We now know there are a lot of off pitch factors that can influence the results of a match;
Direct factors like player injury/team news/ team transfers or manager news.
Indirect factors like pitch condition/weather/stadium and fans enthusiasum.
Motivational factors like fighting for CL/UEFA spot and even fighting for relegation.
There are however 1 more off pitch factor that I feel is the most crucial factor and cannot be factor into the charts; if a punting decision ever come across such awakward news of any club, it is better to skip the match or show hand based on the news. Experience have tell me they usually bring results up to 95%, I was highlighted to this by a experience punting fren, I was actually skeptical at first but the high hit rate whenever such a situation occured deserved a mention; here are a couple but there could be more,
Other Factors
- News of former legend or players/managers of club that past on a couple of days before the match. This usually will trigger the team wearing black armband to play above themselves and beat the Asian Handicap. This is especially true if majority of the newspaper do not print this. Usually such news can be obtained from the team website. Hit rate at 85%.
-Tragedy of a national level like earthquake/lost of life/bombings and especially the opposite team make a substanial contribution or offer flowers of condolances. Take the generous team to beat the Asian Handicap. Psychology factors come into play here as the team in moarning are probably too dishearten to play, and they are grateful for the gesture of the opposite team, hence led their guard down. Hit rate 85%
- War on the other hand can drive a team to play above themselves and beat the handicap. This is probably due to the fact the team wanted to bring the frontline war guards some cheer news and spurred them on in battlefield. Hit rate 75%
-On a day or time when there is only 1 match only for league or cup, the favourite usually fails to beat the handicap, this is especially true during mid-week matches, the only explanation I can give is that for cup match, the favouraite are usually not so keen to follow that route, choosing instead to win the league or Europe match, but for league match, a sense of overconfidence in being the only strong team playing tends to overflow the favourite. Resulting in disatorious consequences. Hit rate 65% - 70%.
-Take note of managers who always give comments prior to games or the quiet type that gives only after the match. When there are sudden switch in their actions, a passive approach from the former, before a game, bet opposite them and when the latter quiet gaffer suddenly demand a win from his team, bet that team. The reason the team will take heel from such remarks and response accordingly, another psychological effect. Hit rate 60-65%.
(PS: Yu guys found out some interesting fact kindly shared or contribute ok, I can't do it all by myself)
All pundits have their own systems to pick match winners. Most of these systems take into account into the same 1,2 or at most 3 factors that could affect match results. As discussed, match results can be affected by a myriad of different factors, even those that are not so directly connected to football. You need to discover new facts to gain an edge. Other Factors are good to keep an eye on as it is not so clear and straightforward like Direct/Motivation factors . Bookmakers also do not place as much emphasis when deriving the odds on this as they rightly should.
Some of the betting public (like myself) also employ elaborate statistical systems which have the same problem of being too myopic in outlook. In such systems, fixed weightage is also assigned to various factors which might or might not be accurate. Football match prediction is much like an organic process where the importance of a factor or factors changes from match to match, from team to team and when under different circumstances. Statistical systems should be used together with an organic approach in the analysis for each match and not be relied solely upon. Treat each league, each Cup competition and each match as a unique proposition every time because the factors are dynamic and are often changing in different ways. This is not as easy as it sounds but is a worthwhile challenge to take on given the knowledge that you have now.
I would highlight my charts pros and cons but treat it as a guide first , come out your own style if able...take heel from unexpected news and make you judgement as to whether to abandon the bet. Don't be scare to switch charts when yu feel some are not following what is expected. Satistics are supposed to highlight all this so that yu can correct or cut lost.
- Home Advantage Chart
Direct Factors:moderate Indirect Factors :stadium/pitch/fans are very strong but weather is very weak Motivation Factors :weak Useage:Good for 3rd week all the way to end of season, but weakness in winter/summer time. Hints:Look out for begining of swings in +ve or -ve and follow accordingly
- Form Chart
Direct Factors: strong Indirect Factors:moderate Motivation Factors: moderate to strong (however to a certain amount of match only) Useage: Good for 8th week all the way to end of season Hints:The nearest 1 tends to swing -ve at the end of season (most of the time)
- Sequence Chart (Test Stage)
Direct Factors: strong Indirection Factors: moderate Motivational Factors: extremelly strong Useage: Good for 3rd week to 1 month before season end Hints: New have not observe the flow pattern like the other 2 charts, so no comments.
