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Stability.
The study, “Stability and Performance in Football Teams,” looks at archived data from nine consecutive seasons in the top professional soccer leagues of England and Italy. After assigning each team a “stability index” reflecting its player-retention rate over the nine years, Van Vugt found a strong correlation between all measures of competitive success — league rank, points earned, goals scored and goals allowed — and the stability of the team’s roster.
The so-called stability-performance effect was strong even when controlling for a team’s previous league performances, the age of its players and the wealth of the team as measured by the amount it paid for new players. (Unlike the more tightly-regulated American leagues, English and Italian soccer have few restrictions on the amount teams can spend acquiring new players each season and what it pays them, affording a greater competitive advantage, it would seem, to wealthy clubs). The effect was consistent among top teams and cellar-dwellers alike.
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