Which league dominates Euro 2012? - Round 1

(Disclaimer: apologies for the weak graphics. Go through the content & by the QF stage I should have a new Excel with pretty graphs)
While watching my beloved England bore everybody to death, I vaguely noticed that 2 Man City players (Lescott & Nasri) had scored. "That's interesting" I thought. EPL representatives doing well in the Euro's, I assumed. So after the game I took a look at the overall scorers, assisters (I don't think that's a word) & the stand out players and it got me thinking.....I wonder where these guys are playing.....then it got me thinking "it's wrong to assume the EPL & La Liga are dominating Euro 2012". So I put the below together to help us grade and see how our favourite leagues are doing in Euro 2012.

Here's how it works:

• Nasri scored a goal - Nasri plays for Man City - Man City is in the EPL = 1 point for the EPL
• Pirlo got an assist - Pirlo plays for Juventus - Juventus is in Serie A = 1 point for Serie A
• Therefore, although the German team consists of 19 Bundesliga players, there are 45 Bundesliga players at the tournament - how are those 45 doing as a bunch?
• I've focused more on attacking than defending or passing since it's attacking that draws crowds, viewers and interest. It's the attacking & scoring which will make Euro 2012 exciting

So this is the review after Round 1. If this interests you, remember to come back to Footiecall after each round ends: Round 2 = 16 June....Round 3 = 20 June....QF round = 25 June.....SF round = 29 June.....Overall reveiew = 2 July. Let's get started.

Goals:

There have been 20 goals scored at the end of Round 1. Five goals have been scored by players who are currently playing for a Bundesliga team i.e.

Mandzukic x2 (Hamburg), Lewandowski (Dortmund),  Pilar (Wolfsburg) & Gomez (Bayern) = 5 points for Bundesliga.

Here’s the table so far:

League	Total
Bundesliga	5
EPL	4
Russian Premier League	3
Serie A	2
Ukranian Premier League	2
Danish Superliga	1
English Championship	1
Greek Super League	1
La Liga	1
Grand Total	20

Assists:

There have been 17 assists towards those 20 goals. 5 of those assist have come from players currently in the English Premier League:

League	Total
EPL	5
Bundesliga	3
Ukranian Premier League	3
Ligue 1	2
Russian Premier League	2
La Liga	1
Serie A	1
Danish Superliga	0
English Championship	0
Greek Super League	0
Grand Total	17

Combined:

Let’s combine these charts to see who’s really dominating based purely on goals & assists:

League	Total
EPL	9
Bundesliga	8
Russian Premier League	5
Ukranian Premier League	5
Serie A	3
La Liga	2
Ligue 1	2
Danish Superliga	1
English Championship	1
Greek Super League	1
Grand Total	37

Well that’s the straight forward answer, but it doesn’t tell you who have been the danger-men, who’s making this a tournament to remember and who is proving to be a good reflection of their league. We’re mainly focusing on attacking since the stats can be easily compared & measured. To get a real idea of which players are dominating the Euro’s we’ll need to take this into account also:

Shots on target:

Who’s been taking shots on target? If it wasn’t for either the post or rather good goalkeeping, these shots could be. We’ve only taken players who have had 3 or more shots on target into account. The English Premier League players are clearly the more accurate strikers so far:

League	Total
La Liga	15
EPL	11
Bundesliga	4
Danish Superliga	3
Ukranian Premier League	3
Grand Total	36

Shots off target:

Although not a vital stat, it shows attacking intent & since we’re only taking players with 3 or more shots, you can see who’s the more trigger-happy players. They’re also the players lighting up the tournament:

League	Total
La Liga	11
Bundesliga	9
EPL	9
Russian Premier League	6
Ukranian Premier League	5
Danish Superliga	0
Grand Total	40

Castrol Man of the Match:

This is quite an important factor. Castrol are monitoring every player in every game of the tournament and use technology to analyse and grade players’ performances. They track every pass, save, shot, tackle, interception & even the blocked shots. Based on this, they basically have a “Man of the Match” for every game. Here they are broken down per league: 

League	Total
Bundesliga	3
Greek Super League	1
Ligue 1	1
Russian Premier League	1
Serie A	1
Ukranian Premier League	1
Grand Total	8

Top Castrol players per position:

Castrol stats publish their ratings for the players in the tournament. From this they can award the overall Player of the Tournament once the Euro’s are complete. From this list, we’ve taken the best players in each position - GK, DF, MF, FW.

We’ve taken the top 2 GK, 5 DF, 5 MF and 3 FW to make a team of 15: 

League	Total
Bundesliga	6
Russian Premier League	2
EPL	2
La Liga	2
Ligue 1	1
Serie A	1
Ukranian Premier League	1
Greek Super League	0
Grand Total	15

So above are the various areas where we’ve graded the players. We’ve allocated a point for a goal & a point for a shot off target which some might feel is unfair. This completely misses the idea behind all of this though. The idea is not to state the obvious – that a goal is obviously the most important stat – but rather to gauge which leagues are being represented well, which leagues are making the Euro’s great, who’s bringing the excitement & who has the biggest influence on the Euro’s. After adding all of these stats together, it’s quite clear (and expected) that the top 3 European leagues are dominating the Euro’s. So although Spain only had 1 goal, their players have done many other impressive feats and remember, not all La Liga players are Spanish (so an Ozil or Ronaldo assist is a point for La Liga). The EPL has the largest contingency at Euro 2012 – 72 players. Only 23 of the 72 make up the English national team. Therefore it’s not surprising to see them top after round 1. Here is the overall league dominance of Euro 2012 (after round 1): 

League	Total
EPL	31
Bundesliga	30
La Liga	30
Ukranian Premier League	15
Russian Premier League	14
Serie A	5
Danish Superliga	4
Ligue 1	4
Greek Super League	2
English Championship	1
Grand Total	136

Author: Themba Sweet

Twitter: @thembasweet