her maiden voyage. We have a duty to perform, and we will not accept a no-win scenario. You have your orders. On your way.”

Meanwhile Stamets of the mirror universe was an evil-hat villain like Lorca and is promptly killed Federation Stamets figures out, with help from Tilly, how to get the crew home. Unfortunately, they wind up missing by 9 months and see the Klingons have nearly defeated the Federation. Out of one frying pan into another frying pan with a time-travel twist! This is a bit like Star Trek Enterprise after the horrible battles of the Xindi arc, they find themselves in a time shift in the "Storm Front" two-parter that kicked off season 4. Will see if the Disco writing team resolves this problem in two episodes or do they leave it hanging for season 2?

Many loose ends to address:

(1) What (if anything) did the ISS Discovery do while in the Federation Universe? The Engage podcast guys suspect perhaps the ISS Discovery helped the Klingons.
(2) How will the Federation recover from what appears to be a military defeat?
(3) Will L'Rell and Tyler-Voq have a role to play in helping Discovery turn the tide of defeat?
(4) What will mirror Georgiou be doing in the Federation Universe?
(5) Will there be more spore drive travel? Perhaps, using it to time travel?
(6) How will the spore drive technology be put back into the proverbial genie bottle? Will there be perhaps some intelligence behind the spore network and they will decide to shut the door to more usage of the network much like how the DS9 wormhole aliens can open or close the wormhole as they wish?

QPR get a victory!

QPR's objectives for the rest of the season are modest:  avoid relegation, be safely in the mid-table, and identify some young talent to build for the future.

They remain on track to do this. 538 has them with a only a 4% chance of relegation.

This past weekend, they took care of business defeating Barnsley.



Living in Los Angeles, I suspect there are not a lot of QPR fans. Premier League teams get on TV every weekend while English Championship matches rarely do. I suppose there could be some displaced London people living in LA in which case they could follow a variety of London clubs.

My tie to them is purely a narrative one: love scrappy teams with big hearts.

COYRS = come on you R's!!

The role of preaching the Bible in the life of the church

Over the years I've attended and visited a variety of churches. And, not surprisingly, there is quite a variety of ways preaching is embedded in the Sunday gathering.

How much time devoted to the sermon?

At one end of the scale, I've seen 10 minute sermons where there might be one or two key points of reflection. On the other, I have heard 45 minute deep dives into a topic or passage with three or four key points and explanations and defenses of each point. And of course, have heard pastors speak for anywhere and everywhere between 10 to 45 minutes.

How does one decide how much emphasis (in terms of tangible percentage of minutes) to place of the ministry of the word in communal Sunday gatherings?

What about the content of the sermon?

Some teaching pastors preach through the Gospel of John (or some other book in the Bible) and they do so for however many weeks or months are needed to cover the text they are teaching from.

There are pastors who teach through a series of sermons lasting anywhere from 4 to 12 weeks. In the case of a shorter book of the Bible, they can preach the entire book. For instance, Paul's letter to the Philippians is just four chapters. A sermon series can touch upon every verse in every chapter of that book. But in the situation where the book is much longer, they may hit highlights of that book. If you were planning to preach the Book of Acts, which parts of the 28 chapters would you preach on if you do not plan to preach through every chapter?

In some churches, the pastor will teach topically. I'm sure we have all had the experience of seeing the church bulletin that contains a three or four point outline and under each point is two or three verses pertaining to the point thus yielding a topical sermon. I think Rick Warren is a well known example of this kind of preaching.

There are some churches, usually of the more liturgical variety, a lectionary guides the preaching schedule. For instance, the Revised Common Lectionary has a cycle of readings set over a three-year period. Supporters of this approach say that this allows the community to be exposed to a wider swath of God's wisdom found in the Bible because that is the intent of the lectionary. If the pastor can pick and choose the passages for preaching, they might gravitate toward favorite passages or favorite portions of the Bible and miss out on gems in lesser known or less popular parts of the Bible.

In the few times I've visited a Catholic mass, the readings in the service follow the lectionary but the sermon always seems to be drawn upon the Gospel reading. I suppose this could be due to the fact that the sermon leads into the administration of the Lord's supper, the culmination of the mass.

Lastly, I have encountered some churches where the pastor prays for a message for the upcoming Sunday. Thus, the message could be a text exposition or it could be a topic explanation or some combination of the two. And week-to-week, the text or topic will be different and unrelated.

The merit of the "pray for a message" approach is that when Paul and the other apostles wrote their epistles they were addressing a "problem" in the churches they were ministering to. They responded to the Spirit's inspiration to write to them something that will help them re-orient themselves to God's ways in light of their need or problem.

On the other hand, I have noticed the "preach to the need" approach can become "limiting" because of the experiences and personality of the preacher. A carpenter will always see nails to be hammered. A firefighter will see fires to be put out. A surgeon will see somebody to open up and operate upon. And so whatever background a pastor has, he/she might wind up preaching toward their "strengths" to the neglect of other matters?

Anyway, all of this to wonder aloud, if you are a preaching pastor and you happen on this blog post, how do you approach your preaching? What do you think are the strengths and weaknesses of the approach you take?

May God bless the feet and words of those who proclaim Good News to the flock entrusted into your care and feeding!