So good luck and I hope yu worms out there benefit from the webs spin by a fallen spider.
The Sequence of Asian Handicap is interesting and easier to digest than the first 2 charts ; 85% of the majority of betting dogs (I come to contact) practise this. The theories involved are mercury fiery hot when it hits but pluto cold when it collapse. It usually involves bucking the winning or losing trend after 2 to 3 games in a row, and from my observation, there is some truth in the selection from the older or more experience punter, as they win most of the time, but what happens when there is a run of immerse period, do yu switch or abandon...? I have personally encountered sane person lost their whole fortune in buckling a sequence.
So what accounts for a realistic approach to this method of betting? I believe it all boils down to the Motivation of a team. Hence, yu can say the sequence chart is a measurement of how motivated a team are over a span of time (depends on how longer a team keeps beating the handicap or losing it). I would say buck the trend from the 5th team to the last 5th in the league (like every 2 game win or lose, reverse betting). But follow the trend for those in the top 4 and bottom 4. The general public usually selects 1 of the team in a fixture and forego the other; this is the utimate downfall to a analysis of a match, the right way is to compare the sequence between the 2 team and come to a conclusion. My Chart takes care of this and will involve a statistical approach to conjure up the predictions.
There is some confusion between Form Chart and Sequence Chart but it is quite easy to differentiate actually; the latter measures motivation whereas the former measures the team's win/draw/lost over a period of certain matches wrt the asian handicap.
Motivation is the deciding factor when all the usual factors have been taken into account. Different teams are motivated differently in different degrees at different times and in different situations. Motivation is thus a factor that differ greatly depending on the team and the situation . It is thus a more difficult factor for the bookmakers to assimilate correctly into the odds, save for the end of the season when it is obvious which teams are fighting relegation and which have nothing to fight for.
It is important to know what motivates the different kinds of clubs. What follows is a breakdown of the different objectives for the different levels of clubs.
To the top teams in Europe at club level, ultimate glory is to win the UEFA Champion League. All top footballers and their managers for that matter , dream of tasting CL glory. Domestic league matches are of secondary importance when there are CL matches just around the corner. The CL is open to each national associations domestic champions, as well as clubs who finish just behind them in the domestic championship table and extremely lucrative in terms of fees from television rights. Those who finish just behind those who qualify for the CL go into the UEFA Cup competition.
As you can see, the top teams in Europe often play a huge amount of games each season and need to make priorities on which competitions to go for. Due to the physical strain on the players, it is practically impossible for top teams to challenge seriously in every competition. In fact, it is good to look out for teams that have done unusually well in their domestic league and qualified for CL unexpectedly. Those teams tend to be unable to cope with the added season long pressure of competing on both fronts against the top teams and often do very poorly both in the CL and in the domestic league the following season. Same goes for UEFA Cup team qualifiers.
Near the end of a season, when there are a limited number of points to play for in domestic leagues, it will be clear if teams have already secured the league title; are still fighting for CL or UEFA Cup places; fighting for relegation or have nothing to fight for. So thus, the Sequence Chart becomes more irrelevant it its analysis, but it can start as early as the 3rd game (Home-Advantage Chart), and incoporates all the direct factors/indirect factors (Form Chart).
It is a hybraid between the 2 previous charts with the sole disadvantage of non application 1 month before season ends. But that is just in theory only, reason being i have thought about it for over a year now after watching my buddies apply this theory with no sense or direction whatsoever and wonder if a 2 sided approach instead of 1 of the side would be better. The maths are also fresh and yet to test new grounds. Hence, I will use the top 6 leagues in 2006 to enforce the theory of the chart.
The theory side;
- If a team beats the handicap give 1 or lose give -1, if win half/lose half give 0.5 or -0.5 respectively.
- A small factor of is added to the winning team for 2 game in a row (sequence) and the factor is double for 3 game in a row, triple for 4 games in a row and the binomial goes on.
- Similarly, for the losing sequence it applies but the nett result will be in -ve.
