Assessing the Projections: The rest of the 2013-14 Big Five

Categories: League Competitions, Soccer Pythagorean: Tables, Team Performance

We move on from England to the other domestic leagues that make up the European Big Five — Spain, France, Italy, and Germany.  The format is the same as before in which we post the pre-season projections, the final table, and a statistical summary of the predictive quality of our forecast. So, let’s go.

France: Ligue 1

Our pre-season projections:

France_Ligue1_201314_Projections

The final table:

Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts
Paris St-Germain 38 27 8 3 84 23 61 89
Monaco 38 23 11 4 64 31 33 80
Lille 38 20 11 7 46 26 20 71
Saint-Étienne 38 20 9 9 56 34 22 69
Lyon 38 17 10 11 56 44 12 61
Marseille 38 16 12 10 53 40 13 60
Bordeaux 38 13 14 11 49 43 6 53
Lorient 38 13 10 15 48 53 -5 49
Toulouse 38 12 13 13 46 53 -7 49
Bastia 38 13 10 15 42 56 -14 49
Reims 38 12 12 14 44 52 -8 48
Rennes 38 11 13 14 47 45 2 46
Nantes 38 12 10 16 38 43 -5 46
Évian 38 11 11 16 39 51 -12 44
Montpellier 38 8 18 12 45 53 -8 42
Guingamp 38 11 9 18 34 42 -8 42
Nice 38 12 6 20 30 44 -14 42
Sochaux 38 10 10 18 37 61 -24 40
Valenciennes 38 7 8 23 37 65 -28 29
Ajaccio 38 4 11 23 37 72 -35 23

It was clear from the summer transfer activities that Ligue 1 would be a two-way race between Monaco and PSG, and that’s how it turned out from the opening kickoff.  We predicted a PSG win but with a slightly narrower gap than actual, and a ten-point gap between Monaco and Lille, Lyon, and Marseille.  Saint-Étienne were the surprise team this season as their offense and defense performed eight and twelve goals ahead of expectations, respectively, which allowed them to pick up 17 more points than expected.  We predicted two of the three relegated club correctly, and Sochaux were picked to escape the drop by a point.  So to be relegated on the last day is a very close call.  The most underperforming team relative to expectations was Nice; their inability to score, especially on the road (eight away goals in Ligue 1) put them in relegation danger.

Statistical summary:

Pred Goals Actual Goals % Change RMSE Pts RMSE GF RMSE GA RMSE Pos
937 932 -0.53% 7.84 6.79 8.35 3.13

Spain: Primera División

Our pre-season projections:

Spain_Primera_201314_Projections

The final table:

Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts
Atlético Madrid 38 28 6 4 77 26 51 90
Barcelona 38 27 6 5 100 33 67 87
Real Madrid 38 27 6 5 104 38 66 87
Athletic Bilbao 38 20 10 8 66 39 27 70
Sevilla 37 17 9 11 66 51 15 60
Villarreal 38 17 8 13 61 53 8 59
Real Sociedad 38 16 11 11 60 44 16 59
Valencia 38 13 10 15 51 53 -2 49
Celta de Vigo 38 14 7 17 49 54 -5 49
Levante 38 12 12 14 35 43 -8 48
Málaga 38 12 9 17 39 46 -7 45
Rayo Vallecano 38 13 4 21 46 80 -34 43
Getafe 38 11 9 18 35 54 -19 42
Espanyol 38 11 9 18 41 51 -10 42
Granada 38 12 5 21 32 57 -25 41
Elche 37 9 13 15 29 47 -18 40
Almería 38 11 7 20 43 71 -28 40
Osasuna 38 10 9 19 32 62 -30 39
Valladolid 38 7 15 16 38 60 -22 36
Betis 38 6 7 25 36 78 -42 25

There are results in world soccer that leave you breathless, and this is one of them.  What an amazing achievement by Diego Simeone and his Atlético Madrid team to win La Liga. Yes, Ráfael Benítez’s won the league with Valencia ten years ago, but that was a different world — Valencia beat out Deportivo La Coruña in 2002 and won La Liga with three matches to spare in 2004!  In a Liga with a wide financial gap between Barcelona, Real Madrid, and the rest, Atlético outperformed their expected point total by 26 points and were tighter on defense than any other team in the division with the possible exception of Elche.  The only downside of Atlético’s achievement is that it overshadows a superb performance by Athletic Bilbao, who also overperformed by 26 points and scored 26 more goals than expected.  But Athletic had much further to go to contend with Real and Barça than Atlético.  The biggest underachiever in La Liga, by a wide margin, was Betis.

A much deeper analysis is required of Atlético’s performance, but as a manager once said, how do you measure a player’s heart?

