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Statistical Adjustment for "Prevent Defense" When Evaluating Team Performance in Soccer

Abstract Number:

2694 

Submission Type:

Contributed Abstract 

Contributed Abstract Type:

Paper 

Participants:

Ahmet Cemek (1), Andrey Skripnikov (2), David Gillman (1)

Institutions:

(1) New College of Florida, Sarasota, FL, (2) New College of Florida, N/A

Co-Author(s):

Andrey Skripnikov  
New College of Florida
David Gillman  
New College of Florida

First Author:

Ahmet Cemek  
New College of Florida

Presenting Author:

Andrey Skripnikov  
New College of Florida

Abstract Text:

Having looked at the full match statistics for the England-France 2022 FIFA World Cup Quarterfinal, one could come away thinking "England lost despite having played better than France": 16 to 8 shot attempts, 8 to 5 shots on target, 5 corners to France's 2, resulting in a 1-2 loss. What's disregarded is the score situation: in the 40 minutes when the match was tied (0-0, 1-1), France led in all of the mentioned statistical categories, while consciously ceding initiative to England in the 66 minutes when up a goal - a tactic we'll refer to as "prevent defense" (term borrowed from American football). We use match event sequencing data across five European club leagues and international games over the past 10 years to study impacts of prevent defense on the aforementioned statistical categories and scoring tendencies for teams if trailing or in the lead. To yield a more realistic picture of who might have actually played "better", we implement a statistical adjustment to said categories and goals via multivariate regression. Prematch booking odds are used to gauge how evenly matched the two teams are, which is believed to affect the likelihood of implementing prevent defense tactic.

Keywords:

Sports statistics
|Categorical data|Multivariate regression| | |

Sponsors:

Section on Statistics in Sports

Tracks:

Miscellaneous

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