Basic analysis of football stats

[Antonio]

Basic analysis of football stats (Part 1)

Greetings to all fans of football and football statistics!

Today the Corner-stats.com team decided to touch upon an interesting issue of basic analysis of teams statistics for the upcoming football match, which can give everyone serious food for thought.

So, for example, let's take the Italian Serie A match between Inter and Venezia, which will take place on 01/22/2022, and try to predict the corners in this match.

Consider the summary table of corners of the current season:



Corner-stats.com team proposes to build corners prediction only on the basic statistics from this table and discard all other factors (field factor (home-away), change of a coach, games with similar opponents, or others). So, Inter delivers an average of 6.19 corners per match, and Venezia delivers 2.95 corners per match, which we may take as our forecast.

But you may rightly note that corners depend not only on how the team takes them, but also on how the opponent allows corners at its goal. In our table, this corresponds to the opponent's corners total. To take into account at the same time how a team delivers and how an opponent allows corners, we will use a simple formula for the arithmetic mean of these indicators:

Expected corners Team 1 (Corners_1) = ( Team 1 individual total (Team1_IT1) + Team 2 opponents' total (Team2_IT2) ) / 2;

Expected corners Team 2 (Corners_2) = ( Team 2 individual total (Team2_IT1) + Team 1 opponents' total (Team1_IT2) ) / 2;

In the case of Inter - Venezia match, we will receive the following data:

Corners_1 = ( 6.19 + 6.62 ) / 2 = 6.41

Corners_2 = ( 2.95 + 3.86 ) / 2 = 3.41

Thus, we expect that Inter will deliver 6.41 corners in the upcoming match, and Venezia 3.41 corners, which approximately corresponds to a handicap of -3 and a total of 9.5 corners (you can calculate the bookmaker's line more accurately based on the expected figures of the teams using the tool Calculate line on Corner-stats football stats service).

And now we want to ask our users, do you think this calculation is logical and correct? Or do you have any doubt about it? We invite you to leave your comment on this issue in our Telegram chat https://t.me/soccer_stats_and_bet , and the Corner-stats.com team will provide its own answer in our next post.

[Antonio]

Basic analysis of football stats (Part 2)

In the previous post, Corner-stats.com team reviewed a basic analysis of football statistics and made a prediction for corners in the match Inter Milan - Venezia. Now we will continue our reflections and reveal, in our opinion, an important logical error in this approach to the analysis of statistics. For a better understanding, we recommend that you first read the first part of our study.

So, based on the average total corners of Inter and Venezia, as well as the average totals of their opponents, we have determined that Inter should take 6.41 corners in the upcoming match, and Venezia 3.41. Accordingly, if Inter would play, for example, with Atalanta, we would get the expected corners for Inter 5.07, and for Atalanta 4.81. It seems that everything is logical: for Inter against weak Venezia, we got a difference of 3 corners, and against strong Atalanta, the difference on corners is minimal.



But let's think - if the average individual total corners for Inter is 6.19, then it is logical that on average against weak teams its total should be higher (say, somewhere around 7.5), against middle teams it will be around 6.19, and against strong it should be lower (somewhere around 4.9). Similarly, if Venezia on average allows 6.62 corners, against strong teams they should allow about 8.0 corners on average, against middle teams about 6.62 and against weak teams about 5.2 corners.

Based on the above, as well as the fact that Inter is a strong team (2nd place on corners), and Venezia is a weak team (last place on corners), then Inter in the upcoming match, of course, should take significantly more corners than its average individual total. If we take the approximate figures from the previous paragraph, then the individual total corners of Inter should definitely not be less than 7.5 (rather (7.5+8.0)/2=7.75 ), and this is significantly more than 6.41, as we did in the calculations in the first part of the study.

We make a logical conclusion that the basic analysis, how many corners a team takes on average, and how many corners an opponent allows on average, does not give us the correct results, but almost always underestimates the difference between the teams. And the greater the gap in strength between the teams, the greater will be the underestimation of the difference. We also draw your attention to the fact that the conclusion obtained is true not only for corners, but also for all other statistical indicators (goals, shots, throw-ins, etc.).

We hope that you have benefited from our research and that it will help you in your strategies. If you do not agree with us or have other comments on this matter, you can post them in our Telegram chat https://t.me/soccer_stats_and_bet .

P.S. In the current article, we used approximate calculations (by eye), but how this can be calculated more accurately using formulas, the Corner-stats.com team will tell in our next post.

[Antonio]

Basic analysis of football stats (Part 3)

The Corner-stats.com team continues to talk about basic analysis of football statistics based on teams averages. In the previous two parts of our study, we reviewed the basic analysis of football statistics and identified a logical fallacy in this approach to statistical analysis. Now we invite our users to learn how, using simple formulas, you can avoid this error and build a more logical prediction of corners (or any other statistical indicator) in a match. For a better understanding, we recommend that you first read the first and second parts.

So, the Corner-stats.com team analyzed the Italian Serie A match Inter - Venezia and came to the conclusion that the calculated expected corners in the match based on the average individual totals of a team and opponents (6.41 and 3.41) are not correct, since it is logical that Inter, as a strong team, against a weak Venezia must take significantly more corners than its average total, similarly Venezia should take less than its average total.

At the moment, the match has already taken place, the score on corners is 6:0. Therefore, let us recall what the table of corners looked like before the start of our match:



So, Inter average individual total corners is 6.19. But, as noted, we expect Inter to take more corners against a weak Venezia. How to calculate it? The Corner-stats.com team suggests the following easy way:

    1. Take the average individual total of the first team (Team1_IT1).

    2. Take the average individual total of the opponents of the second team (Team2_IT2) (how many corners the second team allows on average) and calculate how many times it differs from the league average. League averages can be found at the bottom of the league table at Corner-stats.com.

    3. Correct Team1_IT1 for the result from p. 2.

Using this algorithm, let's calculate the expected corners for our teams:

For Inter:

    1. Team1_IT1 = 6.19;

    2. Corr_1 = 6.62 / 4.75 = 1.394 ;

    3. Corners_1 = 6.19 * 1.394 = 8.63 .

For Venezia:

    1. Team2_IT1 = 2.95;

    2. Corr_2 = 3.86 / 4.75 = 0.813 ;

    3. Corners_2 = 2.95 * 0.813 = 2.40 .

Thus, according to this algorithm, our forecast for corners in the Inter-Venezia match looks like 8.63 - 2.40, which approximately corresponds to the asian handicap of -6.0 from Inter and the total of 11.0 in an equal line. The Corner-stats.com team believes that this forecast is much more logical than the one that was obtained in the first part of our study.

If you have any questions or comments on this study, you can leave them in our Telegram chat https://t.me/soccer_stats_and_bet . And in our next post, the Corner-stats.com team will offer our users another way to analyze football statistics. Have a good football!

[ShawnK]

If you have any questions or comments on this study, you can leave them in our Telegram chat https://t.me/soccer_stats_and_bet/ . And in our next post, the Corner-stats.com team will offer our users another way to analyze football statistics. Have a good football!

Hmm, interesting... This telegram channel is much more active than the forum Not many subscribers though.