Regensburg 2010 – scientific programme
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SOE: Fachverband Physik sozio-ökonomischer Systeme
SOE 14: Social Systems, Opinion and Group Dynamics III
SOE 14.2: Talk
Wednesday, March 24, 2010, 14:15–14:30, H44
The Utility of Dismissing the Coach in Professional Soccer — •Andreas Heuer1, Christian Müller1, Oliver Rubner1, Bernd Strauss2 und Norbert Hagemann2 — 1WWU Münster, Inst. f. Phys. Chemie — 2WWU Münster, Institut f. Sportwissenschaften
A frequent response to a series of lost matches in team sports is to change the coach mid-season. The empirical data (German Premier Soccer League; 1963-2008) show in qualitative agreement with a previous study [1] that immediately before the dismissal the results became worse. After the dismissal one observes a significant improvement of the results for that team even as compared to the average results in the whole season before the dismissal. In this contribution these data are interpreted on a quantitative basis. We make use of our previous results about the underlying statistical properties of a soccer league [2]. Of particular relevance is the well-defined concept of the team fitness. In qualitative agreement with [1] a careful application of these concepts allows us to show that the team fitness is not(!) improved as a consequence of the dismissal of a coach. The apparent improvement of the results is just a consequence of the "regression towards the mean" and thus just a merely statistical effect since it would have also occurred without the dismissal of the coach. [1] Breuer, C. & Singer, R. (1996). Leistungssport, 26 (4), 41-46. [2] Heuer, A. & Rubner, O. (2009). European Physics Journal B, 67, 445-458.