2014/03/31 by Javier López Peña, Peña, Javier López · 1 citation
Computer Science · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Mathematics · #60J05 #60J10 #90B15 #90C40 #Dynamical Systems (math.DS) #FOS: Mathematics #Probability (math.PR) #Software Engineering Research #Software Reliability and Analysis Research #Sports Analytics and Performance #Statistics Theory (math.ST) #math.DS #math.PR #math.ST #msc:60J05 #msc:60J10 #msc:90B15 #msc:90C40 #stat.TH
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1403.7993
6 pages, 6 figures
arxiv created 2014/03/31 · openalex publication_date 2014/03/31 · arxiv updated 2014/04/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We propose a bottom-up approach to the study of possession and its outcomes for association football, based on probabilistic finite state automata with transition probabilities described by a Markov process. We show how even a very simple model yields faithful approximations to the distribution of passing sequences and chances of taking shots for English Premier League teams, which we fit using a whole season of granular game data (380 games). We compare the resulting model with classical top-down distributions traditionally used to describe possessions, showing that the Markov models yield a more accurate asymptotic behaviour.