Ranking handball teams from statistical strength estimation

Florian Felice ()
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Florian Felice: University of Luxembourg

Computational Statistics, 2025, vol. 40, issue 4, No 24, 2183-2194

Abstract: Abstract In this work, we present a methodology to estimate the strength of handball teams. We propose the use of the Conway-Maxwell-Poisson distribution to model the number of goals scored by a team as a flexible discrete distribution which can handle situations of non equi-dispersion. From its parameters, we derive a mathematical formula to determine the strength of a team. We propose a ranking based on the estimated strengths to compare teams across different championships. Applied to female handball club data from European competitions over the 2022/2023 season, we show that our new proposed ranking can have an echo in real sports events and is linked to recent results from European competitions.

Keywords: Handball; Conway-Maxwell-Poisson; Ranking; Strength estimation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1007/s00180-024-01522-0

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