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Old 08-09-2015, 06:48 AM   #3
Nilpaurion Felagund
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Pipe ArdaCup.com Stats Report presents the worst and the best contracts of 2013.

Before the Arda Cup 2015 preseason madness of transfers and friendlies begins, ArdaCup.com writer Adam 'not the economist' Smith looks back at the worst and the best signings of Arda Cup 2013.

(The contents of this article have not been reviewed or endorsed by ArdaCup.com. All opinions expressed by Adam Smith are solely his own and do not reflect the opinions of ArdaCup.com or its staff, parent company, partners, or sponsors. His sources are not known to ArdaCup.com and he has no special access to information beyond the access and privileges that go along with being an Arda Cup accredited member of the media.

Yeah, there's a reason we place this disclaimer only in his articles.)

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If there's one lesson you need to learn about the nature of contracts after the 2013 edition of the Arda Cup, it's that context is everything.

Oh, and that Curufin is a max-salary player. So two things, actually.

Anyway, take Beren. In 2012 he was, dollar-for-dollar, the best player in the Cup. He was as prolific a goalscorer as any top-flight attacking midfielder and as excellent a ball-winner as any top-flight holding midfielder. In 2013 he was a bust; his numbers across the board dropped despite the $1 million salary bump. He didn't score at all (he had five in 2012) and covered less ground per game. The only metric in which he performed better was assists (2 in 2013 compared to 1 in 2012), but you wouldn't say that a top-tier team depends on Beren for assists, right?

But consider this: Whereas both 2012 AC Beleriand and 2013 Inter had Arda-class strike partnerships up top (Fëanor/Eöl and Maedhros/Fingon, respectively), AC Bel also had a championship-calibre central defence and holding midfielder (Imlach/Rochallor and Bregolas conceded seven goals in seven games, with three clean sheets, on the way to a third place finish.) Inter's CB pairing were, shall we say, Ent-like in their mobility without being Ent-like in their command of the air. (Gorlim, in particular, was the subject of a YouTír anti-highlight video of his defending that had been since, sadly, taken down.)

So, if you're Beren, and your team had a decent attack and a shaky backline, what would you do? Of course he spent more time helping his defence. But that nullified his greatest strength: his energy, paired with his ball-winning ability and his technique, allowed him to be everywhere all at once. In 2013, his goalward runs started almost ten metres deeper than they did in 2012; because of that, his markers were much closer to him once he reached the penalty box. (All stats from the ArdaCup.com Player Tracking data.) It's harder to pop up in unexpected places and be open to shoot when the defence can see you coming from much further away.

We could say the same for the other players on the list. None of them are bad players—in fact, you could argue that they're all top-ten players in their position. The problem lay with the context in which they played.

A note on the list: You could argue that there were players who were worse relative to their salaries and their team's wage bill (Saruman, Varda, and Eorl come to mind), but those teams were generally matched up against superior teams. It's bad team-building for, say, Imladris to give Varda more than a fifth of their total outlay, but they weren't getting past Angband, Tol-in-Gaurhoth, or Angfauglith even if Varda single-handedly carried their defence (no matter what a captive blogger might have said). The players on this list were on teams that had been considered contenders; a better performance from them could have pushed their teams further.

Without further ado, here are the five worst contracts of Arda Cup 2013:

5. Beren (Inter Beleriand): $13 million
Already much covered above. One reader sent a letter to present his hypothesis regarding his subpar 2013:
I believe that Beren's decline in Inter was not due to anything football-related—not the inadequate central midfield and defence—nor to anything off the field—the, ahem, distraction Lúthien might have presented. It all had to do with the fact that, as we've seen three years running, Eru hates Himring.
-William, CA
Well, it certainly is an interesting hypothesis.
4. Celebrimbor (Dwarves United): $18 million
If you got out of your group last year because of your defence and an unexpected source of goals, and then you decided, 'We can do that again this year!' without, I don't know, finding a new unexpected source of goals, what did you expect would happen?

I understand, Celebrimbor—it's not entirely your fault that opposing teams were wiser to your late runs to the penalty box for those snapshots, and that your team decided that hoofing the ball to Legolas to take on an entire back line was a reasonable attacking strategy. It's just that you're part of a back four that conceded six goals in three games, and you just had one assist in those three games. There are 18 million other reasons as well.
3. Ulmo (The Sea): $17 million
Another highly paid defender from another defensive team. The Sea managed to keep a clean sheet against FC Valinor (in a friendly) and hold Tirion to one goal, but they also conceded to Minas Tirith. Even Nargothrond—legendary twice-conceded-five-goals-in-a-single-game Nargothrond—kept a clean sheet against Minas Tirith.
2. Smaug (Erebor): $18 million
I get it. Erebor's defence took a massive step backward: eight goals conceded in seven games during 2012 to six goals conceded in three games the year after. Smaug had two goals and an assist in three games, which is decent, I guess. I get it. But all they had to do to advance was win that match against Misty Mts. He's the one they looked to when they need a goal. He took up almost a fifth of their payroll. He should have stepped up.
And the worst contract of 2013:

1. Gothmog (Angfauglith): $18 million
I can't wait for the hate mail from Angband, Thangorodrim, and Utumno to come pouring in. I had two dragons in the last list, and now I have a dragon and a Balrog as first and second.

But Angfauglith's defence were doing their job, allowing just three goals in three games. Scoring just once against Imladris, and then getting denied by Angband—that's on the goalscorers, right? And in this team, Gothmog was it—Ecthelion was playing right back the year before (besides, he's more a provider), and Angfauglith's midfield is, as the kids would say, LOL.

Then again, in 2012, Gothmog had Maeglin, Duilin, and Meleth feeding him while taking away some of the defence's attention. He scored five in four games then. Context really is everything.
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Last edited by Nilpaurion Felagund; 08-13-2015 at 09:10 AM. Reason: Misty Mts, not Mirkwood.
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