How often do we experience an unbeaten season?

This season, Italian side Juventus fulfilled an extraordinary achievement. Not only did they win the Italian league, they did it without losing a single game on the way. But exactly how extraordinary is this achievement?

Well, after clicking through all final league tables of the 5 big European leagues (England, Spain, Italy, Germany, France) at Wikipedia, I found that unbeaten seasons is a rather new phenomena. It happened twice in the early thirties in Spain, when the league only consisted of 10 teams, making the likelihood of an unbeaten season much higher than today, where the league consist of 20 teams (Exactly how much more likely is not interesting right now). After these two occurrences, the remaining 4 unbeaten seasons in the 5 leagues are to be found from the late seventies and up to this season.

Country	Season	Team	W	D	L	Placement
Italy	2011-2012	Juventus	23	15	0	1
England	2003-2004	Arsenal	26	12	0	1
Italy	1991-1992	Milan	22	12	0	1
Italy	1978-1979	Perugia	11	19	0	2

Just looking at the table, it looks like it wasn’t a coincidence that the unbeaten season should appear in Italy, but the observations are very few, so let us assume that unbeaten seasons have same probability of occurring in all 5 leagues. Then, counting from the 1946-1947 seasons (1963-1964 for Germany) until the 2011-2012 seasons, the estimated likelihood of an unbeaten season in each league is 4/(66*4 + 49) = 0.0128. That is, in approximately 1 of every 78 league seasons, we will experience an unbeaten season, or we will experience 1 unbeaten season every 16 year across all 5 leagues.

Say Italy is special, in the matter, that unbeaten seasons are more likely in Italy than in the other 4 leagues, then the estimated likelihood of an unbeaten season each year in Italy is 3/66. That is, every 22nd year an Italian team will make an unbeaten season.

How many seasons does a newly promoted team survive in the higher league?

Seldom all newly promoted teams can avoid relegation in the first season of the new and higher league, but quite often I hear people saying that second season is the toughest. How can both statements possibly be true?

With help of Wikipedia, I have done little summary statistics on the promotion and relegation to and from the highest division in England and France. I’ve only counted from one season after last change to the number of teams in each league, that is since 2003 for the French league (expanded from 18 to 20 teams) and since 1996 for the English league (reduced from 22 to 20 teams).

First I chose the French league, because I thought that the number of teams promoted and relegated and the size of the league had been constant since the 1958-59 season, but I hadn’t done my research good enough. I realized that at least in the period from 1997-2002 the French league where reduced from 20 to 18 teams.

Then, to go a little bit further with the analysis, than just to look at the 2003-2011 seasons of the French league, I decided also to look at the English league, which has the same size and the same number of teams promoted and relegated.

The results are surprisingly equal between the two national leagues.

France
Promoted teams 2003-2010
24
Seasons in the highest division before relegation
Seasons	Club count	Percent
1	11	45,8
2	3	12,5
3	1	4,2
4	0	0,0
5 or more	6	25,0
Still in highest division but for less than 5 seasons
	3	12,5

England
Promoted teams 1996-2010
45
Seasons in the highest division before relegation
Seasons	Club count	Percent
1	21	46,7
2	6	13,3
3	0	0,0
4	2	4,4
5 or more	12	26,7
Still in highest division but for less than 5 seasons
	4	8,9

As expected, many of the newly promoted teams are relegated in the first season. In fact, in 1998 all three newly promoted teams in the English league (Barnsley, Bolton, Crystal Palace) where relegated after just one season in the highest league. But two things surprised me about the data.

First, the data between the two countries are almost identical (look at the percentages), especially if we regroup data so 3 and 4 seasons add up. Second, the statement about the second season being the hardest might in fact give meaning in some sense. As we see, almost no teams are relegated after 3 or 4 seasons, which could be interpreted as if a team survives 2 seasons, it might have established itself in the league, and will most likely do better than the new upcoming teams.


How about relegation then? How long does a team stay down after relegation? The summary statistics are following.

France
Relegated teams 2003-2010
24
Seasons away from highest division
Seasons	Club count	Percent
1	6	25,0
2	2	8,3
3	1	4,2
4	0	0,0
5 or more	8	33,3
Not back in highest division and relegated for no more than 5 seasons ago
	7	29,2

England
Relegated teams 1996-2010
45
Seasons away from highest division
Seasons	Club count	Percent
1	12	26,7
2	5	11,1
3	1	2,2
4	1	2,2
5 or more	20	44,4
Not back in highest division and relegated for no more than 5 seasons ago
	6	13,3

 
Be careful with the interpretation of above data. I think that the story to be told about the relegation data is, that many teams make an extraordinary effort to get back in the higher league (back to the big money) in the first (perhaps two) season, but if that fails, the team might be gone for a long time.

