When I try to understand a complex system like soccer, I usually find myself going through three stages of analysis. First I try to come up with a theory of the system that makes intuitive sense and reflects its actual dynamics, to the extent I can learn about them. Then I try to build a model based on this theory using rigorous statistical methods. Finally, I test the results from the model for their robustness, to make sure the whole exercise hasn’t led me to spurious or unwarranted conclusions. To my eye, the evaluation of expected goals models based on…
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