Modelling association football scores

by M. J. MAHER*

Abstract Previous authors have rejected the Poisson model for association football scores in
favour of the Negative Binomial. This paper, however, investigates the Poisson
model further. Parameters representing the teams’ inherent attacking and defensive strengths are
incorporated and the most appropriate model is found from a hierarchy of models. Observed and
expected frequencies of scores are compared and goodness-of-fit tests show that although there
are some small systematic differences, an independent Poisson model gives a reasonably accurate
description of football scores. Improvements can be achieved by the use of a bivariate Poisson
model with a correlation between scores of 0.2.

Key Words: Poisson goals distribution, iterative maximum likelihood.

1 Introduction
MORONEY (1951) demonstrated that the number ofgoals scored by a team in a football
match was not well fitted by a Poisson distribution but that ifa “modified Poisson” (the
Negative Binomial, in fact) was used, the fit was much better. REEP, POLLARD and
BENJAMIN (1971) confirmed this, using data from the English Football League First
Division for four seasons, and then proceded to apply the Negative Binomial distribu-
tion to other ball games. The implication of this result is that the same Negative Bino-
mial distribution applied to the number of goals scored by a team, regardless of the
quality of that team or the quality of the opposition. In fact in an earlier paper, REEPand
BENJAMIN (1968) remarked that “chance does dominate the game”. HILL(1974) was un-
convinced by this and showed that football experts were able, before the season started,
to predict with some success the final league table positions. Therefore, certainly over a
whole season, skill rather than chance dominates the game. This would probably be
agreed by most people who watch the game of football; that whilst in a single match,
chance plays a considerable role (missed scoring opportunities, dubious offside deci-
sions and shots hitting the crossbar can obviously drastically affect the result), over
several matches luck plays much less ofa part. Teams are not identical; each one has its
own inherent quality, and, surely then we should expect that when a good team is play-
ing a weak team, the good team will have a high probability of winning and scoring
several goals. By using data from the whole or just a part of the season, these inherent
qualities of the teams in a league can be inferred by, for example, maximum likelihood
estimation (as in THOMPSON (1975)) or by linear model methodology (as in HARVILLE
(1977) and LEEFLANG and VANPRAAG(1971)).

2 The Model
There are good reasons for thinking that the number of goals scored by a team in a
match is likely to be a Poisson variable: possession is an important aspect of football,

* Department of Probability and Statistics, Sheffield University, Sheffield S3 7RH, England.

Statistica Neerlandica 36 (1982), nr. 3. 109

and each time a team has the ball it has the opportunity to attack and score. The proba-
bility p that an attack will result in a goal is, of course, small, but the number of times a
team has possession during a match is very large. If p is constant and attacks are inde-
pendent, the number of goals will be Binomial and in these circumstances the Poisson
approximation will apply very well. The mean of this Poisson will vary according to the
quality of the team and so if one were to consider the distribution ofgoals scored by all
teams, one would have a Poisson distribution with variable mean, and hence something
like the Negative Binomial observed by MORONEY(1951) and REEP, POLLARDand
BENJAMIN (1971) could arise.
Therefore, in this paper, at least for the present, an independent Poisson model for
scores will be adopted. In particular, if team iis playing at home against team jand the
observed score is (xu,yu),we shall assume that X,,is Poisson with mean a,Jj, that Y,, is
also Poisson with mean y, d,, and that Xuand Yuare independent. Then we can think of a,
as representing the strength of team i’s attack when playing at home& the weakness of
teamj’s defence when playing away, y, the weakness of team i ’ s defence at home and d,
the strength of teamj’s attack away. In a league with 22 teams there are 88 such param-
eters (and 924 observations on the scores); however ifall the a’s are multiplied by a fac-
tor kand all theg’s divided by k, all the a,& products are unaffected and, therefore, in
order to produce a unique set of parameters the constraint

may be imposed. In the same way the constraint

Cyi=cdi
i I

may be imposed and so only 86 independent parameters need to be specified. Since the
X and
- are assumed to be independent of each other (representing separate “games” at
the two ends of the pitch), the estimation of the _a a n d 4 will be entirely from the gand
the estimation of the y and _S by means of the y alone.
For the home teams’ scores, therefore, the log likelihood function is:

i j+i

Therefore,

a log L
-=aai c (-A+;)
j+i
xii

and so the maximum likelihood estimates i,isatisfy:

110
An iterative technique, such as NEWTON-RAPHSON, enables these MLEs to be deter-
mined. One simpler scheme which works well is to be use the 6’s to estimate thej’s and
then to use the g’s to estimate the 63, and so on alternately. Good initial estimates can
be gained by regarding the denominator terms in the expressions above as summations
over all teams: that is,
Ci= 1 xu/,& and j j = 1 xu/&, where &=I
1 xu.
j+ i i+. j i j=ei

In a similar way, using the yo, and 3 may be found.

