Interesting. Would probably like to skirmish it, though even in that paper it seems that they come to the same conclusion (though advantage drops from 65% to 55%).
POLL: Which team is better-off after a 0-0 in the first leg of a two-leg tie?
- Thread starter BaseFishing
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Dito. 0:0 is a good result for the home team. As Klopp said: The best remis a home team can achieve. So every remis bigger then 0:0 and every victory gets you into the next round. A 0:0 brings you into extra time / penalty shootout. It´s a pretty comfortable starting situation for an away game in the CL.
yes it does but can I offer up the ''opposite'' to this to consider
there's been a few ridiculous but greatly entertaining 2nd leg matches which have occurred really only because that after a 1st leg 0-0, the 2nd leg scoring takes teams ahead then behind then ahead once again purely because of the away goals rule
1-0, 1-1, 2-1, 2-2 & so on
I don't completely see that abolishing the away goals rule inevitably takes you to a better place.
Who thinks that 1st leg games are going to be massively better games all of a sudden?
You're using logic in the loosest possible sense there. Because that rationale only holds true if all three outcomes are equally probable. Which is, of course, not the case.
I think it depends on the teams Home record. I'm sure Liverpool hoped to take at least a goal with them to Bayern and you could tell from Klopp who knows them better than most, how hard that game is going to be there.
Again you are missing the point. The stronger team doesn't play the first leg away more often. In a random draw they play the away leg first 50% of the time. But the stronger team away first produces more 0-0s which is what we are basing our data sample on. It has been shown many times now that are you wrong so I suggest you read the relevant posts again.
Instead of agreeing with me I'd prefer you'd just look at the betting markets, though. Look at the price movements (or lack thereof) after a 0-0 in the first leg. High-liquidity financial markets (particularly in mainstream markets such as the CL) aren't so completely wrong and Siorac from the Internet is right. Just no.
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Is this coming from the RAWK post I saw that was kind of saying that drawing 0-0 was better than winning 2-1 btw?
You keep repeating this claim without any actual evidence. We're just supposed to accept it as an axiom.
If you do have some actual evidence for it, now would be the time to show it. And then I'd also like actual evidence that in a significant number of ties it was a clearly stronger team drawing 0-0 away from home, to the extent that it influences the data. Because as of right now, I'm just supposed to take your claims at face value for no particular reason whatsoever.
And I'm happy to look at the betting markets if you compile the data. Looking at the betting odds of ONE particular match-up proves precisely the square root of feck all in a debate about who generally benefits from a 0-0 draw in the first leg. Let us see how the odds have changed in a representative sample of knockout ties.
Sounds like it. But this crops up every time the knockout stages come around. It is nonsense of course.
This is just total bollocks and you don't seem to have any understanding at all of how bookmakers or statistics work.
Bookmakers might react to a weight of money on Russian Volleyball or something but not fecking top tier Champions League football. The models for the 3-way and totals are close enough to being perfect and have absolutely no need to cover their liabilities, bookmakers nearly always have the weight of money laid on the favourite and if they reacted to this by making the favourites shorter then you could always get value in backing against them - this just clearly isn't true because this isn't how bookmakers behave.
The data used has to be distributed with no bias, this means that on average the home team has to have the same strength as the away team, this is 100% the case for quarter final onwards ties assuming a big enough sample size but clearly any data using the last 16 matches is going to be skewed because the away team in the 1st leg is seeded. You can't use data that is 70% good and 30% bias to draw any conclusions from, it renders the whole thing useless.
Pagh seems pretty clued up on statistics and the point about 0-0's being more likely where the away team is favourite is a fantastic point I'd never considered for this argument. Somewhat invalidates any attempt to measure this statistically imo
Yeah that's all well and good but looking at the unseeded ties (so ignoring the last 16 of the CL) the ratio still holds. It's been posted plenty of times.
I'm sorry but this whole thread is a big fest of "let's ignore the numbers because they contradict our preconceptions". In around two thirds of all cases, the team that gets a 0-0 away from home in the first leg progresses at home. That holds when looking at pretty much any sort of sample.
I'll try one more time. Siorac wants me to show that 0-0s between two teams happen more often when the stronger team is the away side. So let's look at the data.
