A New Approach to Performance Evaluation in Football: The Applicability of the Elo Model in Recreational and Competitive Sports
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Abstract
In the evaluation of sports performance, traditional, static scoring systems, such as the 0-1-3 point model used in football, have a limited capacity to track teams' within-season performance fluctuations and relative strengths. The aim of this study is to present an Elo-based dynamic ranking method that recalculates team ratings after every match, thereby responding more sensitively to current fluctuations in form.
The study utilizes data from the 2015/16 Spanish La Liga season and compares the model's performance with the official championship standings using statistical rank correlation coefficients (Spearman’s rho and Kendall’s tau). The results demonstrate that the dynamic Elo model achieves a high degree of agreement with the traditional standings, while also being capable of detecting finer performance differences within the mid-table.
The research concludes that Elo-based ranking is better suited for realistically mapping in-season power dynamics, and its application facilitates objective and fair performance evaluation in both competitive and recreational sports.
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