[HN Gopher] Win, lose, or draw: trends in English football match...
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Win, lose, or draw: trends in English football match results
Author : Vermin2000
Score : 35 points
Date : 2025-07-11 17:23 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.engora.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.engora.com)
| h46u5jytyhtg wrote:
| I completely disagree with the premise of the article that draws
| are most boring and the wider the score difference the more
| interesting the game is.
|
| Frequently draws are very exciting, they can make compelling
| viewing. In a game that is completely dominated by one team,
| there can be very little of interest.
|
| An alternative metric would be the degree of uncertainty/jeopardy
| in the game. So a game that ends 1-1 has a high degree of
| jeopardy because at any moment a team can score and take point
| from the other team.
| WesleyLivesay wrote:
| Agreed, classifying all draws as boring is just wrong.
|
| There are boring draws, some are excruciating to watch because
| so little is happening.
|
| There are also draws that are the most stressful, exciting, and
| action packed games you will ever see.
| empath75 wrote:
| What makes draws interesting or not depends on two things,
| what is happening on the field (were there good chances? A
| lot of goals? Interesting strategic play?), and also the
| context of the game. Does the outcome matter for your team,
| or not?
|
| Some of the best games I've ever watched ended in draws, but
| that point mattered for whether my team was going to take
| over first place or not, or whether they made it out of the
| group stage or not.
|
| The really boring draws are when one team is basically just
| playing very defensively and also the game doesn't matter to
| either team.
| kmnc wrote:
| Yeah but if you're actually hoping for one of those teams to
| win, and not just watching for the "quality" of a match a draw
| is, always boring.
| 0xcafecafe wrote:
| Most of the time unless your club is playing, you'd root for
| a draw in games between top teams for the rivals to drop
| points. So rooting for a draw is more exciting for a
| Liverpool fan watching an Arsenal City game for instance.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Someone else mentioned needing additional stats to just the
| score line. There are most definitely boring draws. There are
| also boring blow outs. If the draw comes with lots of saves,
| which naturally means lots of shots on target, lots of
| corners, equal time of possession, then that would be a much
| more exciting match. A game with a low shot count and few
| corners would indicate a potentially boring game
| FranklinMaillot wrote:
| The number of goals scored in a game would be a better metric
| in my opinion.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Like those thrilling 3-0 American Throwball scores that are
| labeled classic defensive battles? In proper Football, that's
| just called parking the bus
| thom wrote:
| The sum of positive possession-value deltas! Captures end-to-
| end games where exciting dribbles nevertheless don't convert
| into shots or goals.
| tharmas wrote:
| Agreed as well. I would say shots on target (not straight at
| the goalkeeper) are a good metric of an exciting game. I would
| also include near misses past the post and just over the bar as
| I don't think these are officially counted as "shots on
| target".
|
| Dribbles or passing plays into the box which may not result in
| a shot are exciting too. For match excitement/entertainment
| value these should be measured also.
| OneFriend2575 wrote:
| The sharp drop in Premier League draws after 1993 clearly lines
| up with increasing club inequality, something most fans feel but
| isn't always backed by data.
|
| It raises an important question: is competitive balance worse for
| business? Fans love unpredictability, but money seems to be
| concentrating power.
| mrkramer wrote:
| Few months ago I was watching Bernie Ecclestone and Max Mosley
| interviews and they said that in F1 there should be a cap on
| how much teams are allowed to spend because Mercedes always
| wins....but in football there are no such thoughts and limits
| and that's why Manchester City and PSG rose so hard in the last
| 10 years. If you pump billions of dollars into any business,
| you will more likely win than not win, just look at TikTok,
| they pumped billions into advertising and user-acqisition and
| now they rule on mobile.
| dylan604 wrote:
| There absolutely are limits on how much can be spent. That's
| why Man City is under investigation of 100+ charges for
| violating FFP, financial fair play, rules.
|
| Even the Yankees were deemed unbeatable because the power of
| their checkbook, yet they haven't won the World Series since
| 2009 (according to quick search. I don't follow baseball). So
| the big purse isn't always the thing people make it to be.
| Sure it helps, but no guarantees. Otherwise, moneyball
| wouldn't have been a thing
| mrkramer wrote:
| >There absolutely are limits on how much can be spent.
| That's why Man City is under investigation of 100+ charges
| for violating FFP, financial fair play, rules.
