File this one under the category: most likely to attract choice commentary from Seattle Sounders supporters.

As the Sounders-less MLS First Kick fast approaches, we here at Stumptown Footy are spooling up the statistical analysis drives in preparation for the 2012 campaign. Lacking much in the way of hard data so far, with just one preseason match under our belt, we've decided to start with the schedule.

This is the problem with using econometric analysis to identify causes within complex systems. Yes, Kuper and Syzmanski are able to identify a few 10,000 foot correlations that are fairly intuitive to begin with. But when the real work to identify the actual causes of something begins, the equations and models are revealed to be cartoon depictions of reality bolstered by some smart sounding phrases but demonstrating a frightening lack of subject knowledge depth.

Editor's note: The MLS partnership with Opta Sports has resulted in richer ways to understand the performance of the Philadelphia Union and its players through statistical analysis. PSP's efforts to collect and share match statistics have been enhanced by the deeper analysis offered by Ford Bohrmann.

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"Making the Arsenal" – is available on Amazon, Arsenal on line, the Woolwich Arsenal site and in the Arsenal store.

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Goals, assists and other stuff

By Alek Pan

This is the second statistical analysis of the way in which football (mostly [.

The international break provides a good opportunity for statistical analysis of various teams and players. To begin with, let's look at macro level stats for the big six. I will also try to cover some player comparisons before Premiership resumes on the 19th.

The following table lists passing, dueling, and other figures for Arsenal, City, United, Chelsea, Liverpool, and Tottenham.

It was rough being a Sounder's fan last night. Amidst discussions of a CONCACAF Champions League curse, playing at altitude and missing one of their best players of the season in Mauro Rosales, the Sounders had a tough playoff matchup against Real Salt Lake. While most fans would have been surprised if the Sounders had come away with a first leg lead, going down 3-0 was a bit of a shock.

Football Manager: Advanced Stats, Live Odds and Scouting+ - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

Football Manager will be released on 21 October 20112 here's a look at how Miles Jacobson and co. can make the game even better for the millions of football fans who religiously play the game every year.

I've never been a great fan of Boardroom directors and owners at soccer clubs that pretend to know the game and how to run a football club, and probably more so since the advent of the "Super Owners" who bring colossal amounts of money into a club to radically transform the playing staff almost overnight, so it is with a certain level of enjoyment that I'm watching developments at Ewood Park, Blackburn, as the club struggles to get themselves off the bottom of the English Premier League.

Meet The Minnows: A statistical analysis of Europe's Whipping Boys is a post from: Just Football

Okay so they're bad, but just how bad? Making his debut for Just Football here's Jake Miller with a statistical analysis of UEFA's minnows.

During the last round of qualifiers for next summer's European Championships in Poland and Ukraine, the world's number one ranked team, Holland stuffed perennial losers San Marino 11-0.

The CIES Football Observatory has predicted based on their analysis of football, that Chelsea are the most probable side to win the Premier League this season. The CIES was set up in 2005 and is dedicated to the statistical analysis of sport in all its diversity. Their team of researchers is notably specialised in the demographic study of the footballers' labour market, performance analysis of team and player levels, as well as in the elaboration of predictive models to determine the outcome of competitions.

I have uploaded the spreadsheets that I use to calculate the CONCACAF club and league coefficients to the public FTP site of my company, Soccermetrics Research & Consulting. I am using this site to host my publicly-available software projects, and while the the spreadsheets aren't software per se, they do represent one of my early projects when I was getting started in statistical analysis in soccer and they do attract interest from fans and other analysts.

Progress Report: Jordan Henderson

AnfieldIndex Liverpool FC Stats | Liverpool FC Blog | Liverpool FC Forum As Jordan Henderson left the field in the 61 st minute against Sunderland, Lucas Leiva would have been excused for breathing a sigh of relief. The heat is off, a new whipping boy is in town.

If you read this blog regularly then you know I'm a big proponent of statistical analysis. You also know that I think it's just one component of a bigger picture. Watching the USA-Brazil Women's World Cup quarter final on Sunday wasn't about the numbers. I don't think many models would have been able to predict how the game unfolded and what the outcome would be.