- Take the sum of the home and away rating and that will give you the sequence gap.
The satistical side;
Note the Sequence Gap vs the final results and create frequency chart/table. Take the next data in a new Sequence Gap (next match) and compare to the nearest. Make the predictions!
As I have highlighted; the theory is new and the maths are fresh, there are no previous whole year results to show to the public, I only have now are research and data will be collected from the top 6 leagues and prediction will be make. Pls take the predictions with a pinch of salt as i do not know what will be the outcome as I write; but i have a strong feeling this chart will be the strongest ever predictive tool in the industry in years to come. Those who like to come along for the experience are welcome, but small punts are advised. Good Luck!
The current form of teams is another factor bookmakers take into consideration when deciding the odds. There are different ways to determine how strong the form of a team is .Most systems use the results of a team’s last 5 matches to arrive at a fair accessment of its current form. Yu can also easily see a sequence of run/lost (top 3 team/bottom). Rest will flip-flop between matches giving rise to a negative effect of the predictions eventually.
This is a recognised trend in most league, take a look at my final results from top 6 league from last year and you can see what i mean; zoom in on the nearest prediction; all negative swing....hmm, of course not all will observe such a trend but most will. I can also highlight that for a league of 18 or 20 teams, the below most probably concurred but for smaller league, 10 to 15 team, the possibabilty of positive reading on the nearest are higher, this is due to the fact that the middle teams range are smaller.
Nearest 3/Nearest
ENG FORM -22/-31.5 FRA FORM 1.5/-1.5 HOL FORM 14/-9.5 GER FORM -16/-20 ITA FORM 3.5/-17 SPL FORM -14.5/-28
Upon close inspection, it was found that for most teams that won’t their most recent game, especially by a big margin, they were likely to do less well in the next game. The reason for this phenomenon is relatively simple and yet not widely recognized by the betting public. Different classes of team react differently to wins and losses.
The average and lesser teams are always buoyed by a win, which does not come too often. When such a club does experience a win, confidence runs throughout the club when they go into their next match; which is well and good but another effect takes place. There is a sense of achievement because of the result and work rate begins to fall. Should they win a 2nd game in a row, 2 opposing emotions come into play. First, there might be a sense of false complacency resulting from the sense of well being and 2nd , there might be a underlying belief that a weak club such as theirs could not possibly win 3 in a row. A psychological glass ceiling starts to form in the team’s mind and this more often than not, becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The same, however, cannot be said for the top clubs. Top clubs have higher expectations. They are hungrier. 1 win is totally expected. 2 or 3 quite normal. In fact, losses are considered out of the ordinary and to be avoided at all costs. The min result top teams might grudgingly accept is an away draw and only to another top team. That is why most winning teams look to bounce back in the subsequent game following a defect; especially a heavy one.
Most systems would give a higher Weightage to an away win or a draw than to a home win or draw respectively. I used 3 for away win ,1.5 for away draw, 2 for home win, 1 for home draw, and 0 for any lost. (That is just for me, feel free to test out).
Subsequetly, Timers are multply to the Weightage above to simulate the team form more accurately. Namely, give the nearest result a higher timer like 5, next 4, .... furtherst 1. Total then and you have like;
Team Form= 5xW1+ 4xW2+ .....1xW1
Take the difference between 2 opposing team and you have the Form Gap. Hence you will have yourself the theoritical portion of the chart.
For the satistical part, the steps are quite similar to the home advantage chart in chap 2;
Note the Form Gap vs the final results and create frequency chart/table. Take the next data in a new Form Gap and compare to the nearest.
As similar to the satistical portion of chap 2, I used a selection method of nearest 3 and nearest. Thus giving me a more bird eye view of the data.
This chart has a good advantage of incoporating all the direct/indirect factors into its stride, making it the most accurate in all the charts in the market. A disadvantage is take min 5 matches for the data to materialize, another 3 match or so to set in and we can only take its prediction 2 months into the league, another disadvantage is just my personally opinion, for small leagues, it might behave irrationally.
