“Empires are wicked” wrote Sir John Glubb in his 1976 essay titled The Fate of Empires and Search for Survival.
It may not transpire this season, but a historical pattern looks to be emerging: Europe’s footballing empires are going to collapse and new ones emerge. Empire is a charged word, but Glubb, an academic and former British army officer, used the term interchangably with superpower.
He wrote the essay mentioned above on the basis that “again and again in history we find a small nation, treated as insignificant by its contemporaries, suddenly emerging from its homeland and overrunning large areas of the world”. Change “nation” to “football team” and it holds up — Europe’s current crop of league leaders do not necessarily have small histories but were certainly considered insignificant as title challengers prior to this season.
Arsenal were bottom of the Premier League after three games last season, and finished fifth. Their last title was the 2003-04 Invincibles season and they have only finished second twice in the years since, but here they are topping a league that has been won by either Manchester City or Liverpool in the last five seasons.
Napoli, most recently promoted back to Serie A in 2007, are waltzing to only their third Scudetto and their first since 1989-90. The past 20 Italian titles were won by either Juventus, Inter Milan or AC Milan.
The German Bundesliga is generally seen as Europe’s least-competitive top tier, with Bayern Munich winning its last nine titles, finishing seven of them at least 10 points clear of the side in second place. But Borussia Dortmund’s nine wins from 10 Bundesliga games so far in 2023 currently has them top by a point.
Glubb’s essay analysed historical empires — the word “football” is referenced twice in 24 pages — but there are parallels. He demonstrates that, even in modern eras, an empire’s lifespan remains consistent (about 250 years, or 10 generations) despite evolutions in methods of travel and weaponry. Rather their shapes have changed, now focused on conquering the wider world rather than locality.
“The life expectation of a great nation, it appears, commences with a violent, and usually unforeseen, outburst of energy, and ends in a lowering of moral standards, cynicism, pessimism and frivolity,” wrote Glubb.
That life cycle is shown below.
Examples of sides in different phases of the cycle will be covered later in this article but the basic order, explained with quotes from the essay, goes:
Modern football empires must adapt to an evolving, faster game. This is ushering in the beginning, or the end, of team cycles.
A 2020 paper on the future of football found, using men’s FIFA World Cup data between 1966 and 2010, a 35 per cent increase in passes per minute, from 11 to 15, and anticipated a further rise to over 16 by 2030. Game speed, which uses ball tracking data, is up 15 per cent in the same time (from 8.0 metres per second to 9.2), and predicted to increase a further 12 per cent by 2030 (to 9.8 metres per second).
High-intensity distance covered rose three per cent per Premier League season (20 per cent total) between 2006-07 and 2012-13, with sprint distance up by eight per cent and high-intensity actions up 50 per cent in those six years. These intensity increases are causing more injuries — a four per cent yearly rise in hamstring injuries among UEFA’s elite clubs between 2001 and 2014 — and losing a key player for medical reasons can ruin a club’s season.
Sky Sports has measured the average tenure of a professional English manager, finding a drop from over seven years post-World War Two, to three years at the Premier League’s inception (1992-93) and down to an all-time low of 423 days in 2020.
Second-placed Bayern sacked Julian Nagelsmann last week, after 631 days in charge; they had their fewest points (52) at this stage of a season (25 games) since 2011-12 when the axe fell. They did this despite being just one point behind Dortmund and having won all eight of their Champions League games this season, in a group with Barcelona and Inter, and having kept clean sheets in both round-of-16 legs against Paris Saint-Germain.
This probably places Bayern in the age of “affluence”, with Dortmund boasting identical points totals (53) and win/draw/loss records (17, two, six) to this point in last season. They have stood still while Bayern have, in Glubb’s words, shown the “remarkable and unexpected symptom of national decline… the intensification of internal political hatreds”. Nagelsmann’s departure followed that of goalkeeping coach Toni Tapalovic in January, while goalkeeper Manuel Neuer was injured, a sacking that the player described as “the most brutal thing in my career”.
Last summer, Manchester United hired Erik ten Hag from Ajax to be their new manager. Immediate replacement Alfred Schreuder lasted six months and they are now led by John Heitinga, a former Ajax youth coach in his first senior role.
Ajax have won seven of the previous 11 Eredivisie titles, including the last three, and were also top when the 2019-20 season was abandoned due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But they lost 3-2 at home to Feyenoord in De Klassiker last month, and Arne Slot’s Rotterdam side are six points clear in first place with eight games left. Feyenoord have frequently finished second and while they did win the league in 2016-17, this would be only their second title of the century.
They look to be into the age of “commerce,” with United, who had the most iconic footballing empire of all under Sir Alex Ferguson, back into the “conquests” age, ending a seven-year trophy drought with the League Cup win in February.
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FiveThirtyEight’s Soccer Power Index (SPI) ratings — combining advanced metrics (such as expected goals) with the previous season’s performance and team market value — simulate leagues to predict a winner during pre-season. None of the current first-placed teams in the Premier League, Bundesliga, La Liga, Serie A and Eredivisie were their title favourites in July. In fact, Arsenal were fifth-favourites to win the Premier League.
Perhaps the split season to accommodate a winter World Cup had an impact, but there are commonalities between successful and collapsing teams.
The head coaches/managers of those league-leading teams have all been in charge for beyond the 2020 managerial average: Mikel Arteta (Arsenal) for 1,196 days, Luciano Spalletti (Napoli) and Slot for 639 days and Xavi (Barcelona) for 511 days. Edin Terzic has been in one senior role or another at Dortmund — technical director, assistant coach, caretaker manager and head coach — since the start of 2018-19. These clubs stuck with them, giving them time to build a team and a system, even if they did not instantly succeed.
