Predicting the outcome of a football game: A comparative analysis of single and ensemble analytics methods

Abstract

As analytical tools and techniques advance, increasingly large numbers of researchers apply these techniques on a variety of different sports. With nearly 4 billion followers, it is estimated that association football, or soccer, is the most popular sports for fans across the world by a large margin. The objective of this study is to develop a model to predict the outcomes of soccer (or association football) games (win-loss-draw), and determine factors that influence game outcomes. We used 10 years of comprehensive game-level data spanning the years 2007-2017 in the Turkish Super League, and tested a variety of classifiers to identify the most promising methods for outcome predictions.