| Abstract: |
Official match-play statistics from the Champions League tournament between
2001-02 and 2006-07 are used to estimate the impact of various variables on
the performance of the teams, measured by goal difference. We find that
offensive tactics measured by simple variables, such shots on goals, for both
home and away teams, as well as the ranking of the teams, or measured by
transformed variables, such as such as shots on goal and corners per ball
possession, have a strong positive effect. Variables with negative effects
are: the punishment of the teams, measured by own yellow and red cards per
fouls committed, or simply the red cards, the shots wide, the corners, the
ball possession difference and how smart the defendants are playing, measured
by the number of the opposite teams’ offside per own ball possession. In
addition, the multinomial logistic regressions show that the differences in
some match statistics and the ranking of the teams explain 9 out of 10 home
victories and almost 6 out of 10 home defeats. Finally, one of the strongest
explanatory variables, the positive difference in shots on goal, compared to
equality in shots on goal between teams, leads to a probability of a home team
victory by 66%. |