Dresden 2017 – scientific programme

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SOE: Fachverband Physik sozio-ökonomischer Systeme

SOE 21: Social Systems II

SOE 21.4: Talk

Thursday, March 23, 2017, 17:45–18:00, GÖR 226

Elo vs. Fifa ranking: how to best estimate the strength of soccer teams? — Patrick Bücker, Oliver Rubner, and •Andreas Heuer — Institut für Physikalische Chemie, WWU Münster, 48149 Münster

In chess it is common to attribute an Elo value to each player as a measure of his/her quality. From the difference of the Elo values of two players the probabilities of the possible outcomes of a chess match can be predicted.

Recently, the Elo approach has been generalized to soccer for club teams as well as for national teams [1]. On the national level the Elo ranking system opposes the better known Fifa ranking system.

Based on the known probabilistic properties of soccer matches [2] we have analysed the strengths and weaknesses of the Elo approach. It turns out that in particular for the relevant case of time-dependent variations of the team strengths the Elo approach performs very well and allows a reliable prediction of the outcome of soccer matches. Furthermore, possible improvements are suggested and a comparison with the Fifa ranking is discussed.

[1] http://www.eloratings.net

[2] A. Heuer, O. Rubner, PLoS ONE 9, e104647 (2014)