The Statistical Problem With Soccer

The whole point of tournaments like this is to encourage upsets. In fact, the whole point of soccer being scored the way it is is to encourage upsets. There have been studies that show that low-scoring games like soccer have a higher likelihood of upsets than high-scoring games like American football.

The chance of an upset is why lower lever teams play so hard. It's why higher-level teams still have to play their socks off instead of just cruising. It's why the goals that are scored are exciting goals, not just half-assed following of the play book. It's about not just being the best team technically, it's about being able to play at that level consistently. It's about having to work for a cup win.

If those muppets are so enamoured with stats, maybe they should just declare who the best team in the world is now from the stats of their player's league games, and then we can dispense with the world cup altogether and have a more accurate result to boot? No? Sounds ridiculous? Then this entire study is a waste of time.

There are 32 teams playing the World Cup, if one of them is a 1:3.5 dog, they have a pretty DAMN GOOD chance. The betting odd is usually sth like 1:4 or 1:5, I think.

More importantly, the team which wins is the better team, by definition. It is a question whether they can perform consistently in a series of matches with the correct strategy each time, whether they can adapt to changes, whether they are focused at the important moments. Certainly there will be luck and drama, but the team which plays better (for most of the match duration) wins much more often than that number 28% tells you.

Look at professional poker. You can for sure say that there is more luck involved, but times and again the familiar faces show up at the final tables.

Sports popular in the U.S. almost seem designed to allow for statistical analysis. Baseball is the ultimate game for a statistician, as you have data for every single pitch thrown and the outcome. American Football breaks the game down into series of discrete events (downs) each of which has a numerical outcomes (yards gained or lost). Basketball generates 10s of events every game with a definite outcome that can generally be assigned to a single player (shot made, missed, turnover, free throw, rebound, etc.).

All of this gives fans ways to analyze and rank individual players and teams in a fairly objective way. Thus, the immense popularity of fantasy leagues.

Soccer is inherently more subjective, as there are far fewer events with an objective outcome. With scoring a rare event, and no obvious ways to assign numerical values to all the things that happen between scoring chances, subjective analysis is all that's available.

Which ties back into the original article in that freak occurrences and dumb luck can have a much larger impact in soccer. One team can play much better for most of the game, but a freak goal, controversial call or uncharacteristic error can have an outsize impact in a low scoring affair. This is mitigated in the round robin format rounds with accumulated wins and points, but is very much a factor in one-and-done games.

I believe I read before that at one time even the final round was a multi team affair, with the champion determined by cumulative totals against the other teams, but it was done away with because fans wanted a definitive championship match between just two teams.

The outcome of the game is never meant to be a "true reflection" of the teams' abilities, but a reflection of their ability against that side, on that day, in those conditions. A round-robin style tournament is used to have a team playing different opponents, a mix of different styles. Central attacking sides. Defense and counter-attack. Wide open matches. Closed central movement. Teams alter their strategy against specific opponents and try to find holes in their game and exploit an edge.

This seems like a problem with the statistical model, not with the sport, because "A > B > C > A" is possible in a team sport, and not just because of a luck factor. One team may have strengths that exploit certain weaknesses in other teams. That are uncountable examples - Team A lacks fitness and is weaker in the last 20 minutes; but this will only be exploited by a team who have a high fitness level. Team B has as weak left wing, but this will only be exploited by a team with a strong right winger. The list goes on.