The relegation data differ a bit between the two leagues (look at the last two percentages). I haven't investigated it further, but maybe this is due to the differences in the size of league 2 and the promotion rules between the two countries? In France league 2 consist of 20 teams and the top 3 teams qualify directly for league 1, whereas in England, league 2 consist of 24 teams, the top 2 teams qualify directly and the 4 teams who finish 3 to 6, go through playoffs with two-legged semifinals and a final, for the last promotion spot.

How often does a cup final go to penalties?

Yesterday Liverpool won the English League Cup and took home their first trophy since the FA Cup triumph in 2006 and the following FA Community Shield win. As Liverpool supporter I’m of course very happy, but I wasn’t impressed by the performance, especially not the performance by Captain fantastic (Gerrard). His performance was miles away from the outstanding show he pulled off in the 2005 Champions League final and the 2006 FA Cup final. He can’t run away from his age, and I’m sad to say, that one of my absolute favorites of all time doesn’t have many seasons left as a top player.

Liverpool excels in giving their supporters nail-biting and nerve-wracking finals. Yesterday’s performance was no exception, and an exciting penalty shoot-out should decide it all at last. A total of 5 missed penalties, tells the story: Liverpool didn’t earn it, but Cardiff couldn’t close it.

Enough about Liverpool. Lately I watched another final, the African Cup of Nations final between Ivory Coast and Zambia. Ivory Coast were big favorites before the match, and didn’t concede a single goal during the entire tournament. The final was a goalles draw, and in the penalty shoot-out, Zambia won the lottery.

After watching two consecutive finals go in to penalties, and thinking about Liverpool’s 2005 and 2006 wins (also penalties), I find myself browsing for different kind of statistics on penalties in finals.

A hypothesis is that finals and semifinals (and perhaps quarterfinals) more often go into penalties than preliminary round knock-out matches, because the teams are more evenly matched at that stage of the tournament. But collecting the information below, I have already spend my weekly blog hour, so it will have to do for now.

It’s hard to find information on when (for the first time) finals in specific tournament was scheduled to be decided on shoot-outs after full time and 30 minutes extra time. It has been introduced in different years in different tournaments. And often penalties are introduced several years before in earlier knock-out rounds than in the final.

I’m surprised that the two English Cups have introduced penalties in finals so late compared to the other tournaments I have investigated. Take a look at the stats. It certainly looks like the African teams should practice penalties before the final!

Tournament	Shoot-out scheduled in final first time	Finals since first scheduled	Shoot-out finals %
African Cup Of Nations	1980*	16	43,75
Fifa World Cup	1986	7	28,57
Uefa Champions League	1980**	32	28,13
English League Cup	1998	15	20,00
Uefa European Championship	1976	9	11,11***
English FA Cup	1993	19	10,53

*My best guess. In 1974 the drawn final triggered a replay. In 1976 the final stage of the tournament didn’t involve knock-out matches. In 1978 a qualification match was decided on shoot-out, but shoot-outs were also used in the qualification in 1974. In 1980 the first ever match of the knock-out stage of the finals was decided on penalties.

**My best guess. In 1974 the drawn final triggered a replay. In 1980 the drawn final of the Uefa Cup Winners Cup is decided on penalties after the 30 minutes extra time. In 1984 the first Uefa Champions League final is decided on penalties.

***Two finals which possibly could have gone to penalties were decided on golden goal.

A bunch of wiki-sources was used to gather above information. Here are the links which gives the critical years:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penalty_shoot-out_%28association_football%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africa_Cup_of_Nations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_Cup_and_UEFA_Champions_League_winners
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FA_Cup_Final
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Football_League_Cup_winner

And here is a really interesting one on penalties. By Karel Stokkermans and Carles Lozano, enjoy:
http://www.rsssf.com/miscellaneous/penalties.html

Does Howard Webb favour Manchester United?

Howard Webb is one of the highest ranked referees in the English Premier League. Since 2005 he has been FIFA-listed, and in 2010 he refereed the FIFA World Cup Final between Spain and the Netherlands. There is a lot of great facts on Howard Webb on the wiki site http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Webb, including a criticisms section, where three incidents where Manchester United seems to be favoured.

