Home is good, but away is best! When talking about La Liga this phrase becomes a lot more meaningful than you might think.
Hello and welcome to another round of Stigsby’s Statistics!
This time I have decided to focus on the away strength and the outcome of the season. With Barcelona’s current away form, breaking the record from 1927-1928, and the impressive win against Sevilla away it becomes even more relevant.
First thing we should do is look at history, what teams have won how many titles and how well have they performed away. It turns out that the Real Madrid has been the most successful, not that surprising to most of us, but it should be mentioned.
What is more interesting here is that they actually have quite a high amount of average points in away matches. As we look at the top 5 most winning teams in the Spanish league a pattern seems to appear, the titles descend as the average away points descend! The only thing talking against it here is the position of Athletic Bilbao and Valencia, but that could easily be explained by the fewer matches (seasons and thereby title potentials) played by Valencia.
It is now the more pessimistic reader comes in to play, having a high grade of average away points could also be explained by a high grade of average points overall? I mean, if a team are good they will of course also get a lot of points away. Couldn’t it just be a coincidence that the most successful title winners also have the highest amount of away points?
We’ve now reached the point where I will dismiss the doubt of even the most pessimistic reader! In the last 7 season the title has gone to the strongest away team in 6 of the seasons, only ONCE to another team. But come on, it might as well have been because they were dominant on home field; I still haven’t given you a completely bulletproof fact yet? Well here it comes, in those 7 seasons where 6 were won by the strongest away team, only ONCE has the winner of the season been the strongest at home field.
As you can see above there is a strong correlation between the strongest away and the final title winner, I’ve even been so bold to add the current home and away form of this season. If the statistics holds this season we could look forward to a league win for Barcelona. Barcelona is currently the strongest away team with 19 points in 7 away matches, closely followed by Villarreal with 15 points and Valencia with 12 points for 6 away matches.
Bet you guys enjoy the impressive Sevilla away win just a tiny bit more now ;)
Stigsby
Posts
10 comments:
Couldn't get that first table bigger but you can enlarge it by clicking on it.
Wow, surprising (and interesting) indeed. Great work, Stigsby!
And how strong we were in 2005-2006, dominating the league and winning the Champions League...
It's fine as it is Pep, nice and quick publishing, good work :)
Cheers FCBee, always nice with positive comments!
Good work!but we shouldnt put our hope(s) up becos its far too early.i pray barca continue to play and win esp.in away games.
Hehe of course Ife, this is merely a picture of how important away matches are. The careful prediction is based on Barca hopefully continuing their current form. It can easily change if the form should somehow change to the opposite :)
good job. last year was dreadful in terms of performing in away matches.besides, our last league titles were officially confirmed away, in 04-05 it was victory over Valencia in mestalla that proved the decisive moment, in 05-06 it was in Vigo. by the way Eto'O played the major role in all those games.
Very interesting, it put statistical Data in the right place for football, signs to evolve in analysis but not stand alone permanent judgment.
Keep it up, stat Man!
Interesting little statistic. Original!
the consistency of the results is just amaizing! for me, the idea that the team with the largest no. of away wins have the highest chances to win the league has always been there, but what shocked me is that there was almost no exceptions from this rule in the last 7 seasons
Post a Comment