Spanish Primera Division 2006 - 2007

[JaredL]

A couple big matches this week:

Sevilla - Valencia: Sevilla are second 1 point behind Barcelona, Valencia are in 6th four points behind Sevilla. This match should be very good as both teams play entertaining football. It's also the first match for Joaquin in Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan (he came up through rival Betis), so the fans should have their whistles ready. Valencia will be in very bad shape as far as competing for the league should they lose. Sevilla would be in pretty bad shape with a loss as well. Basically both of these teams are expected to have an outside chance at just fighting for the title so being down 4 points for Sevilla and 8 for Valencia would be extremely difficult to come back from. A win for Sevilla would be very good not just for title aspirations, but finishing in the top 4 and getting a Champion's League spot. Sevilla are actually favorites, the odds are: 1: 2.30 · X: 3.10 · 2: 3.20. Not surprisingly, I'll choose Sevilla. Although if Sevilla play like they did last week they'll go down by a couple goals.

Villarreal - Getafe: Both of these are smaller clubs that want to be competitive for a European place (top 6). Getafe is currently 5th with 19 points, even with Zaragoza in 4th. Villarreal are in 10th with 15. Both are still definately in the hunt. Odds: 1: 2.00 · X: 3.00 · 2: 4.00

Real Sociedad - Real Betis: These teams both suck this year. Real Sociedad are in last place with only 3 points in 10 matches. Betis are third from last (3 get relegated) with a massive 7 points. This match is obviously important in the stay up fight. It's much more important I would say for Real Sociedad than for Betis as it's played in San Sebastian. Odds: 1: 2.40 · X: 3.20 · 2: 2.88. Not surprisingly, I'm taking Real Sociedad [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[New001]

For what it's worth, my spreadsheet has Sevilla at 45% to win this one. Good luck. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[New001]

Decisive final score of 3-0 Sevilla, but how was the game itself?

[JaredL]

[img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Had to record it and watch it later.

The first ten minutes or so Valencia had the edge. Sevilla looked a bit shaky in the back and Palop in particular looked nervous (he used to play for Valencia and they basically chose Cañizares over him). During this time, Valencia didn't get chances but had most of the possession and play.

Then Sevilla started picking it up and doing well, creating a couple chances and controlling play. In the 17th minute Silva, Valencia's left back (maybe mf) got sent off for hitting Daniel Alves in the face with his arm. There didn't seem to be much in it to warrant a red, although I think he already had a yellow at that point so it wouldn't have mattered probably as it did appear reckless.

Sevilla scored on the free kick that resulted on a nice set piece. After that, Sevilla, as they are supposed to being up a man, dominated. They created a number of very good chances and Cañizares kept the score from getting out of control with a few very good saves.

It's hard to say with the early sending off, but Sevilla were starting to get into the scary rhythm that crushed Barcelona, Middlesboro, and Real Madrid in recent years.

[JaredL]

So I'm still working on it, but I have a preliminary version of a ranking system. The following are things I thought about when making it:

1. Winning matches against very bad (very good) teams is very important (beneficial). If you are playing a team that is terrible and lose, you are giving practically every other team in the league 3 points. If you draw against them, you are basically giving your other opponents a 2 point edge. Similarly, if you manage to beat a team that is very good then you've gained 3 points on the whole league. Another factor is home/away which I discuss next.

2. Home and away matches are different. Teams play better at home than away. Some teams are incredibly good at home despite being not very good, other teams play them about the same. I actually have 2 versions of the formula, one which treats them as completely distinct (so for example playing Barcelona away and playing them at home is treated as playing 2 different opponents), and another which adds a bit of correlation but weights whichever match you are in greater. As a continuation on 1, when playing at home there is more to lose while in away games there is more to gain.

My idea is to compare how each team plays against an opponent, with how other teams do on average against this opponent. So suppose A beat B. If B loses every match, then A should not gain anything as far as rankings go. If B draws every other match, then A would gain two league points relative to everyone else so they should see a boost in rankings (so my rankings are roughly "how good are these teams at earning league points").

So sticking with this A versus B matchup, I take the average points B has allowed their opponents to get and compare that number with the number of points A got from the match. I actually determine the average points B has allowed in two different ways. The first way, I average all points allowed only in matches that are either home or away depending on where the match in question is played (I remove the A versus B match when calculating averages). For the second way, I do the same for both home and away matches and give the home or away match a higehr weight depending on where the match in question is being played. I'm trying to fiddle around with the weights as I think some weight is better than none, but it's hard to find the right one. Over Christmas break I plan to run some simulations to hopefully pin this down a bit better. I would love to get some input on this.

I've noted the following drawbacks:

1. There is a second-order effect. If you are playing a team that has only played bad teams and beat all of them, then if you get any result you will gain quite a lot in my rankings. As the season goes on and the team plays better opposition and gives up some points then your value from that game will go down. So this is something of a small sample problem. As such, it is less of a factor when I use the weighted home and away approach because a team may have for example only played bad teams away and good teams at home. This would be fairly balanced but if you only looked at home and away separately, this opponent would look very good away and very bad at home.

