It’s now 2019 and the opening stages of the 2019 Copa Libertadores start in three weeks, but let’s take a look back at the 2018 competition, which didn’t end that long ago. It started with 47 teams, developed into a two-country race, and ended in a mouthwatering and compelling but ultimately depressing and farcical Superclásico […]
J. Apesteguia and I. Palacios-Huerta, “Psychological Pressure in Competitive Environments: Evidence from a Randomized Natural Experiment”, American Economic Review 100 (December 2010): 2548-2564.This economics paper focuses on the psychological issues involved in high-stakes competitive environments, using the penalty kick shootout as an illustration. The major finding of the paper is that there is a structural […]
This is a busy week for everyone doing analytics work. People are rushing to complete their final analyses of the 32 finalists, make tournament predictions, and whatever software tools they need to carry out their tasks. Here is what I'm working on this week: Debugging the data entry forms that implement the Football Match Result […]
[Also posted at my other site, HexagonalBlog.]I think it might be a good idea to look at previous World Cups and find out how the hosts fared in their opening matches. Here's the full list, with the hosts listed first:1930: Uruguay 1-0 Peru1934: Italy 7-1 USA1938: France 3-1 Belgium1950: Brazil 4-0 Mexico1954: Switzerland 2-1 Italy1958: […]
Benoit Emonet, "Revisiting Statistical Applications in Soccer", STS Report, Department of Mathematics, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, 2000. [PDF] (more…)