3 Results
Data were obtained, in a convenient matrix form, from the Rothmans Football Year-
book (1973, 1974, 1975). This gave 12 separate leagues (the four English Football
League Divisions for each of three seasons) for analysis. The MLEs of the four types of
parameterg,J,e,andJare shown in Table 1forjust one data set: Division 1in the season
-
197 1 1972.

Table 1. Maximum likelihood estimates of the parameters for Division 1 1971-1972.

home away home away
attack defence defence attack
a B Y 6
Arsenal 1.36 1.03 0.64 1.06
Chelsea 1.55 1.18 0.97 0.83
Coventry City 1.05 1.66 1.12 0.84
Crystal Palace 0.99 1.28 1.49 0.65
Derby County 1.62 0.89 0.50 1.24
Everton 1.06 1.17 0.81 0.44
Huddersfield Town 0.46 1.37 1.06 0.74
lpswich Town 0.72 1.27 0.93 0.98
Leeds United 2.02 0.82 0.49 0.91
Leicester City 0.69 1.31 0.54 1.10
Liverpool 1.78 0.54 0.78 0.78
Manchester City 1.82 1.17 0.75 1.40
Manchester United 1.49 1.35 1.31 1.49
Newcastle United 1.14 1.29 0.88 0.93
Nottingham Forest 0.98 1.96 1.43 1.10
Sheffield United 1.49 1.31 1.28 1.09
Southampton 1.21 1.98 1.38 1.05
Stoke City 0.99 1.17 1.20 0.64
Tottenham Hotspur 1.71 1.12 0.63 0.87
West Bromwich Albion 0.84 1.16 1.13 0.99
West Ham United 1.18 1.22 0.92 0.78
Wolverhampton Wanderers 1.34 1.30 1.15 1.48

The question arises of whether all these parameters are necessary for an adequate des-
cription of the scores. Intuitively it seems that there must be real differences between
teams, but are these differences more apparent in the attacks or defences, and is it really
necessary to have separate parameters for the quality of a team’s attack at home and

111
away? Consideration of such questions leads to a possible hierarchy of models which
could be tested. At the bottom is model 0 in which aj= a,Ji =J,yi = yand 6,= 6Vi; that
is, all teams are identical in all respects. At the top is model 4, previously described, in
which all four types of parameter are allowed to take different values for the different
teams. The hierarchy is shown in Table 2. In this the notation is designed to show
whether a set of parameters (such at theJ) are free to take different values for the dif-
ferent teams (shown asg,) or whether the same value applies to all teams (shown asJ).

Table 2. Hierarchy of models, with changes in the value of twice the maxirnised log likelihood
shown for Division I 1971-1972
~ ~ ~~

Model 4

Models 3C, 3D

Model 2

Models lA, 1B

Model 0

In model 0 there are four parameters but in order to have a unique set ofparameter esti-
mates, the constraints a =J and y = 6 are imposed (or, equivalently, a =J,y = kJ and
6 = ka), giving just two independent parameters. Details of the constraints imposed in
the other models are as follows:

Model I A 6, = a,,B, =J,y , = y V i ; Za,= a,.Therefore, there are n + 1 independent

parameters (where n is the number of teams in the league).
Model I B yI =8,,a, = a, 8,=J V i ; Za,= ZJl . Again, there are ( n+ 1) independent
parameters.
Model 2 6, = ka,, y , = kJ1V i ; Za,= Z.,. There are 2n independent parameters.
Model 3C S,= a, V i ; Za, = ZJ,. 3n - 1 independent parameters.
Model 30 y, =J,V I ; Zal = ZJ, . Again, 3n - 1 independent parameters.
Model 4 Za, = aland ZyI = 2 3 , . Therefore, there are 4n - 2 independent param-
eters.

