It’s the week of the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, so perhaps it’s a good time to look up and down my blogroll and write about the soccer analytics work that other people are doing. I think the last time I did this was during the World Cup; I might make this a semi-regular feature of the blog. The original intent was to highlight other people’s work to fill the time while I working on a project, but there’s enough good stuff going around now. The newest addition on my Soccer Analytics blogroll is the Rational Football blog. It is… Read more ›
Tobias J. Moskowitz and L. Jon Wertheim, Scorecasting: The Hidden Influences Behind How Sports Are Played and Games Are Won, Crown Archetype, 2011. [Amazon link] "Defense wins championships". "In the zone". "Swallowing the whistle". "Icing the kicker (or shooter)". These and other sports clichés are common in the modern lexicon of fans, writers, players, and decision-makers. But are they accurate? And do the commonly held conjectures about modern sport have any basis in fact, or are they merely unsupported perception? Toby Moskowitz, a finance professor at the University of Chicago, and Jon Wertheim, a senior writer with Sports Illustrated, have… Read more ›
We’ve decided on a location for the meetup of soccer analysts attending the SSAC later this week. It will be at MJ O’Connor’s, which is an Irish-styled pub in the lobby of the Westin Boston Waterfront hotel. The Westin is attached to the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center and is within walking distance of the other recommended hotels, but a taxi might be a better option with the below freezing temperatures. Sarah didn’t mention a time in her message to me, but the Friday night mixer ends at 7pm, so I’ll take the initiative and say that we’re going to… Read more ›
“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts”Daniel Patrick MoynihanMy Twitter timeline turned into a trash talk fest between Arsenal and Manchester United fans in the immediate aftermath of Arsenal’s loss in the Carling Cu… Read more ›
Perhaps US soccer and MLS would have a brighter future if we could see more images like this.
I have always maintained numbers are just a means-to-and-end in understanding the beautiful game. They provide a semblance of order and understanding to what … Read more ›
Here’s my quick and dirty and not particularly considered post-mortem to the Carling Cup final between Arsenal and Birmingham. Going into the match, Arsene Wenger pretty much guaranteed a victory. It didn’t happen, and we can speculate about why. Some … Read more ›
Here’s your Carling Cup edition of my favorite links from the past week:
The Run of Play has a perfect piece that any soccer fan can relate to, especially bloggers who consume copious amounts of soccer information in their few spare hours. I can… Read more ›
Following the recent debates about the record-setting transfers in the EPL and the Bundesliga, and with the new MLS season about to get under way, I’ve been thinking about how money relates to success in soccer.Of course, one big question about transfe… Read more ›
Note: This is a re-post from analysis I did back in January 2011 for the Transfer Price Index blog. I am posting it here to complete my series of posts on squad transfer costs, and to set up a forthcoming series of posts on the impact of starting XI tr… Read more ›
MLS has finally released their 2011 playoff format, and I certainly have a few ideas based upon my series I did on their past playoff formats and outcomes. I dealt with my recommendations for the 2011 format in this post.
The format largely follo… Read more ›
