As expected the first round of group matches has been low scoring, with an average of 1.83 goals per game, this is even lower than the historical average 2.10. Strangely though we haven’t seen a 0-0 draw, with match results clustered around a few outcomes: 1-0, 1-1, 2-0 and 2-1. My model expected a total of 25.6 goals…
Tag: Football
Euro 2016 by charts
Squad strength This chart segments squads into strength of the club teams they play for. I’ve used Euro Club index to determine the best teams. The top 6 ranked teams (Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Atletico Madrid, Paris Saint Germain and Juventus) are categorised as “elite” teams, the remaining top 25 teams as “good”, and any other club in the…
Euro 2016 – full projection
After creating attack and defence ratings for the 24 Euro 2016 teams, based on their underlying squad strength (as described here), I can run simulations to look at the likelihood of different tournament outcomes, including the winner. My projection simulates the score of each match for 5000 different possible tournament outcomes – including potential extra time…
Euro 2016 – Assessing international teams
International football is difficult to analyse. Unlike domestic league football, where vast quantities of data exist to assess team and player performance in a variety of conditions, negligible relevant data is available for international football. It is, by its nature infrequent – so tournament line-ups may bear little resemblance to those of previous matches –…
The shifting demographic order of English Premier League clubs
Three big clubs occupy the Premier League’s relegation places. Villa are down, Newcastle almost there, with only Sunderland still clinging to slim survival chances. What causes these footballing behemoths to struggle when so many seemingly smaller clubs thrive in the modern football world? These clubs really are big. Using most measures of bigness – they…
League probability projections – why so volatile?
This season’s Premier League title race is captivating. Four teams, led by unfancied Leicester City, all have a reasonable chance of winning. How do we know this? Firstly, betting markets give us a good guide to the likely champions. But there are also now many models that calculate the probability of season-end outcomes by simulating thousands…
Assessing the model
I’ve started posting Premier League result probabilities and projected goals for each round of matches, using my adjusted goals rating system. As explained, the ratings are long-term, averaged over this season and last season so can be a good starting point for assessing value. But, because they’re long-term, there is much that they don’t take…
Why isn’t escalating revenue improving quality in the English Premier League?
Measured by European success the English Premier league is on the wane. As @KristianJack explained, from 2004 to 2009 12 out of the 20 Champions League semi-finalists were from the Premier League. Yet over the following 6 seasons only 3 of 24 semi-finalists were English. This apparent decline took place over a period when burgeoning…
Mick McCarthy’s Magic Method
In the modern football world, most match reports are adorned by a plethora of stats that may (or may not) tell us something extra about the relative performance of each team – e.g. BBC reports show shots, shots on target, possession and fouls. Specialist sites like whoscored.com and Squawka allow those of a nerdy persuasion…
goal projection 