Pitch actions that distinguish high scoring teams: Findings from five European football leagues in 2015-16

In order to find the determinants of non-penalty goals scored per match, in association football (soccer), this paper developed a regression model consisting of 8 explanatory variables, based on observations for 98 teams playing in the top tiers of club football in England, Spain, Germany, France and Italy. We started with a framework that considered twenty-one different pitch actions that included both technical and tactical variables. Using data for the 2015-16 football season we narrowed down to the 8 variable model. The paper used a log-linear regression model in order to remove heteroscedasticity. The model estimated the number of non-penalty goals per game with error of less than |0.33| for 93 teams out of 98. For 52 teams the margin of error was less than |0.1|. Shots from penalty box per game, share of shots from goal box in total shots and long pass accuracy were found to have statistically significant positive impact on non-penalty goals scored per game. Share of long passes in total passes and crosses per game have significant negative impact.
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Bibliographic Details
Subjects:
Notations:technical and natural sciences sport games
Published in:Journal of Sports Analytics
Language:English
Published: 2018
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.3233/JSA-16161
Volume:4
Issue:1
Pages:1-14
Document types:article
Level:advanced