OT:Spygate (no not the one you're thinking of...)

Championship clubs demand Leeds spygate answers in furious letter to EFL
I'm a long time supporter of both the Patriots and Leeds United.
Their manager, Marcelo Bielsa is a long standing, successful, and very well respected international soccer manager, and he has been sending spies to watch his opponents train- dressed in Leeds United outfits and making no effort to hide themselves.
He admits it and claims that it's not a big deal and that it was not prohibited by the rules, and the English Football League is investigating at the behest of 11 clubs who are demanding action.
The ownership of Leeds say that they knew nothing about these spying trips.
Leeds currently lie at the top of the English Championship.
Sounds sort-of familiar?

Tainted!

Maybe I'm not following, but that sounds worse than our spy gate.

Our Spygate wasn't doing something that the rules failed to capture. Our spygate was doing something within the rules from the wrong location. We got a #1 taken away from us and labeled as cheaters for all time because the camera guy was here not there.

Sending someone to watch practices and saying "the rules don't say we can't" sounds different.

Well, to be fair, I was not even a football fan at the time of spygaye but I think in this example of Bielsa, that's at least unethical

varjao said:

Well, to be fair, I was not even a football fan at the time of spygaye but I think in this example of Bielsa, that's at least unethical

Click to expand...

https://www.goal.com/en/news/leeds-...couting-controversy/gdc7zkc9fxjo1c5joc296ooe2
Apparently it's an almost universal practice worldwide- some clubs going as far as to employ drones for the purpose.
In my opinion, it helps to put the absurdity of our Spygate even more into perspective...

Bielsa and Leeds have not actually broken any rules though, it’s more unsporting than it is illegal in soccer. Personally it’s a lot of whining over very little as it’s not a set piece sport so it’s hard to gain too much advantage.

Hammertimebaz said:

Bielsa and Leeds have not actually broken any rules though, it’s more unsporting than it is illegal in soccer. Personally it’s a lot of whining over very little as it’s not a set piece sport so it’s hard to gain too much advantage.

Click to expand...

Changing How the World Thinks About Set Pieces | StatsBomb
It seems that 25-33% of all goals in professional soccer are scored from set pieces and the elite teams push this percentage up even higher. In order to be successful you need to understand many of the fundamentals in a similar way as you do in the NFL- the positioning, strategy and likely reactions and tendencies of the opponent.
To the untrained eye soccer appears to be ad hoc, and although that is much more the case than in the NFL it's not entirely true, and the better the team and manager the less it is the case. Strategy and management are vitally important in the modern game.
Bielsa is widely perceived as being one of the pre-eminent strategists in world soccer.

Bielsa put on a PowerPoint presentation during a news conference in response to the controversy that essentially said “we spend so many hours and have this much data to analyse on each opponent that spygate doesn’t really give us that much of an extra advantage”, to which I’d say, well why do it? Leeds are top of the Championship and have been for most of this season, and look on course for promotion to the big time. They don’t need to be sending shady men with wire cutters to see how the other team are going to play (they have powerpoints!)

Similar to the Patriots’ various scandals (whatever your thoughts on each), it’s teams at a position of strength pushing rules and boundaries as far as they can to give them every chance of winning when they didn’t need to. I’d understand it a hell of a lot more if it were the Browns of old trying this stuff or Ipswich Town (bottom of C’ship).