1 Introduction

⊕ Go to: Table of contents Chapters 1 2 3 4 5

1-1 Two seminal contributions
1-2 Chapters

1-1 Two seminal contributions

This book introduces two seminal contributions to statistical models of the number of goals in football matches. The first is the analysis of goals by Michael Moroney in 1951. Moroney, M., 1951, Facts from figures. 3rd edition, 1973 reprint,London:Penguin. The second seminal contribution is the statistical model of goals in matches proposed by Michael Maher in 1982. Maher, M. J., 1982, Modelling association football scores. Statistica Neerlandica, vol. 36, no.3, 109-118. 🔎The teams that play in matches is a key feature of this model. It allows for inferring the relative qualities of teams during the season.

1-2 Chapters

Chapter 2 presents a brief history of association football and explains the double round-robin tournament format which most football associations use for organising their championships. It gives some examples of the role of chance in football matches and explains why this implies that probability models are suitable tools for describing them.

Chapter 3 introduces some probability theory before explaining why the Poisson probability distribution is useful for modelling goals in matches. It shows how the possibility of a goal after a team gains ball possession relates to a Poisson model of goals. ⊕ Back to top

Chapter 4 shows applications of the Poisson distribution to goals in matches. After reading about Moroney's analysis you can inspect visually how a Poisson distribution describes the distribution of goals in matches for the 2018/2019 season in five major football leagues.

The applications in Chapter 4 assume that each match has the same Poisson distribution. Chapter 5 shows and discusses replications of Moroney's modification of the Poisson distribution and Maher's model. These models allow different matches to have different Poisson distributions.