The Long And the Short of It

An article in today’s New York Times reports that two German scientists and researchers at the Rotterdam School of Management at Erasmus University in the Netherlands claim in a soon-to-be published paper that shorter players are called for less fouls. I don’t buy it.

The article says that the study is based on data compiled by Impire AG, a German company that catalogs statistics on major European sports, including seven soccer seasons of the Bundesliga (85,262 fouls) and Champions League (32,142), and three World Cups (6,440), a tally of more than 100,000 fouls. But it does not say how the fouls are broken down by size of player (or position) and gives no other details.

The story focuses on German national team player Phillip Lahm, a 5’-7” defender (who I think is a great player). “Lahm hardly has a foul called against him,” one of the researchers, Dr. Steffan Giessner, told the Times in a telephone interview. “He plays tough. People pick up on small players and say they are really tough guys.” Lahm, a defender for Bayern München, has 63 caps for Germany. (Thomas Hässler, a midfielder with 101 caps for Germany who played through 2004, is 5’-5 1/2”. He is not mentioned.)

Being all of 5’-5” I am probably qualified to address this topic and I do not agree with the researchers’ theory. On the contrary, I find that smaller players tend to get beat up more by larger players who are then not called for the fouls. Then when the smaller player retaliates, fans and other players - and often the referee - react with shock. A tall player who flattens someone from behind is being aggressive. A short player doing the same thing is called a dirty player. Maybe this is just in the club and school games and not at the professional level. But the Times article lacks specifics so it’s impossible to judge.

Here is the link to the story: http://goal.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/25/refs-are-gunning-for-tall-guys-new-report-asserts/