Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Faculty of Engineering Sciences Department of Industrial Engineering & Management
BEN-GURION UNIVERSITY OF THE NEGEV FACULTY OF ENGINEERING SCIENCES DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING & MANAGEMENT Momentum in Football THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE M.Sc DEGREE By: Emri Dolev March, 2020 01.03.2020 _ 1/3/2020 i Abstract: Many studies have been conducted on momentum in sports, with contrasting results and their underlying explanations debated greatly. We define momentum to be a state where success in a previous event leads to an increased likelihood of success in the next corresponding event. The initial argument regarded the validity of calling momentum by its name, with the “Hot-Hand” fallacy (Gilovich, Vallone, & Tversky, 1985) stating that the momentum that is seen and perceived is nothing but a human heuristic which allows us to see patterns, even when those patterns are random. Curiously, unlike other sporting fields, this topic has hardly been studied in the world’s most popular sport – football. As part of this study we carried out an observational, time-series analysis of both team and player levels from the elite European football leagues. We discovered evidence for the existence of momentum carried over from match to match for football forwards as a result of providing goals in their previous appearance. On a team level, only a weak momentum effect was found – which could be better attributed to the teams’ qualities. We discuss the implications of these findings and propose future directions of research that should be conducted in order to further the research of momentum in football. Keywords: Momentum, Football, Sports, Hot Hand, Mixed Logistic Regression, Statistics ii Acknowledgements I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my two academic advisors – Professor Yisrael Parmet and Professor Miki Bar-Eli for helping to guide me through the process of writing this thesis.
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