With everybody now seemingly on Twitter, it is difficult to know who is worth following especially if you're looking for decent football opinions. So it is that I've tried to compile a list of the best people out there who are well worth following. Be warned, however that as a rule I tend not to follow player - do they ever have anything really of interest to say?

Scoring Stats The true value of Ronaldo and Messi - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

Any statistical analysis of a sporting event can go down one of two main routes. Firstly, they could be raw data, usually expressed as totals or percentages. In football, examples include the number of total corners a team concedes (or forces), the number of minutes a player is on the park for over the course of a season or even how many points a team accumulates.

Fee-fi-fo-fum!
I smell the blood of an Englishman?
Hmm, smells like pound sterling....

In a more recent piece for the Financial Times, Simon Kuper informs us that top flight football clubs have rapidly turned the business of player evaluation into a quantifiable pursuit.

I have always been a statistics nut. The love of the numbers behind sports came early for me, as a young boy "keeping book" for my Yankees (I am now a rehabilitated Yankees fan, firmly rooting for my local Phillies since the Y2K). I'd laboriously watch the games, scribble down every hit, walk, error, and out (before DVR made it easier to catch what you missed).

So at the time of writing, Newcastle United club captain Kevin Nolan, is on his way to join freshly relegated West Ham United. Before this news broke, I was in the process of gathering some statistical analysis for the past season, focusing on our top 5 performers in the Premier League. What I found was [.

Daniel Taylor writes in The Guardian about how Fergie got one over on his rivals to land Phil Jones.

The Daily Mail looks at the sought after young English football talent.

Rational Football has a statistical analysis of Luka Modric's passing.

Studs Up reflects on what we can do now the season is over.

Preview and predictions for the 13th round of games in the Clausura 2011 tournament. Preview Last week I scored eight points with two exact scorelines and another two correct results with a mixture of gut instinct and statistical analysis. Hopefully I can match or beat that score this week. Godoy Cruz have never won in their three previous Primera División visits to Newell's Old Boys however the

Preview and predictions for the eleventh round of games in the Clausura 2011 tournament. Preview After last Sunday's bumper crop of correctly predicted scores, based more on gut instinct than comprehensive statistical analysis I'm going to follow my instincts again but not without a discussion of the form and stats for those of you that don't put your faith in my guesswork.

Soccer's relatively low scores compared to other team sports make the game exciting and agonizing at the same time. After all, any one score, any one action or mistake on the field can make or break a team's day. Soccer's high stakes and the rare beauty of goals have a downside for analysts, however.

The fact that soccer scores are low compared to other team sports actually makes the game more exciting. After all, any one score, any one action or mistake on the field can make or break a team's day. Soccer's high stakes and the rare beauty of goals has a downside for analysts, however. In particular, the trouble with goals from an analysis perspective is that they are infrequent.

The Role of Shots in Goal Scoring

One of the factors that distinguishes soccer from nearly every sport is the relative rarity of scoring events. This has significant implications in many different contexts, including tactical decisions, player evaluation, tournament organization, and so on. And in particular it has implications for statistical analysis of the game.

The Evening News reports on the fan being sued by Manchester United.

5 Added Minutes has a statistical analysis on how United cope with pressure.

Football Fix has a very interesting interview with The Guardian's Daniel Taylor about being a journalist in Manchester.

Portugoal.net reports on Nani's claim he is not obsessed with being the best.

Last night was the unofficial start to the MLS season, as Real Salt Lake and Columbus faced off in their first leg of the CONCACAF Champions League quarterfinal. In a night that was below freezing and in front of a sparse crowd, the two teams grinded out a 0-0 draw that was defined by the referee as well as missed chances by Columbus.

Recently I got a chance to read Tobias J. Moskowitz and L. Jon Wertheim's book, Scorecasting: The Hidden Influences Behind How Sports are Played and Games are Won. For those that regularly read this blog you know I enjoy statistics and looking at the break down of them when it comes to the game. Moskowitz and Wertheim take an incredibly deep look into statistics and break down many of the stereotypes of sports that most fans think of.