Moneyball’ing Football

The Americans are obsessed with stats, especially when it comes to sports. So it isn’t a surprise that when they hosted the football (soccer) World Cup in 1994, they showed (what seemed to me) ridiculous stats like how much time each team had possession of the ball, or how many fouls each team committed, or how many shots at goal were on-target. Who cared, I thought? After all, what mattered was whether your side won or not. Except that today, such stats are shown in football matches all over the world.

But does any of these sport stats have any practical use, I wondered? The Brad Pitt starrer about a true story, Moneyball, answered my question:
“The general manager of the Oakland Athletics baseball team, Billy Beane, used statistical analysis to find undervalued players according to one or two key metrics. It worked: the Athletics went on a record-breaking 20-game winning streak in 2002.”
But isn’t baseball a totally different kind of game than football? The Economist article I quoted above agrees:
“Baseball is a sport with closed, distinct plays, as well as a history of statistical analysis. Football matches are more dynamic, and the interactions between players are complex.”
All of which means that stats are useless in football, right? Not so fast. Turns out that the use that Billy Beane found for stats can probably be applied in football as well: to find undervalued players with similar skills as their more fancied, well known peers!

There are sports data companies recording each tackle, pass and other “events” in each game in the English Premier League (EPL). Crunch all that data and you may find that the league’s top scorer may just be hovering around the opponent’s goal whereas another guy who scores fewer goals might be involved in a lot more passes and build-ups leading to goals. And if the latter is priced far less, he might just be the steal you could afford on your smaller budget.

Maybe the sequel to Moneyball will be about a Brit football team manager…

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why we Deceive Ourselves

In their book, The Elephant in the Brain , the authors describe this weird aspect of deception that we practice: deceiving ourselves! That is so weird: “If our minds contain maps of our worlds, what good comes from having an inaccurate version of these maps?” The Sigmund Freud school of thought treats self-deception as a defense mechanism, “a way for the ego to protect itself”. The mind seeks to protect itself from anxiety and other negative emotions. Many object to this reasoning: since accurate information is so critical to our survival, surely distorting information would be dangerous. Wouldn’t the goal of protecting our self-esteem have been better achieved by making the brain’s self-esteem mechanism stronger instead? The new school of thought explains self-deception as “primarily outward-facing, manipulative, and ultimately self-serving”. This is based on Thomas Schelling’s work on game theory: “In a variety of scenarios, limiting or sabotaging yourself is the winn...
Read more

Europe #3 - Innsbruck

The last city we visited in Europe was Innsbruck in the Austrian Alps. After the cold and windy experience (at times) of Paris and Netherlands, Innsbruck was a wonderful change – it didn’t feel that cold, it was not windy all of which made it easy to walk around. Something absolutely necessary given how scenic the place is.   Since the hotel check-in time was much later in the day, we left the baggage and went to the Swarovski HQ-cum-museum about an hour by bus from Innsbruck. The crystal exhibits were brilliant – colorful, bright, shiny. Jewellery aside, it was a display of what one can do with crystals. While my wife and daughter loved the jewellery, I liked the superhero themed exhibits of Batman, Spiderman, the Hulk, and Star Wars. We didn’t buy anything there, though we did buy stuff in the Swarovski store in Innsbruck – jewellery, not the superhero stuff.   Innsbruck is a major tourist attraction during the skiing season but now in summer, we saw many groups of ...
Read more

The Thrill of the Chase

So many people complain about the difficulty in making decisions while shopping. Do you buy Brand X that gives 20% extra free? Or Brand Y that has 10% off? Or Brand Z that gives something else free with it? Do you buy that flat screen TV today or wait for the sale at Diwali? Now since the customer is king, shouldn’t companies be simplifying pricing choices? Like maybe offering consistently low prices all the time? Not so fast, as the US store, JC Penney discovered to its cost. Turns out that while people do complain about pricing choices, they are irrational. Also, they enjoy the thrill of the chase. Huh? The word “sale” acts like a siren call for many people: it lures them in to make that purchase. Consistently low prices don’t do the same. Besides, if a competitor lowers their prices just one time of the year, and Poof! Suddenly that low price claim becomes suspect in shoppers’ eyes. Then there are those sites that offer coupons: have lunch at Restaurant A on Wedne...
Read more