But what does three incidents say about a referees overall appearance? Let’s instead look at some stats.

Now, I will consider penalties given. You could look at yellow cards or sending offs, but the criticism is mostly about penalties.  

Looking at the top teams of the last five seasons of the Premier League (2007-08 up until now, todays matches not included) we get following summary statistics (source http://www.statbunker.com/):

Team	M	PF	PA	PF/M	PA/M	(PF-PA)/M
Arsenal	16	1	3	0,0625	0,1875	-0,1250
Chelsea	14	1	2	0,0714	0,1429	-0,0714
Liverpool	18	2	2	0,1111	0,1111	0,0000
Manchester City	14	2	1	0,1429	0,0714	0,0714
Manchester United	23	7	2	0,3043	0,0870	0,2174
Tottenham Hotspur	16	1	3	0,0625	0,1875	-0,1250

Where M=Matches refereed, PF=penalties for and PA=penalties against.

So is 0.2174 significantly higher than the rest of the (PF-PA)/M sample?

If we assume normality of data (I know the sample size actually is too small, but I think that for a bigger sample, data would approach normality), the 95 percent confidence interval for the sample without the Man U=MU (funny!) observation is [-0.1556,  0.0556], and the t-test gives a p-value of 0.002159, strongly indicating that the MU observation has no chance of being the real mean value of Howard Webb’s (PF-PA)/M-population. That is, this short analysis suggests that Howard Webb do favour Manchester United, though it’s a hard accusation. An approved analysis would of course compare above results with results of other referees, to decide if Howard Webb really does favour United.

Now I will enjoy Manchester United-Liverpool with Phil Dowd as referee, and I hope he will favour Liverpool.

Where do all the unknown African internationals play?

Tonight I watched co-hosts Gabon win 3-2 home against Morocco in African Cup of Nations. An exciting match with lots of tempo, great chances, crazy and passionate spectators, and a couple of very nice goals. The win was well deserved, but there was tension to the last second, where Bruno Mbanangoyé settled the match with a world class free kick.

Usually, when I watch soccer, I recognize most of the players on the pitch, and know which clubs they play for, but I would be lying if I said that I recognized more than just a couple of players in this match. So I wondered where all the unknown African internationals play? After few minutes browsing, I didn’t find what I was looking for at the official site http://www.cafonline.com, but instead I found a great overview at Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Africa_Cup_of_Nations_squads), which list all players in this years African Cup of Nations, together with position, shirt number, age, caps and club. I have made a quick summary statistics for the curious reader.

Do they play in their own national leagues or abroad?


Which continents and countries (top 20) do they play?

*Assuming Russia belongs to Europe.



Notice that above numbers doesn’t say anything about in which league the players play or if they are regular first team players or subs on the reserve team. I would say that approximately 100 of the non-home players belong to clubs in “big” leagues. And what is the definition of “big” league then? Well something like the best league in England, Spain, Italy, Germany, France, Brazil, Russia, Portugal and perhaps Turkey or Greece. The Ivory Coast team has a lot of quality, and a few other teams has some well-known profiles, but only few players in African Cup of Nations belong to top clubs in the big leagues.

Does the match winner Bruno Mbanangoyé play in a big league? Not at all, he plays for Dinamo Minsk in the Belarusian Premier League.

What about the coaches, are they home grown or hired somewhere else? Here is the complete list and a short summary.

Is Denmark the first team with 0 points from the preliminary round, to qualify for the semifinals?

In 2002 the European Championship in handball changed format. Instead of 12 teams, 16 teams where participating, and a second group stage was introduced, the main round.

Since then, 18 teams on the men’s side and 14 teams on the women’s side, have entered the main round with 0 points. A total of 32 teams have entered the main round with 0 points, but only once has a team which entered the main round with 0 points qualified for the semifinals. It happened yesterday, when Denmark defeated Sweden and finished the main round in second place with 6 points.

 

But collecting 6 points in the main round is no guarantee for qualifying to the semifinals, a lot of other results also need to go your way. In 2010 the France women’s team also accomplished to collect 6 points in the main round after entering with 0 points, but they finished 3rd in the group.
 

Then what about entering main round with 1 point? Well here you go:

Not much better as we see, but Germany actually won the tournament in 2004 after entering main round with only 1 point, and in 2006 Germany tried to replicate the accomplishment from two years before, but without luck. The 7 points wasn’t enough to qualify for the semifinals that year. Source http://www.eurohandball.com/.