SAM predicts top European leagues
Thursday 16 March 2017
A sport prediction machine developed by experts at the University of Salford has now taken a look at Europe’s top leagues.
The Sports Analytics Machine (SAM) has run the numbers on the top leagues in Spain, Germany, France and Italy.
SAM, designed and developed by Professor Ian McHale and his team in the Business School at the University of Salford, simulated the rest of the season one million times to find the likely finishing position of each team in the leagues. The machine uses dozens of player stats such as dribbles, tackles, passes, shots etc to come up with its predicted scorelines. It also analyses performances of players and teams.
In Germany they may as well hand over the trophy to Bayern now, the Bavarian team have a 99.9% chance of taking the Bundesliga title. Leipzig (99%) and Dortmund (97%) are almost certain to claim a top four sport. The final Champions League place is more interesting though, with Hoffenheim (59%) and Hertha Berlin (33%) fighting it out, with Koln and Frankfurt having only slim chances of making it.
At the bottom Darmstadt look doomed with a near 100% certainty of the drop, and Ingolstadt are also likely to go down with only an 11% chance of staying up. Perhaps most interesting is that Hamburg, who are the only team in Germany to never have been relegated, face a battle to stay in the top division.
Fortunately the race for the title in other leagues is tighter. In Spain, Real Madrid are favourites with a 61% chance with Barcelona on 38%. The top four looks to be wrapped up with Sevilla and Atletico very likely to claim the other spots. Osasuna, Granada and Sporting Gijon all have a greater than 85% of going down.
France currently has the tightest race for the top spot, with Monaco (56%) and PSG (42%) vying for the title with the race looking like it will go to the wire, while in Italy Juventus are running away with the league, having a 96% chance of winning Serie A.
Professor McHale said: “Our stats cover all of the top leagues in Europe. As such, our predictions for the other leagues are just as accurate as those for the Premier League. We run our simulations millions of times and each time every result between now and the end of the season is predicted, which allows us to come up with final predicted league tables.
“We are getting to the closing stages of these leagues now which should make our predictions all the more accurate as we have a lot of information on how the teams and players are performing. Germany and Italy look like forgone conclusions but there could be excitement at the top of the table in Spain and France.”
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Sam Wood
0161 295 5361
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