It can be seen, therefore, that moving up one level in the hierarchy of models leads to
the introduction of (n - 1) further parameters. Under the null hypothesis that these
extra parameters are unnecessary, 2 logel will be asymptotically Xj- I distribution by
the usual likelihood ratio test, where logelisthe increase in the log likelihood in moving
from one model to the other.

112 Statistica Neerlandica 36 (1982), nr. 3.

 For Division 1 in the season 1971-1972 the changes in the value ofthe maximised log
likelihood when moving from one model to another are shown in Table 2 (n=22;
X.;5(21) = 32.7 and X.$(21) = 38.9).
This table shows that when inequality of the ai is allowed (moving from model 0 to
model 1A or moving from model 1B to model 2), a highly significant increase in the log
likelihood results. Similarly, when inequality of theJi is allowed (model 0 to lB, or 1A
to 2), again the log likelihood increases very significantly. When the di are freed from
being proportional to the ai(model 2 to 3D or 3C to 4), a marginally significant increase
in the log likelihood is obtained. However, when the yiare freed from their linking with
the&, no significant increase results. It should be noticed that the order in which the
freeing of these parameters occurred had virtually no effect on the increase in the log
likelihood due to each one; this was true for all the twelve data sets. Therefore, it is pos-
sible to associate an increase in the log likelihood with each of the four types of param-
eters, and, in parallel with the ideas of linear models in which factors are introduced into
the model one at a time, the “inclusion of I”,for example, means the freeing of the yi
from their linking with thepi. Table 3 shows the increases in log likelihood due to the
inclusion of each of the four types of parameter, for each of the twelve data sets. There
are 22 teams in divisions 1 and 2 and 24 teams in divisions 3 and 4. The numbers of
degrees of freedom, therefore, in the asymptotic X 2 distribution for 2 logelare 21 and 23
respectively.
Overall, then, it can be seen that the parameters gandlshould certainly be included in
the model but the parameters yand _S need not be included. (Not only can the null hypo-
theses not be rejected in these latter cases, but they appear perfectly consistent with the
data.) This means that a single parameter ai can be used to describe the quality of team
i ’ s attack, and the parameter& to describe the weakness of the team’s defence, whether
the team is playing at home or away. So although home ground advantage is a highly sig-
nificant factor, it applies with equal effect to all teams, and each team’s inherent scoring
power is diminished by a constant factor when playing away.
Table 3. Increase in log likelihood due to inclusion of each of the four types ofparameter in the
model
season division a
- B Y -6
1971-1972 1 37.7** 35.7** 8.6 17.7*
2 23.4** 32.4** 8.7 6.1
3 40.6** 28.1** 11.5 19.7*
4 29.4** 34.2** 12.5 11.0
1972-1973 1 24.8** 7.1 8.8 8.2
2 23.2** 17.9* 3.9 13.2
3 27.8** 18.4* 12.3 12.1
4 26.3** 30.2** 8.9 15.0
1973- 1974 1 12.5 19.5** 14.8 10.6
2 19.8** 20.1** 15.1 10.2
3 23.4** 39.9** 13.5 14.9
4 3 1 .O** 28.4** 8.5 13.0
* indicates a significant increase at the 5% level
** indicates a significant increase at the 1% level

Statistica Neerlandica 36 (1982), nr. 3. 113

 In the light of the results above, then, Model 2 was adopted as being the most appro-
priate, and further analyses were made of its adequacy as a description of the mech-
anism underlying football scores.

4 Goodness-of-fit-tests
For a match between team iand team jthe MLEs from model 2 may be used to estimate
,the means of Xu and Yti.Since X, and Yuare assumed to be Poisson and inde-
f l u and A,
pendent, the probabilities that Xu= xand Y, =ymay be easily calculated. By repeating
this for all pairs of i andj, the expected score distributions may be found and compared
with the observed score distributions. For Division 1 in the season 1971-1972, for
example, these observed and expected frequencies are shown in Table 4.

