Ryan Giggs: Still kicking on

Ryan Giggs is one of the worlds most decorated and famous football players and at almost 40 years of age is in his 22nd (soon to be 23rd) consecutive season playing in the English Premier League (EPL) for Manchester United.

Giggs currently holds the record for the most Premier League appearances by a player (931) and is on the brink of his 1000th professional appearance; including his international appearances for Wales and Britain (68).

Through out his career Giggs has been part of a number of famous Manchester United victories both in domestic and international competitions, these include;

• 12 Premier League winners medals
• 4 FA Cup winners medals
• 3 League Cup winners medals
• 2 Champions League winners medals

As well as these team achievements,  Giggs has won a number of individual awards and broken a number of footballing records, these include;

Awards

• PFA team of the year selection - 6
• PFA team of the decade selection
• PFA team of the century selection
• English Football hall of fame induction
• Order of British Empire, for services to football - 2007
• Honorary Master of Arts degree from Stanford University, for contributions to football and charity work

Records

• Most league assists by and individual
• Only player to score in every Premier League season
• Oldest player to play in the Champions League

As a footballer Ryan Giggs is regarded as one of the greatest players ever to play and represent the game, but what is more unbelievable is his ability to continuously perform at such an elite level for so long despite his age. While most players either hang up their boots or are pushed out of the elite clubs by mid 30's he continuous to diffy the odds.

How does he do it?? What allows an athlete to exceed all expectations inn terms of the length of their playing career? Is it genetics, training loads and programs, player mind set, player mind set, luck or a combination of everything?

Sabermetrics

Today as I was doing some research into performance measures and talent identification and came across a statistical method used in baseball to help identify a players talent and contribution to their team called sabermetrics.

First developed in 1977 by Bill James, sabermetrics uses objective data collected in baseball to predict and answer objective questions (i.e. who will score the most runs for their team in the coming year) using formulas such as:-

• Broc2 System; projects a players performance over the rest of his career
• Major League Equivalency; predicts how a minor league player will perform in the major leagues
• Range Factor; quantifies a players defensive contribution to their team
• Secondary average; quantifies a players offensive contribution out side of runs scored

Using this information allows scouts to identify players that make a significant contribution to their team winning but would otherwise be considered not good enough due to a scouts subjective talent identification processes.

Sabermetrics was first used in baseball in 1990's by Billy Beane, General Manager of the Oakland Athletics where they successfully developed a baseball team that had one of the lowest paid playing rosters (40 million a year) but also continually won matches against teams with playing rosters 3 times their size (120 million a year).

With this in mind, is sabermetrics able to be adapted in a way that allows it to be used as a tool for talent identification and  developing ways to construct a winning team in sports such as Rugby League and Football (soccer)? If so has it been done before and with what teams?