Success factors in national team football: an analysis of the UEFA EURO 2020

Renner Vincent (), Görgen Konstantin (), Woll Alexander (), Wäsche Hagen () and Schienle Melanie ()
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Renner Vincent: Institute of Statistics, 150232 Karlsruhe Institute of Technology , Karlsruhe, Germany
Görgen Konstantin: Institute of Statistics, 150232 Karlsruhe Institute of Technology , Karlsruhe, Germany
Woll Alexander: Institute of Sports and Sports Science, 150232 Karlsruhe Institute of Technology , Karlsruhe, Germany
Wäsche Hagen: Department of Sport Science, University of Koblenz, Koblenz, Germany
Schienle Melanie: Institute of Statistics, 150232 Karlsruhe Institute of Technology , Karlsruhe, Germany

Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, 2025, vol. 21, issue 1, 73-95

Abstract: Identifying success factors in football is of sporting and economic interest. However, research in this field for national teams and their competitions is rare despite the popularity of teams and events. Therefore, we analyze data for the UEFA EURO 2020 and, for comparison purposes, the previous tournament in 2016. To mitigate the challenges of perceived multicollinearity and a small sample size, and to identify the relevant variables, we apply the ‘LASSO Cross-fitted Stability-Selection’ algorithm. This approach involves iterative splitting of data, with variables chosen via a ‘least absolute shrinkage and selection operator’ (LASSO) model (Tibshirani, R. (1996). Regression shrinkage and selection via the lasso. J. Roy. Stat. Soc. B 58: 267–288) on one half of the observations, while coefficients are estimated on the other half. Subsequently, we inspect the frequency of selection and stability of coefficient estimation for each variable over the repeated samples to identify factors as relevant. By that, we are able to differentiate generally valid success factors such as the market value ratio from on-field variables whose importance is tournament-dependent, e.g. the tackles attempted. As the latter is connected to a team’s tactics, we conclude that their observed relevance is correlated to the results of the linked playing style in the specific tournaments. We also show the changing effect of these playing-styles on success across tournaments.

Keywords: football; post-lasso double selection; national team competition; stability selection (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1515/jqas-2023-0026

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