ABSTRACT
Much analysis in soccer involves gathering statistics from historical match data and predicting end-of-season league positions. A lot of useful information can be acquired through the analysis of historical data, with sports analysts spending much time identifying features and metrics that help explain team performance. This chapter focuses on techniques for capturing performance metrics, such as total shots ratio, from historical match data, as these can be useful predictors of likely end-of-season league position. In particular, the chapter shows how to compile home and away performance statistics for individual teams as well as head-to-head match statistics for equivalent matches in previous seasons. Also, this chapter explains how to write user-defined functions in R and shows how these can be used to create historical point-in-time soccer league tables.