The main factor that bookmakers usually take into consideration in decision of handicap is the 'Class' of the teams that are playing. Class essentially symbolizes a team’s overall talent, ability and to a certain extent, their potential. The classier team is highly talented, motivated and appears to possess vast potential. A large proportion of the betting public also seem to favour classy teams, not aware that the factor they based their decisions on have already been factored into the odds of the bookmakers, nullifying its importance.
Class is measured statistically, based on a team’s historical performance. Data from the past season till the last 10 yrs can be used to measure a team’s Class. The most common way of calculating the Class of a team is by a system of 'Performance Factors'.
Performance Factor is relevant in the sense that it is important to know the quality of a team’s win. A victorious team must have their win qualified by whom they have beaten and by how much of a goal margin. A clear example is that it is much better to beat ManU than to beat say Sunderland last year. It is also a more convincing win when you beat Chelsea 3-0 rather than 3-2. The goal difference is also a major contributer to tis 'Performance Factors'.
The book- makers have data going back 10 years to access the 'Performance Factors' and thus their Class . This together with 'Form Factors' (later will explain in chap 3) , Diect/Indirect factors will all be battered together in a pot and decide the Asian Handicap in football from which the initial 1x2 will be derived, the only difference is that for different broking house the weightage is difference and hence comes the different Asian Handicap sometimes. This is however very seldom, the more apporiate picture will be different odds for the same Asian Handicap with respects to a particular match.
Any win will obtain the same 3 points in the league table and so it is necessary to devise another system for the clubs to recognize the quality of wins and predicts the results for subsequent fixtures. So thus it is the quality of the win and not the win itself that can uplift a weaker team status. This is the essense of the theortical portion with my charts are based on.
To create such a Performance reference for myself, i use the following perimeters:
- Every club is equal in ranking at the start of the season and is arbitrarily given same points at the start, my assumption is that all teams start with a fresh sheet at the begining as there is a rest period for teams and tiz regenerates all the run/lost previously held. Also there are players comin in and players going out/retired, and it will not be the same team as before. The fresh start approach (different from bookmakers) also can utilisied the satistical portion of analysis giving rise to clearner data and batter sampling.
- The Home Field Advantage is widely accepted as a 0.2 goal advantage and is used as such here as well. This is to accord for pitch and crowd factor for the home team. 2 of the most important indirect factors is already taken care here, others like weather is assume to be in playable conditions.- Adjustment = (Home Performace – Away Performance) + 0.2 (simple right)
- To adjust for huge goal differences, we use a multiplier (let yu decide) in order to get more realistic predictions. (The absolute value of the Home Margin can be large at times and could produce distorted predictions like 10-0 quite regularly and hence the use of the multiplier, can offset to a more relistic level). This multiplier of (0.1/0.01) is good when your initial aribitury Performance Factors are small, if you happen to use value that are 1000 or 10000 for each team, than this mutiplier is negligible.
- The adjustments are added to each home team points and deducted from each away team points when the results are available. This give rise to new Performance Factors.
The satistaical portion of the analysis is a more complicated affair, I try to break down as simple as possible. Based on data from Performance Factors, and the asian handicap issue by booking houses, i do the following steps;
- Capture the previous adjustment and results for the Performance Factors (PF) and note them down. Create a reference table to where the satistical frequency of adjustments (PF) and results are display.
- From the new handicap issued, and the new PF , compare the new handicap with the result wrt the nearest adjustment you find on the table and walla, a satistical prediction.
My predictions also include nearest of 3 predictions to give a better picture. The below are final prediction results over 1 year for the top 6 league in Europe. Namely English/German/Spain/Italy/ France/ Holland.
Nearest of 3/ Nearest
ENG 1 / -14.5 FRA 7.5 / 22.5 HOL -0.5 / 27.5 GER 2 / -7 ITA 11 / -15.5 SPL 2.5 /15.5
A major point I like to highlight is that when observing the occurance in tiz chart, once there is a swing, follow it deligently as this is when the statistical chart has highlighted a trend (+ or -). In placing a bet from the charts, the most fustrating thing is when you observe a trend, a swing in the opposite direction occur, such things are common as in stocks/shares. Thus, discipline is required and strongly believe in the charts and the final year end results that it can bring, never let a couple of weeks dishearten you, also I do notice such swingback occur very frequently, especially in winter months of Nov/Dec/Jan and the end season Apr/May. It may be a better idea to switch to the Form Chart during this periods as unsuspected weather/pitch conditions (indirect facors) come into play which is the charts biggest counter factors.