For this I looked at Premier League matchdays 16 and 24 as they are paired together and with only two months between them we can safely assume team strengths haven't changed. I'll list the weaker side as the home team first followed by the decimal odds for the 0-0 scoreline taken from 188bet:
Leicester v Tottenham: 9.30
Tottenham v Leicester: 12.00
Chelsea v Man City: 12.00
Man City v Chelsea: 14.50
Huddersfield v Arsenal: 13.00
Arsenal v Huddersfield: 18.50
Bournemouth v Liverpool: 19.00
Liverpool v Bournemouth: 26.00
And now let's look at two matches between teams of equal strength.
Brighton v Burnley: 7.10
Burnley v Brighton: 7.30
Crystal Palace v West Ham: 10.00
West Ham v Crystal Palace: 10.50
Bayern v Liverpool firmly falls into the last category and that's why you will find that if you look at historical data of two-legged ties between equal sides, both the home and away team will pretty much advance 50% of the time after a goalless draw.
If that is not enough, I'll give up.
For this I looked at Premier League matchdays 16 and 24 as they are paired together and with only two months between them we can safely assume team strengths haven't changed. I'll list the weaker side as the home team first followed by the decimal odds for the 0-0 scoreline taken from 188bet:
Leicester v Tottenham: 9.30
Tottenham v Leicester: 12.00
Chelsea v Man City: 12.00
Man City v Chelsea: 14.50
Huddersfield v Arsenal: 13.00
Arsenal v Huddersfield: 18.50
Bournemouth v Liverpool: 19.00
Liverpool v Bournemouth: 26.00
And now let's look at two matches between teams of equal strength.
Brighton v Burnley: 7.10
Burnley v Brighton: 7.30
Crystal Palace v West Ham: 10.00
West Ham v Crystal Palace: 10.50
Bayern v Liverpool firmly falls into the last category and that's why you will find that if you look at historical data of two-legged ties between equal sides, both the home and away team will pretty much advance 50% of the time after a goalless draw.
If that is not enough, I'll give up.
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To be honest that only occured to me later as well. I knew the data was wrong (simple logic says so as well as the betting odds) but like you I assumed that was because of seeded ties.
I think there's a very minor advantage to the team playing away first, that's my preconception and it's what you are trying to prove but I just don't think the data is proving it to a solid degree of confidence.
The main thing you learn in statistics is to dismiss stats based arguments where the evidence isn't strong enough, you need clean and unbias data, we've already shown that this is very difficult to do and even removing seeded matches you have bias in that draws are more likely in ties between uneven teams when the stronger team is away from home. If you were somehow able to adjust for this and look at only ties that are evenly matched you'd struggle to get a significant sample size.
Sometimes the data just isn't strong enough to make any certain conclusions from and I think this is the case here.
Liverpool drifted a touch, 1.9 to 2.0, indicating a loss of 2% chance of progressing, again though, this isn't brilliant because new information is being used from the 1st match, possibly one team looked stronger or weaker than expected.
What you show here is that draws in general are more likely to occur when the stronger team is away. Fair enough, I'll accept that.
Now I'll say once again that the ratio holds even in CL quarter-finals and semi-finals (where, presumably, the differences aren't quite as massive as between Liverpool and Bournemouth or Arsenal and Huddersfield). Which tells us that getting that 0-0 draw away from home is GENERALLY a good result. Which is borne out by every single dataset. Including the fact that second legs in general rarely end in draws, as @Brwned showed.
How do you define equal sides? Just to know so I can look at the data. Was Inter v Manchester United in 2009 between two equal sides? Were Real Madrid and Manchester United in 2000 two equal sides? Were Barcelona and Manchester United in 2008 equal sides? What qualifies as equal?
And the most obvious problem with your reasoning is this: even if the 50-50 percentage is true - which is YET TO BE SEEN - then 0-0 still has to be considered a good result for the team that plays away in the first leg. It means the home team didn't make the most of its home advantage and did not increase its own chances of going through.
Thats exactly why its a stupid rule that should be scrapped.
AC Milan once knocked out Inter on away goals after a 0-0 and a 1-1, despite the fact they both play at the same stadium.
OK. I am very confident, however, that there is one thing that all the data conclusively proves: it is that a 0-0 draw does not BENEFIT the side that played the first leg at home. Even in the best case scenario, it just hasn't decreased their chances of going through.
Yeah, that was actually funny. Though of course fan allocation was very different for the two games - proper atmosphere can make it feel like somewhat of an away game I'm sure.