Table 4. Observed and expected frequencies of home and away scores for Division 1 1971-1972
home away
no. of goals obs. exp. obs. exp.
0 117 111.2 184 189.3
1 127 144.6 157 159.5
2 115 106.1 88 15.9
3 66 58.0 30 26.9
234 31 42.1 3 10.5
X 2 = 4.90 x2 = 7.79

For the fitted model 2 the MLEs of the parameters are:

J*i i*j
ai= Vi, j
(1 + i2)Zjj jJ= 1i?i
(1 + i2)

and

-
k2=-
z:L
rj*i
Yu

c c xu
ij*i

It follows from this that

and that

which means that the sum of the means of the fitted Poisson distributions is equal to the
observed numbers of goals scored. The estimation of the parameters gives rise, there-
fore, to one linear constraint on the expected frequencies in each of the two X 2 good-

114 Statistica Neerlandica 36 (1982), nr. 3.

ness-of-fit tests in Table 4. The resulting statistics will be approximately X i distributed
under the hypotheses that home and away teams’ scores are Poisson distributed. This
was repeated for each of the other eleven data sets, and the resulting X 2 statistics are list-
ed in Table 5.

Table 5. Values of the X 2 statistic for home and away teams’ scores for the independent Poisson
model
x 2 values
season division homes aways
1971-1972 4.90 7.79
5.71 1.08
10.05* 8.96*
4.62 1.07
1972-1973 6.08 13.4 1**
3.44 9.77*
4.94 4.31
0.78 3.22
1973-1974 1 7.91* 1.33
2 1.97 1.12
3 0.89 5.28
4 3.61 1.92
5% level 7.81
critical values
1% level 11.3
* indicates a significant value at the 5% level
** indicates a significant value at the 1% level

The case where the model would be rejected are shown by an asterisk. For the home
teams’ scores there are two such cases and for the away teams’ scores there are three.
Overall, then, the Poisson model may be regarded as acceptable, although with some
slight doubt. If the observed and expected frequencies are compared for each of the
twelve data sets, some small but systematic differences can be seen. The overall
observed and expected proportions are:

HOME SCORES
no. of goals 0 1 2 3 24
observed 0.217 0.321 0.254 0.130 0.078
expected 0.230 0.318 0.238 0.128 0.086

AWAY SCORES
no. of goals 0 1 2 3 24
observed 0.388 0.371 0.177 0.051 0.014
expected 0.406 0.352 0.166 0.056 0.020

The model underestimates the number of occasions on which one and two goals are
scored, and overestimates the number oftimes that 0 or 4 goals are scored. This effect

Statistica Neerlandica 36 (1982), nr. 3. 115

can be seen in each of the twelve data sets. The differences are small and over just one
season do not seriously inflate the X value, but if the observed and expected frequen-
cies for all twelve seasons are added the values of the X z statistics (16.2 and 28.8 for
home and away scores respectively) would lead to clear rejection of the model. The dis-
tribution of the number of goals scored by a team in a match is very close to a Poisson
distribution, then, but is slightly “narrower”. This might seem to conflict with MORO-
NEY’S (1951) and REEPand BENJAMIN’S (1968) conclusion which was that a distribution
which was wider (in terms of the variance to mean ratio) than the Poisson was required;
the Negative Binomial was their fitted distribution. However, in both these other works
a single distribution was fitted to scores from all matches, whereas here each match has
a different fitted Poisson distribution.

5 A bivariate Poisson model

There is no shortage of possible explanations, of course, for the small discrepancy be-
tween the independent Poisson model and the data; in fact it is perhaps fairer to say that
it is surprising that such a simple model comes so close to explaining the data so fully! A
match does not consist of two independent games at opposite ends of the pitch; to the
teams concerned, the result is all important, and so, for example, ifa team is losing with
ten minutes left to play, it must take more defensive risks in order to try to score. There-
fore, an examination of the distribution of the difference between the teams’ scores,
2”= Xu- Yomight be revealing. Table 6 shows the observed and estimated frequencies
for Z under model 2 for Division 1 in 1971-1972.

Table 6. Observed and estimated frequencies for Z, the difference in the teams’ scores, for
Division 1 in 1971-1972, for (i) the independent Poisson model and (ii) the bivariate
Poisson with e = 0.2
Z (-3 -2 -1 0 +I +2 +3 +4 )5
observed 8 26 72 129 105 69 31 16 6
estimated (e=O) 14.4 30.3 69.8 113.0 104.9 68.7 35.8 15.8 9.3
estimated (e=0.2) 9.9 25.3 68.0 126.2 111.7 67.7 32.6 13.4 7.1