Ownership has muddied and takeovers become more common, particularly foreign investment, which typically guarantees financial backing but sometimes sees it come from individuals without experience, insight and, seemingly at times, interest in football. This adds further chaos to an innately dysfunctional sport.
Players are changing club more, too. FIFA’s Global Transfer Report found 2022 to be the first year where international transfers of male professional players surpassed 20,000 — a 59 per cent increase from 2013, despite the complexities of transfers into England post-Brexit. Robert Lewandowski left a gaping hole in Bayern’s forward line when he went to Barcelona. Arsenal recruited Premier League winners Oleksandr Zinchenko and Gabriel Jesus from Manchester City. Sebastien Haller (Dortmund), Lisandro Martinez and Antony (both Manchester United) were all key players to leave Ajax.
Liverpool lost Sadio Mane to Bayern and their intensity fell off a cliff. They could end up with their worst league finish since 2012, yet were Champions League finalists only 10 months ago. Manager Jurgen Klopp has won everything available at Liverpool, and taken them to three Champions League finals in five seasons — the “high noon” period that Glubb terms a team’s peak.
He says that empire leaders always “imagined that their pre-eminence would last forever” but “the simplest statistics prove the steady rotation of one nation (club) after another at regular intervals”. Coaches refine a team, a system and style, which seems as significant in terms of achieving success as it does ensuring their collapse when they cannot adapt it.
Similarly, Chelsea are on track for their worst Premier League season ever, even eclipsing their 2015-16 post-title crash. Under new ownership, they have been more active in transfers than anyone, having sacked Thomas Tuchel just seven games into this season. He had won a Champions League and reached the FA Cup final within 30 games of being appointed in January 2021.
In Glubb’s empirical life cycle, Chelsea and Liverpool are now in the age of decadence — the end — although Chelsea could already be back at the start. Glubb’s markers of this “decline and collapse” period are: defensiveness, pessimism, materialism and frivolity. Teams over-prioritise protecting their successes — ie, retaining titles — to reinvest in the good processes that brought them there.
Michael Phelps, the former American swimmer and the most decorated Olympian ever, is a proponent of the gold medal depression theory, explaining how elite athletes regularly hit psychological lows after success. The Premier League has had just seven winners in its 30-year history but the title has only been retained nine times.
“Pioneers” aptly describes Napoli, who are in the first phase of the cycle. Their Serie A form (23 wins from 27 games) is on par with, at this stage of the season, Juventus’ league record 102-point season in 2013-14.
Glubb describes a “readiness to improvise and experiment” at the outburst of an eventual empire, “if one method fails, they try something else”.
Napoli are arguably the most tactically adaptable side in European football. They just beat Eintracht Frankfurt in both legs of a Champions League round of 16 tie, dominating possession in the first leg while creating chances from counter-attacks and high press. Napoli were also top scorers (20) in the Champions League group stage.
Their recruitment did not create headlines.
Kim Min-jae was brought from Fenerbahce of Turkey in July 2022 and won Serie A player of the month in September. Andre-Frank Anguissa underwhelmed in a relegation-bound Fulham side in the 2020-21 Premier League but has shone in Napoli’s fluid midfield three. Khvicha Kvaratskhelia had been on loan in Russia but was plucked from the Georgian first division, and is the only Serie A player this season with double-digit goals (12) and assists (10).
The cycles of footballing empires are accelerating but becoming stronger.
The average number of points to win the Premier League title is 87, but four of the five highest totals have occurred in the last six seasons: Manchester City’s 100 in 2017-18; Liverpool’s 99 in 2019-20; City’s 98 in 2018-19; Chelsea’s 93 in 2016-17.
Barcelona have the second-most La Liga titles in history (26, behind Real Madrid’s 37) but were in a phase of “decadence” after the trio of Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar departed, having won multiple trophies (“commerce”) every season between 2014-15 and 2018-19. The Catalans now have the third-youngest team in La Liga and their acquisition of Lewandowski — from Bayern — propelled a first Spanish Super Cup win in five years in January for a club with only a solitary Copa del Rey (2020-21) to show for the past three seasons.
Glubb speaks of “pioneers” overthrowing empires that are “wealthy but defensive-minded” — a fair, albeit reductionist tactical description of Real Madrid.
Against the backdrop of a financial mess and failure to advance from their Champions League group, Barcelona have somehow won 22 of 26 league games and conceded just nine goals. Their high press and a rejuvenated Marc-Andre ter Stegen in goal will bring a La Liga title and quite possibly records, too.
With 12 games left, 11 wins would break Barcelona’s jointly-held centurions points record from 2012-13 (with Real Madrid, 2011-12), ending their longest streak without a league title in 20 years. They need eight more clean sheets to break Deportivo La Coruna’s record of 26 from 1993-94.
It was only two years ago that the European Super League was first touted, an invite-only pan-European elite competition, without relegation. Member eams would be permanent, there would not be jeopardy, and the reaction was so bad that Boris Johnson, then British prime minister, threatened a “legislative bomb” to stop it.
It turns out he did not need one.
“Perhaps, in fact, we may reach the conclusion that the successive rise and fall of great nations (teams) is inevitable and, indeed, a system divinely ordained,” writes Glubb at the end of his essay.
Nothing lasts forever in football.
(Top photo: Francesco Pecoraro/Getty Images)
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