Simulating The EPL and Serie A Lockdown Season
The strongest football league and my favorite league in the world, The EPL and Serie A, has made a return. Currently as I am writing this blog post Manchester United is down 1-0 to Crystal Palace in the second fixture in the 2020-2021 season of the prem. However, I will take you back to the 2019/2020 season which I will refer to as the "Lockdown Season" because of course the global pandemic. While taking Uppsala's Football Data Science, we spoke briefly about simulating matches, so I decided to simulate my two favorite leagues the Serie A and the EPL. Although, there is a catch, instead of simulating the whole league, I will put the top 10 teams against each other and to see who is the definitive of their league according to the Machine Learning model that I am going to use.
Here is a picture of both leagues Top 10 to give clearer picture of what I am going to do.
Credit for image in this link
So in England, we have Liverpool, Man City, Man United, Chelsea, Arsenal, and Spurs to name a few of teams that will compete in the simulation.
And in Italy, we have Juventus, Inter, Lazio, Milan, Atalana, and Napoli will be the biggest teams that will in our Serie A simulation. However, you will talk a little more about the Machine Learning model first.
The model that simulates the leagues and the data
The model was created by this user, Dashee78. He used the data from http://www.football-data.co.uk/mmz4281/1920/E0.csv which is a website that gives data for all European leagues and also includes non-European league such as SAF. Two points I need to talk about is that this model overestimates lower teams(Wolves, Burnley, Verona, and etc.) and underestimate higher teams(Juve, Liverpool, Man City, etc) in each table. Playing home has an advantage as it gives a team 20% more chance to win according to the model. Let's start with simulating half a season for each, look at tables and then simulate the rest of the season and crown our winners. So let's start the simulation!
Shocking start for Man United while Man City and Liverpool battle it out on top
After simulating through the top 10 teams in the EPL, we had Manchester United grabbing only 10 points out of 9 games while scoring only 7 goals and conceding 16. Man City and Liverpool are currently undefeated with 8 wins and a draw for city and 7 wins, two draws for Liverpool. Arsenal fans should rejoice as they finished the first half above Spurs with one point difference as Arsenal has 14 points and Spurs has 13 points. Although, Chelsea finishes above both in third with 16 points. With a gap of 7 points between third and second, I think the league between Manchester City and LIverpool. Before looking to the full table, let's look at some facts.
Highest scoring team
Liverpool with 28 goals than Manchester City with 22
Strongest Defence
Manchester City conceding only three goals in 9 games!
Biggest Upset
Leicester City won 4-1 vs Manchester United in KIng Power Stadium
Highest number of goals in single match
8. When LIverpool won at Anfield against Chelsea 6-2
Finally the table
- Manchester City 25 points
- Liverpool 23 points
- Chelsea 16 points
- Arsenal 14 points
- Spurs 13 points
- Sheffield 13 points
- Manchester United 10 points
- Wolves 9 points
- Leicester 7 points
- Burnley 7 points
While Juve is still on top, three points difference between the first and fifth, Mediocre Milan, and Roma and Napoli are struggling
As predicted, Juve are top of the league with 19 points; however, we have Lazio with 18 points in second, Atalanta and Fiorentina ( dark horse of the first part of the season) share the 3rd spot with 17 points and Inter Milan in 5th with 16 points. Milan's performance was as usual. Good enough to beat B teams but not good enough to play with the big boys with 13 points in sixth. Followed Roma, and Napoli who both had a shocker of start with 7 and 6 points respectively. Let's look at some facts then the full table.
Highest scoring team
Juve with 24 goals
Best Defence
Inter with 10 goals conceded
Biggest Upset
For this spot, we have two matches. Juve losing to Inter 5-1 at home and Napoli losing at home to Sassuolo 0-4
Highest scoreline
5-3 Juve vs Napoli
The table as it stands
- Juve 19
- Lazio 18
- Atalanta 17
- Fiorentina 17
- Inter 16
- Milan 13
- Roma 7
- Napoli 6
- Sassuolo 5
- Verona 4
Now it is time to wrap the EPL and see who wins the EPL lockdown season
Arsenal decides the fate of the Prem, Liverpool pulls an invincibles season, and Spurs takes the term "bottling" to a whole new level
Highest scoring team
Liverpool with 51 goals
Best Defence
Manchester City with 15 goals conceded
Biggest Upset
Sheffield winning 2 0 vs Chelsea
Highest scoreline
4-4 Liverpool vs Man City
Finally the table
- Liverpool 46 points
- Manchester City 45 points
- Arsenal 30 points
- Chelsea 28 points
- Manchester United 24 points
- Wolves 21 points
- Sheffield 20 points
- Spurs 19 points
- Leicester 17 points
- Burnley 11 points
Now the Serie A, this was a hard one.
Juve and Inter ties on top of the table and the head-to-head rules decide who wins the title while Atalanta lags behind and Lazio falls from grace.
Juve managed to get 16 points from last 9 games getting a total of 35 points. They lost to both Milano sides and drew 4 games. Even Milan just repeated they did last round getting a total of 26 points, but Inter Milan got 19 points having the same total points as Juve 35 at the top of the table and according to the Serie A rules, we look to the matches that Juve and Inter played. Since Inter won both games 5-1 and 1-0 winning a title away from Juve in the most dramatic way ever. Let's jump to the facts then the table and wrap up this long blog post. Lazio did a "Spurs" grabbing one win and drawing 3 to get 6 points out of the last nine games falling from 2nd to 6th.
Highest scoring team
Juve with 42 goals
Best Defence
Inter with 17 goals conceded
Biggest Upset
Sassuolo who finished 9th pulled another upset win beating Roma 4 2
Highest scoreline
2-5 Roma vs Atalanta
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