In this it can be seen that the number of drawn matches (Z= 0) is a little underestimat-
ed. This is a systematic feature noted in all twelve data sets. The X 2 goodness-of-fit
statistics are shown in Table 7; four of the twelve are significant at the 5% level, whilst
several others approach this. Only one of the twelve has a value of the X 2 statistic which
is less than the expected value of 7. (The number of degrees of freedom is reduced to 7
because of the linear constraint on the expected frequencies resulting from the estima-
tion of the a’s andJ’s.) This suggests that there may be some correlation between the X,,
and Yu.A bivariate Poisson model was tried; in this the marginal distributions are still
Poisson with means f l u ( = aiJj)and ,lo(= k2ajJi)but there is a correlation of e be-
tween the scores. One way of thinking of such a bivariate Poisson distribution is that
Xu = Uti+ W, and Yti= Vo+ Wuwhere U,, Vu and W” are independent Poisson with

116 Statistica Neerlandica 36 (1982), nr. 3.

means of bu - qu), ( A , - qu) and qii respectively, with qu (= ~,/m
being the co-
variance between x, and Yu.
A range of values of p was tried and the most appropriate seemed to be around 0.2. In
computing the expected frequencies for Z, the values of the C ’ s , j 9 s and used were
those found from the fitting of the independent Poisson model. The terms in the Pois-
son bivariate probability function can be calculated by the following recursive relation-
ship:
m = e x p (-p-A-q)
.Pxy=b- ‘I)Px-I.”+‘lPx-Iy-l
Y PXY = (A- d P X Y - I + VPx- 1 y - 1

Table 7. Values of the X 2 goodness-of-lit statistic for Z, th8 difference between the teams’ scores,
for (i) the independent model and (ii) the bivariate Poisson model with e = 0 . 2
~ ~

x2 values
season division independent model bivariate model
197 1-1972 1 9.67 1.86
2 16.42* 6.50
3 10.87 3.94
4 12.99 5.75
1972-1973 1 15.51* 4.77
2 13.70 11.98
3 4.79 2.50
4 15.30* 8.27
1973-1974 1 16.47* 9.08
2 9.76 12.29
3 13.53 8.00
4 10.36 5.40
5% level 14.1 12.6
critical values
1 % level 18.5 16.8

The results of fitting this bivariate Poisson model are shown in Tables 6 and 7, where it
can be seen that the introduction of the extra parameter Q has led to a considerable
improvement in the fit. The X 2 statistics in Table 7 are not only non-significant but are
fairly representative values from a Xi distribution. (It has been assumed that the fitting
of the extra parameter e will be roughly equivalent to the imposition of another linear
constraint on the expected frequencies, although in fact the same value of e has been
applied to all the twelve data sets). A bivariate Poisson model with correlation ofabout
0.2, therefore, would seem to give a very adequate fit to the differences in scores.

6 Summary

Previous work on the distribution of scores in football matches has rejected the Poisson
model in favour of the Negative Binomial. This work, however, has not allowed for the
different qualities of the teams in a league. The first model investigated here assumes
that the home team’s and aways team’s scores in any one match are independent Pois-

Statistica Neerlandica 36 (1982), nr. 3. 117

son variables with means a,Jjand yiSj, where the parameters 44,y and _S represent the
qualities of the teams attacks and defences, in home and away matches. Maximum
likelihood estimation of these parameter shows that only the _a and4 are needed, show-
ing that the relative strength of teams’ attacks is the same whether playing at home or
away; the same applies to the defences.
When this model is aplied to each of the twelve data sets and observed and expected
score distributions are compared by means of a X 2 test, nineteen out of the twenty-four
cases give a non-significant result at the 5% level. Overall, then, the independent Pois-
son model gives a reasonably good fit to the data. The deviations from this model are
small but consistent in each of the data sets, there being slightly fewer occasions ob-
served than expected on which no goals or a large number of goals are scored. When the
differences in scores are investigated however, the lack of fit of the model is rather more
serious and suggests that the independence assumption is not totally valid. A bivariate
Poisson model was then used to model this dependence between scores and this
improved the fit considerably for the differences in scores. The correlation coefficient
between home teams’ and away teams’ scores is estimated to be approximately 0.2.

Acknowledgement
The author would like to thank an anonymous referee for his very helpful comments on
an earlier version of this paper.

References
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Received October 1981, Revised December 1981.

118 Statistica Neerlandica 36 (1982), nr. 3.