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4 published

Studies

One question each, registered before the data is pulled where that was possible and marked as exploratory where it was not. Corrections are appended, never quietly applied.

One pre-registered test has not resolved yet, and is tracked in the open rather than held back: The Portuguese season as it stands. It is expected to change, and it is not a result.

Football03L1 (descriptive)

The lever nobody pulls

Whether a foul is punished depends enormously on where and when it happens. A foul in your own defensive fifth is carded 31.4% of the time; the same offence in the attacking fifth, 8.9%. A foul in the opening quarter of an hour is carded 6.5% of the time; after ninety minutes, 25.6%.

Published
Figures
4 figures
Football04L3 (confirmed pattern)

How much of a booking index is real?

A club's yellows-per-foul rate over one season is mostly noise. 15% of the spread between clubs is a real club property; the other 85% is the Poisson accident of one season's bookings.

Published
Figures
2 figures
Football02L2 (hypothesis, adjusted)

A club that fouls with impunity, and the four ways I was wrong about it

Across eleven European leagues, how often a team is booked per foul it commits depends mostly on how strong that team was expected to be that afternoon. Heavy underdogs are booked more, heavy favourites less, in all eleven leagues, and no club identity is involved.

Published
Figures
7 figures
Football01L1 (descriptive)

What free football data can still tell you

I wanted to start this project by measuring fouls and cards. Before writing any model, I checked what data was available. That check turned out to be the more interesting result, so it is Week 1.

Published
Figures
3 figures