Consider a soccer competition among various teams playing against each other in pairs (matches) according to a previously determined schedule. At some stage of the competition one may ask whether a particular team still has a (theoretical) chance to win the competition. The complexity of this question depends on the way scores are allocated according to the outcome of a match. For example, the ...

Russia invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 had an immediate impact on international sports and was quickly followed with numerous measures directed against Russian Belarusian teams athletes. The present piece analyses the legal grounds invoked by FIFA UEFA to exclude from their competitions. It argues that justifications advanced both federations did not formally depart ideal political neutral...

Abstract Adjusted plus-minus (APM) can sometimes lack common sense. This happens, for instance, when mediocre players move into the top ten, and superstars fall out of 100. These occasional outliers hurt credibility APM, mask benefits, such as increased prediction accuracy. We address this problem with a new method, called Augmented APM. APM incorporates external player ratings methodology. The...

The aim of the study was to analyse the inter-individual differences concerning the velocities at which changes in movement pattern occurred. During the FIFA World Cup Final in 2006 20 players were observed. For every player the individual velocity boarders were obtained for the movement patterns walking, jogging, cruising and sprinting. Comparisons were done between common velocity boarders an...