I don't think you're completely getting it. If you took a large sample of ties from unseeded draws, then on average both teams would be of equal strength, the population is fair and unbiased, unlike with seeded draws. HOWEVER, we've established that 0-0 draws are more likely to occur if a stronger team is away first than if they are at home first, this makes the sample of ties where the first leg is 0-0 biased, this skews the distribution of the final result in favour of the away team, because on average, they are stronger.
"even if the 50-50 percentage is true - which is YET TO BE SEEN - then 0-0 still has to be considered a good result for the team that plays away in the first leg." that's just totally wrong, 50/50 is 50/50, if both teams are equal hen a 0-0 draw has no change on the probability of going through, it's neither a good or bad result. obviously if the favourite is at home then it is a bad result to draw. and the inverse should also be true, if the favourite is away from home, then a 0-0 draw is a bad result, which is inline with the slight drift on barca after drawing 0-0 with Lyon.
Interesting question.
I do agree it depends on quality of teams. Let's say if both last night were 0-0, then you'd still expect Man. City to comfortably win 3-0/1 at home to Schalke whereas Atletico/Juve being 0-0 and I'd give the edge to Atletico given they can still find time from mass defending to quickly break and score an away goal.
Probably same for Tuesday night games, 0-0 is better for Liverpool than it is for Lyon due to Liverpool-Bayern just feeling like a tighter clash than Lyon going to Camp Nou and more than likely conceding a couple.
I do agree it depends on quality of teams. Let's say if both last night were 0-0, then you'd still expect Man. City to comfortably win 3-0/1 at home to Schalke whereas Atletico/Juve being 0-0 and I'd give the edge to Atletico given they can still find time from mass defending to quickly break and score an away goal.
Probably same for Tuesday night games, 0-0 is better for Liverpool than it is for Lyon due to Liverpool-Bayern just feeling like a tighter clash than Lyon going to Camp Nou and more than likely conceding a couple.
Not really, either a) it increases the away teams chancing of qualifying or b) it increases the home teams chances of qualifying. it's impossible that it would have literally 0 impact. if you can't prove a) to a suitable standard then that's it. you can't prove a and you can't prove b. Statistics isn't about disproving a hypothesis, it's about determining whether there is enough evidence to accept it. if there isn't, it's a case of 'we don't know' rather than 'this is false'.
Bookmakers set initial odds on their models, and opinions believe it or not, but change their prices very quickly indeed once money is actually placed. If you try and place a significant sum they may change their odds there and then, and say they will take it, but only at poorer odds, or they will give the odds, but only for a smaller bet. The 'weight of money' is a good way of putting it without going into the maths, and they do very much react to it, whether it's champions league football or the name of the next royal baby.
If you're having to argue about the validity of the sample, I'd be wary of drawing any firm conclusions.
But anyway, I was wondering if being at home helps more than being the stronger team, anyone got any ideas?
But anyway, I was wondering if being at home helps more than being the stronger team, anyone got any ideas?
The overall data says that after a 0-0 draw in the first leg, the team that played the first leg away from home progresses roughly 65% of the time. There is no debate to be had here, this is simple fact.
Now, you and others claim that if we control for the strength of the teams involved, the scenario changes: if the teams are equally strong, a 0-0 draw means the chances of progressing remains 50-50. If this is observably and provably true then it means the home team's chances of progressing have not increased by achieving a 0-0 draw (assuming that since the teams are equal, their chances of progressing was 50-50 before the game).
So let's say my hypothesis is that a 0-0 draw in the first leg does NOT increase the chances of progression for the team that played the first leg at home. The overall data supports that hypothesis. The weighted data, according to Page, also supports it. Therefore I will conclude that the hypothesis is correct. EDIT: that is, if the weighted data can be called a representative sample. But I hope and assume that there were enough ties in UEFA club competitions between roughly equal teams that finished 0-0 in the first leg.
That obviously doesn't mean that in no individual case have a team's chances increased after drawing 0-0 in the first leg. For a hypothetical team that always loses at home and always wins away, drawing at home would obviously increase their chances. But they are an outlier: in general, teams do not benefit from a 0-0 draw at home.
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Is there a way to test your hypothesis? I think we can break it down in two:
1. When the first leg is 0-0, usually the weaker team is at home first (and thus skews the follow-up sample and analysis)
2. The better team is equally likely (or close to) to win the tie regardless of which leg is played first
Is that 2nd hypothesis what you're suggesting, or are you just arguing about details?
