Football is becoming more predictable; network analysis of 88 thousand matches in 11 major leagues.

ABSTRACT: In recent years, excessive monetization of football and professionalism among the players have been argued to have affected the quality of the match in different ways. On the one hand, playing football has become a high-income profession and the players are highly motivated; on the other hand, stronger teams have higher incomes and therefore afford better players leading to an even stronger appearance in tournaments that can make the game more imbalanced and hence predictable. To quantify and document this observation, in this work, we take a minimalist network science approach to measure the predictability of football over 26 years in major European leagues. We show that over time, the games in major leagues have indeed become more predictable. We provide further support for this observat

SUBMITTER: Maimone VM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8672071 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature