Odd odds: The UEFA Champions League Round of 16 draw

Klößner, Stefan; Becker, Martin

doi:10.1515/jqas-2013-0016

Cited by 16 publications

(26 citation statements)

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“…A t-test comparing each proxy used in low and high altitudes shows that passing performances are not statistically different. Second, random selection is guaranteed if altitude 7 Although there is some evidence that draws might, to a certain degree, be influenced by its rules (Klößner and Becker 2013), in the Copa Libertadores the group stage draw determines the knockout round matches based on each team's final position during the group phase. Thus, at no stage are teams able to influence the altitude at which they will play in the future.…”

Section: Observationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gasping for air: soccer players’ passing behavior at high-altitude

Tovar

2014

Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports

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A number of soccer officials have long debated whether to ban soccer games played at high altitude above sea level. This paper explores soccer player's passing behavior when playing at high elevations using Copa Libertadores data. For this, I propose a range of direct indicators when playing at high altitude: the number of total passes, the number of passes in the opposition's half, and the number of successful passes. I also review the effects on the percentage of successful passes and the percentage of successful passes in the opponents' half of the field. Player's passing abilities are compared for games played away above 2500 m (8202 feet) vis-à-vis those held below that threshold. The results show that the percentage of successful passes rises by about 5.6 percentage points, mostly driven by each player's behavior in his own half. Following earlier findings by Romer (2006) and Palacios-Huerta (2014), who state that players behave conservatively under certain circumstances, I argue that players' have prior believes about the effects of playing at high altitude and consequently their risk aversion to lose the ball increases.

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Section: Observationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gasping for air: soccer players’ passing behavior at high-altitude

Tovar

2014

Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports

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“…The simulation model can be refined with respect to the winning probabilities. Finally, this study has ignored the problem that the restrictions make the draw unevenly distributed, which is unfair (Klößner and Becker, 2013). Unfortunately, these distortions can be mitigated only by slacking the constraints (Boczoń and Wilson, 2018).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…If there are some draw constraints, it is a non-trivial problem to pair the competitors since a valid matching should be obtained (Csató, 2021c). UEFA has followed its usual procedure (Klößner and Becker, 2013;Boczoń and Wilson, 2018) in the Europa League Round of 32 draw between the 2009/10 and the 2020/21 seasons. In particular, the 16 unseeded teams (12 Europa League group runners-up and four lower-ranked third-placed teams from the Champions League) are drawn randomly from an urn.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…On the other hand, draw restrictions in knockout tournaments have received far less attention. According to Klößner and Becker (2013), the mechanism used in the UEFA Champions League Round of 16 draw implies that every result of the draw could not have the same probability. Nonetheless, the UEFA draw procedure remains close to a constrained-best in terms of fairness (Boczoń and Wilson, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The effects of draw restrictions on knockout tournaments

Csató¹

2021

Preprint

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“…The current article is strongly connected to the works investigating the draw of round-robin groups under some geographical and/or seeding restrictions, too (Guyon 2015b;Laliena and López 2019;Cea et al 2020). The procedure of the UEFA Champions League Round of 16 draw has been considered by Klößner and Becker (2013), as well as by Boczoń and Wilson (2018). The importance of our analysis is reinforced by the fact that the draws of the UEFA Champions League are regularly discussed in the mainstream media (Guyon 2015a(Guyon , 2017a(Guyon , b, c, 2018a(Guyon , 2019a.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

The UEFA Champions League seeding is not strategy-proof since the 2015/16 season

Csató

2020

Ann Oper Res

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Fairness has several interpretations in sports, one of them being that the rules should guarantee incentive compatibility, namely, a team cannot be worse off due to better results in any feasible scenario. The current seeding regime of the most prestigious annual European club football tournament, the UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) Champions League, is shown to violate this requirement since the 2015/16 season. In particular, if the titleholder qualifies for the first pot by being a champion in a high-ranked league, its slot is given to a team from a lower-ranked association, which can harm a top club from the domestic championship of the titleholder. However, filling all vacancies through the national leagues excludes the presence of perverse incentives. UEFA is encouraged to introduce this policy from the 2021-24 cycle onwards.

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Odd odds: The UEFA Champions League Round of 16 draw

Cited by 16 publications

References 0 publications

Gasping for air: soccer players’ passing behavior at high-altitude

Gasping for air: soccer players’ passing behavior at high-altitude

The effects of draw restrictions on knockout tournaments

The UEFA Champions League seeding is not strategy-proof since the 2015/16 season

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