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Boca Juniors, un campeón sin rivales sostenidos

Esta entrada representa el comienzo de una serie indefinida acerca de esta temporada recién concluida de la Primera División Argentina.  A continuación analizo las medidas de rendimiento para examinar la conjetura que Boca Juniors salió campeón por falta de un rival que podía dar una batalla sostenida.Me motivó esta nota de Cristián Grosso que apareció en […]

Chances created and converted in Argentina’s Primera División 2016-17

Argentina’s Primera División 2016-17 has been a study of constants and fluidity since it began last August.  Boca Juniors have led the tournament since December, but at least two and as many as five other sides have appeared as credible challengers to the title.  Some teams should have been stronger challengers but haven’t (Racing Club), […]

Summarizing xG performance in Argentina Primera (Round 25)

Earlier in the month I presented a breakdown of offensive and defensive expected goal performance in Argentina’s Primera División.  Here’s an update after the most recent matches played last weekend (Round 25).Below is the offensive performance chart for Primera as of Round 25.  The actual and expected goals are reported for open play events, set […]

Summarizing xG performance in Argentina Primera (Round 22)

I’ve taken some time to break down expected goals of each side in Argentina’s Primera División by offensive and defensive performance and by type of play.  I’ve decided to display the breakdowns in two charts for offensive and defensive performances, and I’m going to borrow a practice from Formula One to highlight performance extremes.Below is the […]

Introducing pairwise Pythagorean expectations

Jay Heumann, “An improvement to the baseball statistic ‘Pythagorean Wins’”, Journal of Sports Analytics, 2(1): 49-59, 2016. [PDF]Abstract: This paper introduces a new version to the commonly used “Pythagorean wins” statistic, which improves on the traditional method by means of mathematical adjustment.  The new statistic is called the “pairwise” Pythagorean wins, and it is demonstrated, […]

How do Leicester City compare to previous English football champions?

Leicester City are the new champions of England by merit of their own high performance and the surprisingly less than expected performance of the usual contenders for the Premier League title.  Over the last few months, as Leicester’s title run began to be taken more seriously, there has been some discussion in the press about […]

Assessing the Projections: 2015 Major League Soccer regular season

The 2015 Major League Soccer regular season concluded last Sunday.  It’s time to engage in that exercise in humility in which I look back at projections made at the start of the season and assess them.Here is what was projected at the beginning of the season – first by conference:And then the single table:The final […]

Assessing the Projections: 2014 Major League Soccer regular season

The 2014 Major League Soccer regular season concluded a week and a half ago.  It’s time to look back at the projections made at the start of the season and assess them.Here is what we projected at the beginning of the season – first by conference:And then the single table:The final league table finished like this […]

Want 90 minutes of action? Play 120: Effective time for 2014 FIFA World Cup matches decided in extra time

In an earlier post I presented the estimated effective playing time in this summer’s World Cup matches over 90 minutes.  (They are estimates because the raw data used to calculate effective time do not track the moments when the ball leaves the field of play.)  Eight matches were decided in extra time, so for completeness […]