|
| They are under investigation posteriori, they should've
| been stopped apriori acquiring top players for large sums
| of money.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I do not accept that premise at all. You make it sound
| like they discovered it was wrong after the fact rather
| than knowing the rules before making the decision. That's
| some serious white washing
| mrkramer wrote:
| My intention was preventing the abuse of financial power
| e.g. put price controls on player acquisitions so
| Manchester City or PSG are not allowed to pay EUR100M for
| a new player while other clubs can't afford top players
| or rising stars. It would disturb the football industry
| at first but you can make that policy dynamic or in
| another words limits change as the macro climate in the
| football industry changes.
| tharmas wrote:
| Unfortunately, because of the phenomenon of "brand loyalty"
| fans will continue to support their teams even when they have
| no chance of winning anything (due to lack of finances); and
| the elites that run the EPL know this all too well.
|
| Much more fun to go out and support lower league clubs. And
| cheaper too.
| mfro wrote:
| While the premise of 'draws are boring' is debatable, I do think
| the discussion on unequal finances in prem clubs needs to
| continue. For some years parachute payments have helped with the
| relegation issues, but there seems to be a recurring issue of the
| top 4 clubs ignoring their spending limits and overall
| compounding their power transferring top players.
|
| Also, nice article. I enjoyed the interactive graphs.
| close04 wrote:
| > the premise of 'draws are boring' is debatable
|
| I also found this a bit off. Lots of goals ending in a draw can
| also be great fun. Wins are great for _the fans_ of the winning
| team. But if you 're a fan of _the sport_ , then an engaging
| match, ideally with lots of goals is more fun even if it's a
| draw.
|
| I've seen plenty of absolutely thrilling goalless draws, and
| plenty of boring 1 goal wins.
| dylan604 wrote:
| As a fan, there are times when competing for the top spot you
| wish draws on rivals. Then there are times when you hope both
| teams in a match lose.
| clueless wrote:
| the result of the last World cup (2022) finale being the
| absolute best example of such engaging match...
| zerkten wrote:
| I feel exactly the same way. Scoring, or high scoring draws
| along with metrics like attempted shots would be an
| interesting element to look at. A team like Manchester United
| where there is data for long periods of droughts and success
| show how some of these metrics go through the floor in what
| fans would identify as bad times (there are so many poor-
| quality draws since Ferguson left.)
|
| I found it particularly interesting that someone from the UK
| (as the author appears to be) suggested that draws might be
| boring. In my personal experience, that tends to be a North
| American phenomenon (not that others don't or can't express
| that feeling).
|
| On a related note, Cricket draws can be epic. There are many
| examples like
| https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2009/dec/06/michael-
| athert....
| tharmas wrote:
| Precisely. Evenly matched teams can make for an exciting
| game. Sure, if they play extremely conservatively it could be
| a bore.
|
| But is one team thrashing another 5 - Nil (even in the first
| half) an "exciting game? Id argue not, for both sets of fans.
|
| But in the money league (aka EPL) this is a big problem for
| many of the games.
|
| Also, its the same small set of teams vying for the title
| EVERY year after year after year. Its almost as bad as the
| Bundesliga. Seriously, is Bayern Munchin going to win the
| Bundesliga this year? Or is it Rael Madrid or Barcelona that
| are going to win the Spanish League? Celtic or Rangers?
| BORING!
|
| Say what you will about the American NFL, but at least they
| have more variety in who wins the Super Bowl. But they do
| have to sort out the lopsided score always in the final.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| 0-0 draws can be very boring. Aside from that I don't mind
| draws at all.
|
| You guessed it: I didn't grow up in the US :)
| HenryBemis wrote:
| > If your team always wins, why do you care?
|
| Betting/gambling. Also talking shit to your friends in the pub
| which support the 'other' team (in a (friendly) banter).
|
| I remember when I was betting (a lot) with Ladbrokes 15-20 years
| ago, I _loved_ statistics. But win/lose/draw was never my cup of
| tea. I would study the numbers and find teams who score/receive a
| lot and would bet on Over/Under. It didn't even have to be the
| 'premier' leagues. There were teams in Finland and Netherlands
| that would have an aggregate of 6-8 goals in most games. This was
| as certain as it could be. Low yield but steady yield. It just
| took time. I assume now with LLMs, one could write a prompt that
| would get an LLM to scour the interweb and give it "the games
| with over/under of x1.5 or more and teams that do so-and-so..
| but.. who has time for that!
| darkwater wrote:
| Looking from the perspective of other top tier European countries
| leagues (Spain & Italy), the English Premiere League is always
| seen as an example of more equal money distribution (beside
| having more absolute money in general, I think a newly promoted
| team there earns more from thei own league than the 5th club in
| Italy IIRC), so this article kind of surprised me. Is this a
| "point of view" issue or do we get factually wrong information
| outside England?
