ABSTRACT
In modern football, underdog success stories are far from uncommon. Which team finishes where at the end of a season in terms of table position is closely linked to the question of how such overperformances can be explained. To this end, the comparison to circumstances such as the financial standing of a club has already been drawn more frequently, and a correlation cannot be denied. But is it also possible to explain the difference in teams’ performance on a tactical level? This chapter compares the tactical performance of teams finishing in the top third with those finishing in the lower third of the table, on the basis of a Big Data field study from the German Bundesliga. Key performance indicators (KPIs) introduced in this chapter include space control by means of Voronoi cells.