Statistical summary:

Pred Goals Actual Goals % Change RMSE Pts RMSE GF RMSE GA RMSE Pos
1068 1040 -2.62% 13.36 13.85 10.78 5.61

Germany: 1. Bundesliga

Our pre-season projections:

Germany_Bundesliga1_201314_Projections

The final table:

Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts
Bayern München 34 29 3 2 94 23 71 90
Borussia Dortmund 34 22 5 7 80 38 42 71
Schalke 04 34 19 7 8 63 43 20 64
Bayer Leverkusen 34 19 4 11 60 41 19 61
VfL Wolfsburg 34 18 6 10 63 50 13 60
Borussia Mönchengladbach 34 16 7 11 59 43 16 55
FSV Mainz 05 34 16 5 13 52 54 -2 53
FC Augsburg 34 15 7 12 47 47 0 52
1899 Hoffenheim 34 11 11 12 72 70 2 44
Hannover 96 34 12 6 16 46 59 -13 42
Hertha BSC 34 11 8 15 40 48 -8 41
Werder Bremen 34 10 9 15 42 66 -24 39
Eintracht Frankfurt 34 9 9 16 40 57 -17 36
SC Freiburg 34 9 9 16 43 61 -18 36
VfB Stuttgart 34 8 8 18 49 62 -13 32
Hamburger SV 34 7 6 21 51 75 -24 27
1. FC Nürnberg 34 5 11 18 37 70 -33 26
Eintracht Braunschweig 34 6 7 21 29 60 -31 25

After a historic Treble season in 2012-13, it was expected that Bayern Munich would regress a bit but still be strong candidates for the title.   In the end Bayern ran away with the title almost as easily as they did the previous season (19 points from Dortmund instead of 25 points last season).  They also scored 23 more goals than expected for their squad, while Dortmund managed eleven more goals than expected.  With that in mind, Robert Lewandowski’s transfer to the champions has ominous implications for the Bundesliga race in 2014-15.  Wolfsburg, Mainz, and Augsburg were the big overachievers of the Bundesliga season, while Stuttgart, Hamburg, and Nuremberg were the big underachievers.  None of the teams in the bottom half defended better than expected, which when combined with a faltering attack, put them in serious danger of relegation.

Statistical summary:

Pred Goals Actual Goals % Change RMSE Pts RMSE GF RMSE GA RMSE Pos
827 967 +16.93% 12.30 12.85 12.98 5.30

Italy: Serie A

Our pre-season projections:

Italian_SerieA_201314_Projections

The final table:

Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts
Juventus 38 33 3 2 80 23 57 102
Roma 38 26 7 5 72 25 47 85
Napoli 38 23 9 6 77 39 38 78
Fiorentina 38 19 8 11 65 44 21 65
Internazionale 38 15 15 8 62 39 23 60
Parma 38 15 13 10 58 46 12 58
Milan 38 16 9 13 57 49 8 57
Torino 38 15 12 11 58 48 10 57
Lazio 38 15 11 12 54 54 0 56
Verona 38 16 6 16 62 68 -6 54
Atalanta 38 15 5 18 43 51 -8 50
Sampdoria 38 12 9 17 48 62 -14 45
Udinese 38 12 8 18 46 57 -11 44
Genoa 38 11 11 16 41 50 -9 44
Cagliari 38 9 12 17 34 53 -19 39
Chievo 38 10 6 22 34 54 -20 36
Sassuolo 38 9 7 22 43 72 -29 34
Catania 38 8 8 22 34 66 -32 32
Bologna 38 5 14 19 28 58 -30 29
Livorno 38 6 7 25 39 77 -38 25

We correctly projected the champions Juventus, as well as five of the top six.  Two of the places were perfect (Juve and Inter), while the others were correct to within one or two places (Roma, Napoli, Fiorentina).  The biggest overachiever in this season’s championship was, believe it or not, Juventus.  They outperformed their goalscoring expectations, but not by all that much (14 more goals scored than expected, and five fewer goals conceded than expected).  Nevertheless they won 24 more points than was expected of them, which turned an expected close race for the Scudetto into a rout and brought Juve to a record-setting point total in Serie A.  So dominant was their performance that they ran 18 points ahead of their undefeated championship-winning side of two seasons ago.

Other overperformers relative to our expectations were Roma, Parma and Verona.  The major underperformers this season were Catania, Bologna, and Udinese.  Poor Livorno were always expected to go down (the only relegated team we correctly projected), but it was the lack of goalscoring on the part of Catania and Bologna that put them in danger of the drop.  Poor scoring defenses didn’t help either.

Statistical summary:

Pred Goals Actual Goals % Change RMSE Pts RMSE GF RMSE GA RMSE Pos
1013 1035 +2.17% 11.42 11.30 9.24 4.45
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