I figure if we use some kind of standardised European club ranking - the UEFA rankings or something similar - we could roughly test both. I would imagine the first one is correct but to a lesser degree than is suggested, and the second isn't.
Sorry but this is pretty much literally my job, if you go and stake 500k at pinnacle or some other respectable bookie on city to beat chelsea this weekend their odds won't shift a touch. The weight of money is very important, high tier matches turnover so much money that large bets are unlikel to have much of an impact. And besides, every bookmaker in the world is always liable for the favourites winning, whether its in football, or NBA favourites beating the spread, anything, it doesn't mean that all bookies are going to adjust their odds and shorten the favourites to end up with less liability, it'd mean there's value in the outsider and also create arbs in the market.
No doubt it played a small factor but everything else was the same for both teams as it normally would be ahead of a home game.
Pagh came up with the first as a way of explaining the data discrepancy and from what I can see, it's spot on.
You can use oddsportal and look at the starting odds of pretty much any match and build up a sample, but the logical argument is somewhat straight forward.
I need to do some work rather than typing replies to this thread but I'll explain more later
Except they do. https://www.oddschecker.com/football/champions-league/borussia-dortmund-v-tottenham/winner
Watch it and you see them move.
I think the true answer here is we'd need a lot more data to know for sure.
Even if we take it as a fact that overall the 'away firsts' are stronger in the sample, which I do agree with, we don't know the full extent of the impact of that and if you removed it, what the data would look like.
Even if we take it as a fact that overall the 'away firsts' are stronger in the sample, which I do agree with, we don't know the full extent of the impact of that and if you removed it, what the data would look like.
Yes but you could also argue that if the teams draw the first leg 0-0 then in most cases they will be fairly evenly matched
You could argue but you’d be wrong. Seeing as a 0-0 draw is a more difficult result for the away team to achieve.
This thread hurts.
You're wrong, since your point does not exclude the fact that they could be evenly matched. Tuesday's game and result even proves his point.
I mostly agree with the first but I don't see how anyone can say it "explains the data discrepancy". It possibly explains a part of it but is pretty unlikely to explain all of it. I'll put the data out there for people to test.
The second is far more important and I'm not entirely sure if that's what you're saying, or something different. Whatever it is, let me know and I'll give you the data to test your hypothesis.
That seems a lot more useful than people continuously moving the goalposts to create the room they need to speculate rather than prove their point, on a particularly drab subject which is pretty easily reduced to numbers.
The only bookies there worth their salt are marathon and 365. Bookies adjust odds to keep in line with the market (don't wanna stick out at top price, don't want to be below avg) and in response to new information, the models use a shit ton of info and even things like weather forecast will be a small variable. Odds can obviously change, but its not traders overruling their model / autotrader because of a big bet.
This is another interesting point, you very rarely see barca being >2.0 at home against similar strength teams because they are an absolute fortress at home, whereas as some teams don't have as large of a difference in quality at home or away.
Just wanted to prove how stupid your you'd be wrong was since there's clearly tons of evidence that he's not.
Not to sure what your 2nd hypothesis is about, isn't that a completely different discussion? whether its better to be drawn home or away first? I don't really see where that would be relevant to this topic.
The 1st hypothesis is the main argument here, it clearly shows that if you take a large sample of 0-0 draws, the stronger team will more often be away from home. it means the already weak as hell sample of 33 ties that had a 0-0 draw in the first leg also has significant bias, and isn't good for proving anything.
I don't think it needs a great deal of explaining, the betting odds pagh showed displays it, but it should be pretty obvious that man city would be more likely to draw away at a schalke than at home.
You quite clearly said bookmakers don't change their odds according to the weight of money placed, and you were wrong. Now you've changed to they 'adjust odds to keep in line with the market' - yes, a market that moves according to the weight of money placed. If relevant factors alter then they will adjust their odds immediately to pre-empt liabilities, for example if a star player was declared injured, but if the money didn't move as expected they would revert. You can think of something else to throw in if you want but I'll only bring you back to your original statement being wrong, sometimes it's best just to admit it.
The list of bookmakers that according to you are not worth their salt has the likes of William Hill, Ladbrokes, Coral, Betfair, Paddy Power, Skybet and more on it. I'm pretty sure their business models aren't based on simply copying the odds set by marathon and 365.