A few weeks ago — four weeks ago, in fact — I said that I would post my submitted paper on the Soccer Pythagorean that was rejected by the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference by the end of the week.  Well, a week is a long time in politics and in this site.  I apologize for taking so long, but I was working on a revision to the formula that I did not expect to take very long.  Well, it ended up becoming very long and involved, and I'll share all of the gory and boring details later.  I don't want to keep this paper bottled up any longer.

What follows is a copy of my submitted paper.  It is somewhat incomplete, partially because of the six-page limit and because I was hoping to incorporate mid-season data from the European leagues which I didn't have at the time of the submission deadline.  Like I said, the formula has since been revised and I'm currently evaluating how useful it is — I already know that it won't be as simple as the baseball Pythagorean!  But the paper is a solid piece of work, if I may say so myself. 

Comments are welcome.  You are more than welcome to use the formula, as long as you credit me and this website.

Pythag_MIT_SA_2010.pdf [282kb]