I know direct factors must also have a weightage but never 1 or 2 star player injuiry can lead to a team downfall, subsitutes are equally adept and more inspired to produce a winning performance, so team play counts and thats way I assume direct factor as null.
A simple point to take note, statistical systems like this are fairly reliable. However, it is a tedious process. When you are maintaining ranking tables like these for several different leagues, mistakes occur and it is time consuming to spot them. Any system works much better at least 5 games into the season, where there is a bigger sample of results to work with and where teams are more settled. Thats why I much perfer all of yu visit my blogsite and let me do all the work, I enjoy it anyway and like the attention will get.
Football betting is crazy. So much money is transacted each week that it is amazing how most punters continue to wager on football matches while not fully understanding the various factors that influence outcome. Many have made an effort to gain more knowledge on the subject but there is still relatively little literature out there to equip the betting public with an organized framework to see the game with a clearer perspective.
Like what I mention in previous post, there are softwares out that can predict 1x2, accurately 70% of the way but never 1 that is able to try predict asian handicap. True, the hit rate is good but any punters or user will tell yu most of the time, it will predict home win, but the payout is so miserable it can be wipe out after a series of 'off-day' betting. So at last maybe yu stand to gain 20% or so if yu are lucky that year, the problems lies with the weightage for such calculatons with tend to skewer to the home team , hoping that majority of the hot/home team will persists in their run, but the winnings are usually very little too significanly cover the loses. At last balancing to null.
The aim of my publish is to better equip the reader with predictions from a chart (formulas) that would provide a guilding light thru satistical analysis, in other words, over time, matches that have similar hadicap will tend to follow a certain trend or buck(reverse) a trend given all teams/players/pitch/weather are equal in a home/away circumstances. Naturally, the only effects are generated from results from previous weeks so as to statiscally visualize the next upcoming matches based on availability of asian handicap. My investigaton have the below assumption;
Teams all start off same in a year, no favourite & no underdogs, the champions or the just prometed have equal staus, previous reputation is zap.
Direct factors like players injuries or coach perferences matters nothing, we are not playing fantasy football but actual handicap prediction.
Indiect factors like pitch condictions/wheather is discounted.
Cup matches does not apply here, it is between a home or away team in a league over a season of home and away matches.
The statistical chart examines all the known factors that influence the outcome of football matches and simplify into a existing theory; all events will repeat itself given the same handicap over a period of time, if there are too many variable, the chart is able to pick it up and hightlight to the user, helping him/her in lesser a mistake when going all out for a bet.
I have generally classify the tools that people used to pick a winner to simply 3 major methods;
The home advantage chart
This chart generally factors in the home team with a initial handicap of 0.2, to accord for the 12th person which is the home crowd, tiz chart can also be call goals difference chart as a significant scoring in a match can pull a team up in points and improve their standing in the statiscal table, hence good for early prediction in the early weeks (4th-8th weeks) when form not set in.
The form chart
This chart generally factors 2 forecoming teams with their last 5 match form coming to play, i give a weightage to home win/home draw/away win/away draw/straight lost and compared the outcome in realtion to the asianhandicap.
The sequence chart
This chart can symbolises the runs/stops of overcoming the asianhandicap, I only have a thought but I have not maths out the statiscal capability of such a chart, but I know most khakis to have use its methods many a time in the betting battlefield. Most common guide, wah the f***king team won 3 in a row, time to lose lah, this is widely used in software prediction tools for 1x2 results, and is the most premitive tools i noticed in soccer prediction. However there are perks and cons in using such a method, i will mention further in future post.
Last but not list I will have 2 sets of predictions in each chart , 1 set is the nearest to the outcome from previous results, another is the nearest of 3 to the outcome from previous results, I do this as a localised sampling of results to achieve a more homogenious and non-bias prediction, I have before embarked on near 5/10 localised sample but it is too tedious and chaotic to maintain so down to 3.
Chap 5: Other Factors and Summary
