A Markovian model for association football possession and its outcomes

Autor:	Peña, Javier López
Rok vydání:	2014
Předmět:	Mathematics - Probability Mathematics - Dynamical Systems Mathematics - Statistics Theory 60J05 60J10 90C40 90B15
Druh dokumentu:	Working Paper
Popis:	We propose a bottom-up approach to the study of possession and its outcomes for association football, based on probabilistic finite state automata with transition probabilities described by a Markov process. We show how even a very simple model yields faithful approximations to the distribution of passing sequences and chances of taking shots for English Premier League teams, which we fit using a whole season of granular game data (380 games). We compare the resulting model with classical top-down distributions traditionally used to describe possessions, showing that the Markov models yield a more accurate asymptotic behaviour. Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures
Databáze:	arXiv
Externí odkaz:	http://arxiv.org/abs/1403.7993 Zobrazit plný text záznamu View this record from Arxiv