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Organizational status as bridge to career attainment
in professional footballThijs A. Velema
National Taiwan UniversityDepartment of Sociology
My goal today• Explore and describe careers of players developing across
organizations• Transfers are ubiquitous• Players face the fish-pond dilemma / promotion paradox
Early and late selection
Early selection Late selection
Data & methods• Data comes from transfermarkt.de• Randomly selected 1,000 footballers
• Highest 2 leagues in top 7 European countries• 191,240 player-months with team affiliation
• Team status – performance in past five years• Performance = rank in the league * strength of the league in Europe• Identify 5 status groups, each with 20% of teams in the ranking
• Sequence analysis 1,000 players• Transformation cost based on transition rates• Clustering into five groups
Results• Five groups can be characterized by early and late selection
model• Early selection with tournament mobility 45% of players – losers & winners• Late selection 15% of players • Difficult to classify 40% of players – work in progress
Early selection with tournament mobility
• 45% of players• Early moves to high status
teams• 80% losers – exit in early
twenties• 20% winners – stay in high
status teams
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
450
0 48 96 144 192 240
non-profbottom 20%teams 21%-40%teams 41%-60%
teams 61%-80%teams81%-100%
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
0 48 96 144 192 240
non-profbottom 20%teams 21%-40%teams 41%-60%
teams 61%-80%teams81%-100%
0
50
100
150
0 48 96 144 192 240
non-prof
bottom 20%teams 21%-40%teams 41%-60%teams 61%-80%
teams81%-100%
Late selection• 15% of players• Start at lower status teams• Moving up from early
twenties
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
0 48 96 144 192 240
non-profbottom 20%teams 21%-40%teams 41%-60%
teams 61%-80%teams81%-100%
Difficult to classify• 40% of players• Non-prof teams• Short periods in various
status categories• Relatively late entry
• From foreign teams• From lower level teams
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
0 48 96 144 192 240
non-profbottom 20%teams 21%-40%teams 41%-60%
teams 61%-80%teams81%-100%
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
0 48 96 144 192 240
non-profbottom 20%teams 21%-40%teams 41%-60%
teams 61%-80%teams81%-100%
Conclusion• Explore and describe careers of professional football players
• Fish-pond dilemma
• Two models of career development:• Early selection with tournament mobility• Late selection
• Further questions• Transitions or tipping points?• Implications of continuous filtering for players?
Thank you for your attention!!
Attribution for pictures
Edgar Davids (Juventus F.C., no.26) clashing with Gennaro Gattuso (A.C. Milan), by soccer illustrated
Argentina-Holanda_1978, by Archivo ClarinBundesarchiv Bild 183-N0716-0314, Fussball-WM, BRD – Niederlandse 2-1,
by Rainer MittelstadtSmaller fish, by McBoggaPond on stallion park place, by gval.netWhale rescue, by rtcosminGarden pond set-up, by cybertoad
