Thursday, May 14, 2015

How Not To Make Comparisons

This is just misleading. It's meant to make it appear to those who do not know that Juve struggled from a Serie B side to qualify for the Serie A and then rose through the ranks to the top of the league and now are UCL finalists.

Nothing can be further from the truth.

Juve wasn't relegated for poor performance. They were title contenders before an investigation into match fixing resulted in them suffering a deduction in their match points for the season. They subtracted 30 points from their tally which effectively meant they didn't have enough points to stay in Serie A.

They had the great fortune of retaining some of their best players who chose to keep faith with the club in the lower division rather than go elsewhere and play at the top. Gianluigi Buffon, former Czech star Pavel Nedved, Alessandro Del Piero, Mauro Camoranesi and David Trézéguet remained.

These key players ensured that they blasted through the teams in the lower division and returned immediately to Serie A where they once again challenged for the title and with a few extra players won it again.

It was as if for them, not much changed for those two reasons. 1. The relegation wasn't due to poor performance. 2. Key players remained.

Can that be a good comparison with Arsenal when one looks at the exodus of key players and the tight fiscal policy surrounding the new stadium? I'm not going to give excuses for the Arsenal team's inability to win many more titles but you have to do a better comparison with a team that has gone through a similar historical line with Arsenal for it to make sense. Not trying to be deceptive by comparing it to Juve because you can use the story of their relegation to fool ignorant people.

No one will deny the work that Wenger has done and his consistency at certain levels given how things are in world football today. Even die-hard fans who want trophies will agree that football is tougher today than before. Yet, the gaffer has remained consistent in keeping Arsenal as a top side year on year.

True, the trophy cabinet is empty and it's about winning in football, and some of the losses can be traced to him as a coach and everything, but it doesn't rule out the fact that he has done a lot more than coaches in his shoes could've managed.

Apart from someone like Mou, and maybe A. Ferg, due to their consistent clashes, other coaches around the world who understand the business give Wenger a lot of props for what he's been able to achieve in London.

So, I'm going to conclude that it is simply stupid to use such analogies as depicted in the picture to try to fool people into thinking it makes sense to look at these two teams in that light. I'd use other abusive terms but it'll not be civil of me to do so. Lemme stop at "stupid".

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