Comparing the Predictive Power of Past Results Between Soccer Leagues

Sammanfattning: In this thesis, the performance of a number of models used to predict the result in soccer games has been investigated, using data on the previously played games in the league. Established models were implemented, and tested on a wide set of soccer leagues during several years. The performance of each model was measured using the likelihood ratio against a simple baseline distribution. The performance of these models was then analyzed to find systematic differences correlating with some properties of a soccer league, such as average number of goals in the league, and determine which models overall performed best. The results showed that such differences do exist, correlating with the average number of goals in a league as well as the variance in performance among teams in the league. Additionally, statistically significant differences in the performance of some models were established.