Yue Weng Mak Dec 14, 2010

Introduction Soccer is gaining momentum in the World. Already popular in Europe Recently popular in Asia (Japan/South Korea (2002)) and Africa (South Africa (2010)) Middle East (Qatar(2022))

Predictions Aside from watching the sport, many fans are passionate about gambling on the sport Predictions are being made so fans can bet on the outcome of the game Based on factors such as : 1) Whether a certain player is playing 2) Coach’s record against the team 3) Strategies used They are based on human biasness

Proposal In my proposal, I will predict matches based on statistics provided Using a 3 layer MLP (13-3-1) Inputs will be the last 5 matches of team 1, last 5 matches of team 2 and the last 3 encounters between both teams. A win will be 1, draw will be 0, loss will be -1 Most recent match has a higher weight than the previous match and so forth

In the second layer, the home team will have a weight of 1 and the away team a weight of -1. The output will be the result of the home team. Proposal (Continued)

Results HomeAway Predictions made by my model Actual Results ArsenalFulhamArsenal BirminghamTottenham Draw BlackburnWolvesBlackburn ChelseaEvertonDraw Manchester City BoltonDrawManchester City WiganStoke Draw SunderlandWest Ham Sunderland WBANewcastleDrawWBA LiverpoolAston VillaLiverpool Matches Played : Dec 4 – Dec 6

New Proposal 2 New Inputs will be added to improve the prediction of the matches Home Advantage (Team that is playing at home will have an additional input of 1, while the team that is playing away have an additional input of 0) Rankings in Table (Team that is higher than the opponent team will have an additional input of 1, with the opponent team having an additional input of 0)

Results HomeAway Predictions made by old model Predictions made by new model Actual Results ArsenalFulhamArsenal BirminghamTottenham Draw BlackburnWolvesBlackburn ChelseaEvertonDraw Manchester City BoltonDrawManchester City WiganStoke Draw SunderlandWest Ham Sunderland WBANewcastleDrawWBA LiverpoolAston VillaLiverpool Matches Played : Dec 4 – Dec 6

Explanation Factors : 1) Referee Decisions 2) ‘Star’ Player not performing well 3) Team Strategies 4) Home support (Atmosphere) 5) Luck

Conclusion Predictions based on solely the statistics is not enough as many other factors can affect the outcome of the game. With so many other factors influencing the outcome, this makes soccer unpredictable and exciting!