Part I: Introduction:
Last week I was watching a soccer game for my favorite team, Real Madrid, and I had high expectations that they will win easily simply because the Spanish League has more goals and stronger teams. What made me think so is the high quality of squad and the skills that each player has. However, something strange happened and Real Madrid lost with four goals to the other team. Such a score is a big lose and disappointment for a team that has been winning almost ninety five percent of its matches. By this, I discovered that playing skills and talent alone is not always enough to win a game. There are many other factors that a person should consider not necessarily from within the players. For example, the media and the journal can play a major role in changing the spirit of a team and manipulate the minds of the team. In some incidents, a lot of arguing can happen in the pre-match conferences either between the two competing coaches or players. Usually, the statements that we hear before the game starts are showing respect for the other team. Nevertheless, there are some implicit massages saying that the so-called team is going to win because it is stronger or belong to a certain country etc. Therefore, it is a method of brain washing for the teams before the start of the game. Before the game starts, all the numbers and the statistics indicate that Real Madrid has a better probability of wining over the other German team.
Another instance is the external motivation which is coming from the fans in the stadium can affect the victor team negatively by scaring them. The bottom line is that each team is trying to impede the other in every possible way whether it was mentally before the game starts or physically during the match. Obviously, finding excuses for losing is something normal but the players and the coach cannot admit that the lost was because they were nerves and scared.
Part II: Statement of the Problem:
The problem that I am representing is that teams, no matter in what rank they were, can win over great teams like Real Madrid or Barcelona if they were more motivated and mentally focused. The two Spanish teams got defeated with four goals after they were believed to the best two teams in the world. Moreover, the two German teams that won the matches are not on the top of the German league hierarchy.
According to statistics and numbers, the Spanish league has outnumbered the German league in goals by almost 170 goals in the current season. But those goals are mostly scored by the top two teams, Real Madrid and Barcelona, which resemble around 20% of the goals in one season . And so, there is a huge gap in the Spanish league between the top two and the rest of the teams.
And more precisely, Real Madrid and Barcalona together scored 186 goals in this current year while Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund scored only 156 . This shows that the Spanish teams are more dominant because there is no hard competition whereas German teams score less because it is always hard to win over the other team.
Part III: Statement of the Hypotheses:
Some teams say that nothing can affect their readiness and their play but actually they are changed in a way that they don’t necessarily observe. There are important facts that could affect teams positively like fans or negatively like media pressure. Overall, if we want to consider goals and numbers, we see that the Spanish teams are more qualified the German teams.
The null hypothesis (H0) states that Spanish League and German League have same quality and no effect from media and fans pressure.
The alternative hypothesis (Ha) states that Spanish league has more goals than the German league.
Part IV: Methodology:
Fortunately, I did not have difficulties finding sources to support my hypothesis because I was looking for statistics and tables rather than articles. Therefore, in order to prove that the Spanish league has better competition than the German league, I started to look and search for data and then compare the two of them. Looking at the current season 2012/2013, I gathered tables from both leagues and the first thing I start to compare is goals. I found that the Spanish league significantly outnumber the German league when it comes to goals. One reason is because Spanish league include the best top 9 soccer players in the world .
Another reason why Spanish league has more goals number is because of small number of fans’ attendance. In doing so, the players will be less stressful from the audience in the stadium and can play freely and score goals. Statistics shows that the average attendance in Spanish league is 27,161 while the average attendance for the German league is 42,267 . By this, we can see that there more pressure on players with the increase of people attending the game whether those fans were supporting their team or discouraging the other teams.
More specifically, this year Real Madrid played against Durtmond while Barcelona played against Bayern Munich. Both of the Spanish teams got defeated with the same score which is a lose by four goals.
All the expectations predicted that Real Madrid and Barcelona are going to win the games against the German teams. First reason, both Spanish teams have scored over 186 goals in the current season while German teams scored only 164 goals. Second reason is that the Spanish teams have won 90% of their last 8 matches .
Looking back at the data, we see that the Spanish teams had more possession on the ball with over 50%. However, the German attacks more and had more attempts on target which eventually resulted in four goals for each, 24 total attempt for German teams comparing to 12 attempts for the Spanish team, .
Part V: Analysis of the data:
First of all, I collected data about the number of games won by 1 goal margin in the two soccer league. The reason why I did so is because matches winning by 1 goal show more competitions and intensity.
X1=133 n1=257
X2=92 n2=209
X= 1 goal margin
N= total games played
Ho: P La liga = P Bundesliga
HA: P La liga > P Bundesliga
P = X1+X2n1+n2 = 133+92257+209=0.49
q = 1 - P
= 1 – 0.49 = 0.51
p̂ La liga = X1n1 = 133257 = 0.518
p̂ Bundesliga = X2n2 = 92209 = 0.445
Z = p1-p2-(p1-p2)P qn1+P qn2
=0.518-0.445-(0)0.49*0.51257+0.49*0.51209 = 0.0730.00217
z = 33.64 test statistics
Part VI: Conclusions and Implications:
According to the number that we got, we reject the null hypothesis because our alternative hypothesis is true. The result came to be similar to the one I expected. The Spanish league seems to have more goals in one season than the German league. On the other hand, the German league has better competition and intensity going on between the teams. However, what gave the German advantage in their games with the Spanish teams is because all German teams have convergent level so every team is trying to get to the top.
The Spanish league has more goals because there is less media control which makes the league less stressful. Moreover, the fans pressure is less because not that many people attend games comparing to the German league.
In contrast, the Spanish league is dominant by two teams only which are Real Madrid and Barcelona. Their levels are much higher than the other teams because they include the most famous soccer stars of the world. Over the past 10 years, the two previous teams have changed turns on who gets the title of that season. While in the German league, there are 6 teams who won the champions title which indicates the variation in teams’ strength .
Works Cited
Espn. Spanish La Liga Stats - 2012-13. 2 May 2013. 2 May 2013 <http://espnfc.com/stats/_/league/esp.1/spanish-la-liga?cc=5901>.
Soccerstats. League Spain. 2 May 2013. 2 May 2013 <http://www.soccerstats.com/latest.asp?league=spain>.
soccerway, USA. Bundesliga. 2 May 2013. 2 May 2013 <http://us.soccerway.com/national/germany/bundesliga/20122013/regular-season/r17814/?ICID=PL_3N_01>.
UEFA. Team of the Year. 2 May 2013. 2 May 2013 <http://en.toty.uefa.com/>.
—. UEFA- Semi-finals. 2 May 2013. 2 May 2013 <http://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/season=2013/matches/round=2000350/match=2009608/index.html>.
