Game Statistics

 GAME STATISTICS

The charts on this page relate to standard game statistics (such as free kick count)

Relationship between free-kick differential and game margin/game result

The history of the relationship between freekick differentials and game results is a fascinating one. Data is only available back to 1965, and in those times it was most common that the losing team would win the free kick count.

In 1967, for example, almost 72% of losing teams in the home and away season won the free kick count. This persisted, to greater or lesser extents, until around the late 1980s when it became about as likely that the winning team would also win the freekick count as lose it.

Them, from about 2012 onwards, it became the norm that the winning team would very slightly more often also win the free kick count with the high so far being reached in 2016 when 59% of winning teams also won the free kick count.

Looking, instead, at game margins and free kick differentials from home teams’ viewpoints tells a similar story, with correlations between game margins and free kick differentials tending to be larger and positive in seasons where winners won a larger proportion of free kick counts, and larger but negative in seasons where winners won a smaller proportion of free kick counts.