Liverpool, Martinez's Wigan, Benteke stand out over past dec

Luck matters more than you think, both in life and in soccer. There have been countless investigations into the role of fortune in football. German researchers found that luck was the most important factor in deciding which team won a given match, while a bunch of other findings, summarized in the book "The Numbers Game," suggest that the underdog is likely to win way more often in soccer -- just south of 50% of the time -- than in any of the other major sports w88 line .

In a 2018 study, another German researcher, Martin Lames, discovered that 47% of the goals scored across a pair of Bundesliga and Premier League seasons contained some element of luck. Maybe more staggering, the first goal in the match -- arguably the most important goal -- was most likely to be affected by chance.



This isn't necessarily a modern discovery. Back in 1974, I.D. Hill wrote the following in the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: "I find it difficult to imagine that anyone, who had ever watched a football match, could reach the conclusion that the game was either all skill or all chance. That both skill and chance are involved seems too obvious w88thais.com ."

While Hill was right, we do at least now have some modern tools to help better determine both how lucky a team or player was and how repeatable their performances have been. Mainly, we have expected goals, which determines the likelihood that a given shot will end up in the net based on a variety of factors (distance, angle, nature of pass, etc.) and a historical record of how often similar shots have been converted.

So, as we're all staying at home and social distancing while most football is suspended, it felt like the right time to look at the players and clubs who have been worst hit by the whims of randomness, and award them a retroactive, imaginary honorific. Consider it a celebration of the guys who should have done better than they did and who deserved more than they got.

The biggest gap in goals to expected goals came in a 9-1 victory for Tottenham over Wigan in November 2009. Despite the presence of Luka Modric and Gareth Bale on the roster, Spurs sported a starting midfield of Tom Huddlestone, Wilson Palacios, Aaron Lennon and Niko Kranjcar. The star, though, was Jermain Defoe, who scored five goals. Somehow, the score was only 1-0 at half-time .

Despite the nine goals, Spurs created 1.97 expected goals. They weren't lucky to win -- Wigan created only 0.51 of their own -- but the extremely lopsided scoreline wasn't a true reflection of the balance of play. However, since a win was never really in the cards, Wigan don't really deserve to earn this distinction https://www.w88thais.com/football-betting-online/