2. Head-to-head doesn't matter all that much, and its importance varies based on how good the teams are. When Barcelona lost to Real Madrid in the Bernabeu they didn't lose much because Madrid have been good at home. Real Madrid gained close to 3 because Barcelona have been very good away. So Real Madrid gained about 3 points from the match relative to Barcelona. If a bad team beats another bad team it's similar - the winning team gains little, but the losing team loses about 3. However, if a bad team beats a good team they can gain almost 6 points relative to that team from the match - the top team loses a little under 3 points while the bad team gains about the same. I suspect this issue won't be a very big deal to people that follow soccer, because standings tend to be much more important than rankings, than those that follow American sports, especially college.

Without further Adu (:groan here are my rankings:
Team Home Away Total
1 Barcelona 5.75 4.70 10.45
2 Real Madrid 4.50 5.60 10.10
3 Getafe 7.70 2.00 9.70
4 Zaragoza 4.95 1 5.95
5 Sevilla 6.35 -0.95 5.40
6 Atlético 1.80 3.15 4.95
7 Deportivo 6.70 -4.85 1.85
8 Valencia 2.60 -1.75 0.85
9 Villarreal -0.15 0.50 0.35
10 Celta -5.25 5.45 0.20
11 Levante -2.00 1.65 -0.35
12 Mallorca -3.35 2.95 -0.40
13 Recreativo -2.90 2.40 -0.50
14 Racing -0.50 -3.00 -3.50
15 Betis 0.05 -4.45 -4.40
16 Espanyol -1.40 -4.20 -5.60
17 Athletic -4.70 -1.20 -5.90
18 Osasuna -4.95 -1.15 -6.10
19 Nastic -4.95 -1.95 -6.90
20 Real Sociedad -10.25 -5.90 -16.15

Using 2/3 weight on appropriate match site:
Team Home Away Total
1 Barcelona 6.99 4.98 11.97
2 Real Madrid 3.81 4.09 7.90
3 Sevilla 7.68 -0.26 7.42
4 Getafe 7.20 0.07 7.27
5 Atlético 3.41 2.97 6.38
6 Zaragoza 5.98 0.37 6.34
7 Villarreal 1.70 0.39 2.09
8 Valencia 3.40 -1.79 1.61
9 Recreativo -1.59 2.68 1.09
10 Celta -3.69 4.73 1.04
11 Deportivo 6.42 -5.62 0.80
12 Mallorca -2.31 1.21 -1.10
13 Levante -1.51 -0.06 -1.57
14 Racing 0.00 -3.52 -3.52
15 Betis 0.08 -5.91 -5.83
16 Espanyol -1.47 -4.60 -6.07
17 Osasuna -4.31 -1.96 -6.27
18 Athletic -5.04 -3.12 -8.17
19 Nastic -5.20 -3.70 -8.90
20 Real Sociedad -7.69 -5.57 -13.26

Using 4/5 weight:
Team Home Away Total
1 Barcelona 6.49 4.87 11.36
2 Real Madrid 4.09 4.69 8.78
3 Getafe 7.40 0.84 8.24
4 Sevilla 7.15 -0.53 6.61
5 Zaragoza 5.57 0.62 6.19
6 Atlético 2.77 3.04 5.81
7 Villarreal 0.96 0.43 1.39
8 Valencia 3.08 -1.77 1.31
9 Deportivo 6.53 -5.31 1.22
10 Celta -4.31 5.02 0.71
11 Recreativo -2.11 2.57 0.45
12 Mallorca -2.73 1.91 -0.82
13 Levante -1.71 0.63 -1.08
14 Racing -0.20 -3.31 -3.51
15 Betis 0.07 -5.33 -5.26
16 Espanyol -1.44 -4.44 -5.88
17 Osasuna -4.57 -1.63 -6.20
18 Athletic -4.91 -2.35 -7.26
19 Nastic -5.10 -3.00 -8.10
20 Real Sociedad -8.71 -5.70 -14.41

Any and all comments appreciated.

[JaredL]

Since most of you didn't see it, golazo de Ronaldinho.

[KDawg]

[ QUOTE ]
Since most of you didn't see it, golazo de Ronaldinho.

[/ QUOTE ]


thats just wrong

[PITTM]

[ QUOTE ]
Since most of you didn't see it, golazo de Ronaldinho.

[/ QUOTE ]

thank god i figured out how to save youtube videos. i would have to make up a word to describe that goal.

rj

[New001]

I won't quote the whole post, but how long did it take you to do the ranking system a few posts up? I'd be curious to see the same for Italy and England if it doesn't take too long.

[ThaSaltCracka]

he posted it in the EPL thread, w/ rankings for EPL teams.