Predictive Modeling of Lower-Level English Club Soccer Using Crowd-Sourced Player Valuations

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Brown, Josh, Bu, Yutong, Cheesman, Zachary, Orman, Benjamin, Horng, Iris, Thomas, Samuel, Harsy, Amanda, Schultze, Adam
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2024
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author Brown, Josh
Bu, Yutong
Cheesman, Zachary
Orman, Benjamin
Horng, Iris
Thomas, Samuel
Harsy, Amanda
Schultze, Adam
author_facet Brown, Josh
Bu, Yutong
Cheesman, Zachary
Orman, Benjamin
Horng, Iris
Thomas, Samuel
Harsy, Amanda
Schultze, Adam
contents In this research, we examine the capabilities of different mathematical models to accurately predict various levels of the English football pyramid. Existing work has largely focused on top-level play in European leagues; however, our work analyzes teams throughout the entire English Football League system. We modeled team performance using weighted Colley and Massey ranking methods which incorporate player valuations from the widely-used website Transfermarkt to predict game outcomes. Our initial analysis found that lower leagues are more difficult to forecast in general. Yet, after removing dominant outlier teams from the analysis, we found that top leagues were just as difficult to predict as lower leagues. We also extended our findings using data from multiple German and Scottish leagues. Finally, we discuss reasons to doubt attributing Transfermarkt's predictive value to wisdom of the crowd.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2411_09085
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Predictive Modeling of Lower-Level English Club Soccer Using Crowd-Sourced Player Valuations
Brown, Josh
Bu, Yutong
Cheesman, Zachary
Orman, Benjamin
Horng, Iris
Thomas, Samuel
Harsy, Amanda
Schultze, Adam
Applications
In this research, we examine the capabilities of different mathematical models to accurately predict various levels of the English football pyramid. Existing work has largely focused on top-level play in European leagues; however, our work analyzes teams throughout the entire English Football League system. We modeled team performance using weighted Colley and Massey ranking methods which incorporate player valuations from the widely-used website Transfermarkt to predict game outcomes. Our initial analysis found that lower leagues are more difficult to forecast in general. Yet, after removing dominant outlier teams from the analysis, we found that top leagues were just as difficult to predict as lower leagues. We also extended our findings using data from multiple German and Scottish leagues. Finally, we discuss reasons to doubt attributing Transfermarkt's predictive value to wisdom of the crowd.
title Predictive Modeling of Lower-Level English Club Soccer Using Crowd-Sourced Player Valuations
topic Applications
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.09085