| zerkten wrote:
| I think what you are observing is for it to be more valuable to
| own any part of the Premier League. The top clubs were spoken
| for long ago in terms of ownership, so anyone looking for a
| piece of the pie needs to pick clubs lower down. When picking a
| club, you want one that has stability.
|
| Eventually you get people having to invest in riskier clubs,
| like Leeds United, who don't quite have traction as they float
| in and out of the Premier League. This is still viewed as more
| valuable than other European leagues.
|
| There are factors like ownership rules, limits on tickets
| prices, and politics in other leagues which make it less
| attractive for external entities to buy in. Therefore, there is
| less value in owning a smaller piece of it.
|
| As with the Super League you'll get a lot of resistance from
| the clubs and authorities when there is a threat to some of the
| big clubs. They know that when things start changing,
| investment will come to some of the smaller and less successful
| clubs which will change the dynamics. Everyone knows that it'll
| change many elements of the game and people are rightly
| protective when they can be.
| bretpiatt wrote:
| English football, unlike tic-tac-toe, can be thrilling and end in
| a draw. Possession mix, shots on goal, and more stats are useful
| to determine how exciting a match was from a box score.
|
| Frankly, for me the most boring is a 2-0 win where the team
| scores those 2 in the first 20 to 30 minutes, swaps to a 5-4-1,
| and plays tiki-taka passing possession control without trying
| hard to advance the ball for the remaining hour of the match.
| red_trumpet wrote:
| Tic-tac-toe certainly can end in a draw though...
| empath75 wrote:
| MLS works really hard to keep a "level playing field" in terms of
| spending, and really leans into "parity", and also has a knockout
| tournament to figure out the "champion", so whoever wins the
| championship season to season is basically a crap shoot.
|
| Miami set the record for most points earned in a season for the
| regular season and then went out in the first round to an 8th
| seeded team. LA Galaxy won the title last season and are
| currently sitting at the bottom of the table halfway through the
| season.
|
| Anybody can win any game, but most of the teams are thoroughly
| mediocre, and MLS struggles even to beat Mexican teams, let alone
| do well at something like the Club World Cup (Miami being an
| exception because they spent the money to sign the best person in
| the history of soccer to the team, and even then they suffered
| from the lack of depth caused by the salary cap).
|
| IMO, parity and mediocrity is also boring, and I would much
| prefer a league that allowed teams to spend more if they want and
| really try to compete on an international level. Even if that
| means you have 2 or 3 teams that dominate the league, that is not
| necessarily bad. Baseball was dominated by the Yankees for
| literally decades, and it survived and even thrived.
| DizzyDoo wrote:
| Hmm, I'm not convinced that one team dominating a league leads
| to exciting outcomes. What do you think about Bundesliga's
| situation?[0]
|
| [0] -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundesliga#List_of_champions
| PaulHoule wrote:
| I find those charts hard to read because there is so much going
| on. If they were made less cluttered I think I could take away a
| more clear message.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| I think this measures the wrong thing.
|
| 0-0 games are boring, but not because they're draws. It's because
| there are no goals!
|
| I think most fans agree with me that a 2-2 draw is more
| entertaining than a 1-0 win.
| Detrytus wrote:
| Yes, they are wrong about calling draws less exciting. 0-0
| games can still have a lot of action, and many near misses. 3-0
| win can be boring, one sided game.
|
| Also, article makes another stupid claim when they try to
| extrapolate from a single game to average score in the whole
| season. A league where most games end in a draw would be very
| exciting, because pretty much every team would have an equal
| chance of winning a championship (and also of being relegated
| to lower league).
|
| The most boring leagues are the ones such as French Ligue 1 or
| German Bundesliga, with one team clearly dominating the
| competition (PSG and Bayern, respectively). Premiership is
| probably the most exciting one, with most teams having real
| shot at championship.
| znkynz wrote:
| >most teams having real shot at championship.
|
| Um. Yeah. No. In the last 10 seasons, 4 different teams have
| won titles. One of those have won it 6 times.
| mnaimd wrote:
| Here is not a sport debate forum but,
|
| The amount of competition is Higher in Premier League.
| Teams like brentford or Brighton play top-tier football
| although they have no chance winning the title.
|
| Arsenal is a complete loser, If Liverpool was instead of
| them in the title races of 22/23 and 23/24 they would have
| more chance.
| mnaimd wrote:
| It's very stupid to think that a draw is boring. even a 0-0 match
| can sometimes be exciting.
|
| What should be the measure of "boringness" of a game is Expected
| Goals, better known as xG. And of course a game with both teams
| having 1.3 xG is much better than 4xG vs. 0.04xG.
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