Verona, Cagliari and Udinese are the three most efficient clubs of the Serie A. These are the surprising results that emerge from a research conducted by comparing the number of points in the table and the total wages of the 20 Serie A teams.

 

Usually the team that finishes the first half of the season atop of the Serie A is called “Campione d’Inverno” (Winter Champion). That is the best performing club in the league so far. However, best doesn’t necessarily mean most efficient. Hence it may happen that smaller clubs, with considerable less resources, end up being much wiser spenders.

 

The method. This is the best moment to do such an analysis, as each team has played every opponent once. We compared the number of points in the table and the total wages of the 20 Serie A teams, in order to understand if the highest spending teams are also the ones collecting more points on the pitch. 

We considered only half of the total salaries of the clubs (as only half of the season is gone), and for the sake of simplicity we did not consider the wages of the players signed in the January transfer windows, as their impact was in any case minimum (two games, at most). Finally, we did not exclude the wages of the injured players: some teams will be therefore more penalized than other (e.g. Fiorentina). In this way we calculated how many points each team has won for every million euro they spent in player wages.

 

The first interesting aspect was to understand whether there was actually a correlation between wages and points.

 

No surprises here: the correlation is present, and it is a positive one. Assuming that high spending teams invest their money for top players, the results say that they do bring the results. However in some cases this might be a wrong assumption, and in Italy at the moment there are some clubs that spend a lot without having any true top player, like Inter.

	Club	Tot. Salary (after 19 games) (€ M)	Total points (19 games)	Cost of every point (€ M)	Points per million spent (€ M)
1	Hellas Verona	11.3	32	0.35	2.83
2	Cagliari	8.7	21	0.41	2.41
3	Udinese	10.25	20	0.51	1.95
4	Chievo	8.8	17	0.52	1.93
5	Torino	13.55	26	0.52	1.92
6	Livorno	7.25	13	0.56	1.79
7	Parma	14.75	26	0.57	1.76
8	Atalanta	12.35	21	0.59	1.70
9	Sassuolo	10.5	17	0.62	1.62
10	Sampdoria	13.75	21	0.65	1.53
11	Genoa	16.8	23	0.73	1.37
12	Fiorentina	30.25	37	0.82	1.22
13	Catania	11.05	13	0.85	1.18
14	Napoli	37.05	42	0.88	1.13
15	Bologna	14.8	16	0.93	1.08
16	Roma	46.25	44	1.05	0.95
17	Juventus	57.5	52	1.11	0.90
18	Lazio	31	24	1.29	0.77
19	Inter	47.5	32	1.48	0.67
20	Milan	52.5	22	2.39	0.42

 

The nerazzurri are still paying for the mistakes made four years ago, after they won the Champions League. Mr. Moratti was so joyful that he renewed the contract to most of his beloved players, despite their aging bodies (most were well above 30 years old). And obviously after a Champions League victory, wages didn’t certainly go down. As a result, the third highest salary total (€95M or 47.5 for half  a season) only got them 32 points in 19 games.

 

Other teams do have top players on paper, but these are not performing well. This is the example of Inter cousins, Milan. Kakà and Balotelli have a huge impact on their books (second highest salaries with €52.5M halfay through Serie A), but unfortunately not the same can be said about their performances on the pitch. The Brazilian is doing better than expected, also thanks to his teammates performances, which are making him stand out. The Italian has been his usual self: unpredictable and uncontrollable, but more in a negative way. Milan stands in 11^th position, with only 22 points.

 

The Milanese clubs represent two outliers, but overall, as already mentioned, the more you spend in wages, the more points you make (on average). However, the main purpose of the research was to understand the efficiency of the clubs, i.e. how many points they manage to make for every million euro spent. Or, to see it in a different perspective, what the cost is (in million euros) for every point they win.

 

Who is the best spender in Serie A? This measure can be considered as an indication of a good management, able to put up a performing team with limited resources, and maybe even to find quality players at a bargain price. It might also be an indication of the quality of the technical sector of the team (coach in primis), able to exploit the human resources available, making all right players play like good players, and transforming good players into great ones. The truth is that it is an indication of both. Hence, the results we are about to present will give an indication of the managerial quality of the clubs.

  

Verona leads the way. The “Campione d’inverno” in terms of spending efficiency, is just one: Hellas Verona. The Scaligeri stand in fifth place in the league, together with Inter, with a total salary that is less than a quarter of the one of the Nerazzurri (€11.3 vs. €47.5 for half a season). This means that whilst Inter won only 0.67 points per million, Verona won an outstanding 2.83 points per million, outperforming Mr. Thohir’s club by more than 300%! Let’s remember that the gialloblu played the last eleven seasons between Serie B and Serie C. Verona’s summer investments in players such as Luca Toni, Iturbe, Romulo has definitely paid out, despite many criticisms to their transfer market policies at the beginning of the season.

 

On the podium also Udinese (1.95 points/million) and Cagliari (2.41). None of the two clubs is having a particularly memorable season (especially Udinese, considering their recent past), but taking into account their actual expenditure, the opinions on their seasons (so far) should be substantially different.

 

The results are surprising, and would be even more surprising without a proper explanation. For this reason, a clarification is necessary: the points teams can win are a finite amount (maximum 3 per game), whereas for the wages there is no roof (no salary cap in football), hence these numbers will always be penalizing top clubs. In fact, Juventus (0.90 points per million spent) despite a record run (an all-time record-breaking projected final score of 104 points) is only 17^th in this particular table, and nobody can certainly say the money hasn’t been well spent. The point is to understand the initial goals of a club, and compare the figures to the ones of the direct competitors.

Juventus (52 points in 19 games) built a team to compete not only in Italy, but also in the Champions League. And whilst they didn’t succeed in Europe, they are showing their supremacy within national borders. However, if we consider the other current top clubs in Italy, Roma, Napoli and Fiorentina are doing better.

 

The Giallorossi (0.95 points per million) are yes slightly outperforming Juve in terms of numbers, but considering that their team isn’t playing in Europe, we can’t really put them in the same discussion. Napoli (1.13 points per million), however, who also played the Champions League, and performed way better than Juve, is being more efficient in 14^th place. Among the top clubs, no one is doing as well as Fiorentina, sitting in 12^th place with 1.22 points per million spent (35% better than Juventus). The Della Valle brothers and Mr. Corvino have definitely put up an excellent squad, and if it wasn’t for the injuries of Pepito Rossi and Mario Gomez, they’d probably be even higher in the rankings.

 

Finally, now that Barbara Berlusconi has taken responsibility for the managerial direction of Milan, she will have a lot of work to do. The Milan giants cannot afford to be where they are: the least efficient club in Serie A, with 0.42 points won every 1,000,000 euro spent.