By Simon Kuper, Stefan Szymanski

Why do England lose? Why does Scotland suck? Why doesn’t the USA dominate the game internationally...and why do the Germans play with such an effective yet robot style?
These are questions each football aficionado has requested. Soccernomics solutions them.
Using insights and analogies from economics, data, psychology, and company to solid a brand new and enjoyable mild on how the sport works, Soccernomics unearths the customarily unusually counterintuitive truths approximately football. a vital consultant for the 2010 global Cup, Soccernomics is a brand new method of taking a look at the world’s preferred online game.

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Extra resources for Soccernomics: Why England Loses, Why Germany and Brazil Win, and Why the U.S., Japan, Australia, Turkey--and Even Iraq--Are Destined to Become the Kings of the World's Most Popular Sport

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After accounting for all of these factors, if pitchers or hitters have clutch ability, then past RISP performance should predict present RISP performance. The results presented in the table below strongly support the hypotheses that neither hitters nor pitchers have clutch ability. The table below reports the estimated impact of each factor on the likelihood of the outcome occurring, where a one-unit change in the predicting variable is associated with an X-unit change in the outcome variable at the average.

0000018. For practical purposes, there is no effect here; especially when compared to the other factors in the model. The performance variables show a nearly one-for-one relationship with outcomes. 3 to 4 percent—that is, 14 to 17 points in batting average and 33 to 40 points of on-base percentage. 043 bases or 39 to 43 points of slugging average. Those who wish to cling to the idea that clutch ability exists may identify imperfections in the analysis to justify their continued faith in clutch players.

Other metrics are also subject to random fluctuations; therefore, care must be taken when inferring skills from any performance metric. At this stage it appears that several offensive metrics are highly correlated with run production and are similarly stable. Any of these metrics would do a fine job at estimating player value, but because I have to choose one metric for valuing hitters, I use the one that makes the most intuitive sense, which the third criterion requires. OPS, battter’s run average, and runs created measure batting skill, but do not include stolen bases.

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