Predicting Football Results with Statistical Modelling

One of my professors was working on a PHD research project involving predicting soccer match outcomes using a neural net. At that time it was very...wrong...but I wonder if he ever made any progress towards better accuracy.

Re: Predicting Football Results with Statistical Modelling

#6

Post by oh_sigh » Tue, Oct 20, 2020, 5:49 PM UTC

whofw wrote: post #5

One of my professors was working on a PHD research project involving predicting soccer match outcomes using a neural net. At that time it was very...wrong...but I wonder if he ever made any progress towards better accuracy.

If it was very wrong, did you consider just inverting the answer?

Re: Predicting Football Results with Statistical Modelling

#7

Post by thom » Tue, Oct 20, 2020, 5:50 PM UTC

The same author does seem to go on and build a slightly more realistic Dixon-Coles model:

https://dashee87.github.io/football/python/predicting-footba...

But even that is very dated - one of the authors, Stuart Coles has worked at a gambling syndicate for many years. They at the very least incorporate expected goals into the model, but no doubt have all sorts of esoteric models by now.

Re: Predicting Football Results with Statistical Modelling

#8

Post by whofw » Tue, Oct 20, 2020, 5:51 PM UTC

oh_sigh wrote: post #6

whofw wrote: post #5

One of my professors was working on a PHD research project involving predicting soccer match outcomes using a neural net. At that time it was very...wrong...but I wonder if he ever made any progress towards better accuracy.

If it was very wrong, did you consider just inverting the answer?

Inaccurate would probably be a better word. The results were fairly inconsistent, and for whatever reason he decided that he wanted to bet real money before perfecting (or at least as best as possible) the predictions and he lost a lot of money haha

Re: Predicting Football Results with Statistical Modelling

#9

Post by mattmanser » Tue, Oct 20, 2020, 5:57 PM UTC

garraeth wrote: post #2

Perhaps include "(soccer)" in the title for those of us in the USA?

Not the rest of the world's problem you called a game that mainly involves throwing 'foot' ball for some incomprehensible reason.

Are you sure about the name basketball? Don't want to call it sackball or something like that? Or maybe shuttlebasket?

I always chortle at your "world" series too!

Re: Predicting Football Results with Statistical Modelling

#10

Post by superfrank » Tue, Oct 20, 2020, 6:23 PM UTC

garraeth wrote: post #2

Perhaps include "(soccer)" in the title for those of us in the USA?

The author is from London and the internet is global. Expecting an author to cater to every other culture with everything they do is a bit self-centered, IMO. It should be on the reader to understand that there are differences, not on the writer to make sure every single cultural difference is pointed out. It seems kind of weird to expect him to alter his headline to cater to a country he doesn't live in.

If you were writing an article about potato chips, it would seem kind of silly to expect you to add "(crisps)" in the title to cater to our English friends, so I'm not sure why you would expect that here, especially when the vast majority of the world calls it "football".