1,721,371 research outputs found
Rating of team abilities in soccer
No full textSoccer is a team sport, so measurement of team quality is important. Preferably, quality is measured as a single number that can be used to answer questions such as which soccer team is the best or how do two teams compare to each other. Such questions are asked by fans, players, management of teams and other stakeholders alike. In soccer, the standard to rank teams is by having all teams play a double round robin tournament, with each two teams playing each other twice, once at each venue. Ranking is based on the number of points obtained. However, it is not always practical to play a complete round robin tournament. Moreover, intermediate rankings before all matches in a round robin setup are played reflect both abilities of teams and the matches played so far. As long as not all teams have played each other, it is possible that the team that leads the ranking has had the ‘easiest’ schedule compared with other teams. Intermediate rankings, if available, do not reflect team abilities alone.</p
Competitive balance in national European soccer competitions
No full textAccording to popular belief, competitive balance in national soccer competitions in Europe has decreased due to the Bosman ruling and the introduction of the Champions League. We test this hypothesis using data from 7 national competitions, for a host of indicators. We find some evidence for competitive balance having decreased in England, and weak evidence for it having decreased in Netherlands and Belgium. For Germany, France, Italy, and Spain, we find no consistent change whatsoever. We use factor analysis to examine whether our measures of competitive balance can be condensed in a limited number of factors.
The effects of institutional change in European soccer
Get PDFThe last decades have seen two profound changes in European soccer. First, international trade in talent has increased markedly. Second, international competitions such as the Champions League have become much more important. Using a theoretical model, we study how these changes affect competitive balance within national competitions, and quality differences between national competitions. Introducing international trade in talent leads to a flow to large countries, as the returns to talent are higher there. Wages increase in small countries, but decrease in large ones. The wage increase in small countries hurts small teams more than large ones. Therefore, competitive balance decreases. The wage decrease in large countries benefits small teams more, so competitive balance increases. The introduction of a Champions League implies the possibility to win a large amount of prize money. This is relatively more important for small teams. Hence, competitive balance increases in all countries, and talent flows from large to small countries, provided international trade is possible. Wages increase. When looking at both changes combined, we find that talent flows from small to large countries. Hence, in this sense, the trade effect dominates the Champions League effect. Competitive balance increases in all but the very smallest countries
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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