Football Data Science

This project aims to obtain the data available about a player's performance in their respective domestic leagues (e.g. English Premier League) and visualize their performance data in comparison to other players. We have broken up the analysis into 2 types of players in order to ensure a useful form of comparison.

Explaining the Data from fbref (https://fbref.com/en/)

We extracted the data required for our analysis from the FBRef Website, which consists of a breakdown of a match-by-match performance for each player. File used to find this may be found here: https://github.com/hoyishian/fantasypldatascience/blob/main/fbref_scout_extraction.py

There are 2 kind of players in the data we collected: Outfield players and Goalkeepers.

Goalkeeper Players

Goalkeeper players only have 1 set of statistics that is made up of 7 groups of Goalkeeping statistics. The following screenshot is taken from the FBRef website:

Outfield Players

Outfield players have 4 set of statistics. They are explained in the Appendix section of this Readme Document.

Running the Python File

Step 1: Navigate to folder containing fbref_scout_extraction.py

Step 2: Decide on type of web-scraping action to run

There are 2 types of web scraping that can be done:

Player Statistics by league

Extract all statistics for all domestic league games for players in a given league

Similar Players

Extract the top 10 most similar players for every player in a given domestic league. The top 10 most similar players may not be from the same domestic league that has been selected.

Step 3a: For obtaining Player Statistics

1. Run the following command

python fbref_scout_extraction.py

2. You will then be given the following prompt:

Enter League Here (EPL, Ligue 1, Bundesliga, Serie A, La Liga). Press Enter when ready:

3. Enter the league of interest and press enter. It will take approximately 20 to 30 minutes to completely scrape all data for players in a given domestic league.

Step 3b: For obtaining similar players

1. Ensure to comment out the following line and uncomment out the next line

2. Run the following command

python fbref_scout_extraction.py

3. You will then be given the following prompt:

Enter League Here (EPL, Ligue 1, Bundesliga, Serie A, La Liga). Press Enter when ready:

4. Enter the league of interest and press enter. It will take approximately 20 to 30 minutes to completely scrape all data for players in a given domestic league.

Examples of Data

To see examples of how the data scraped from FBRef will look like, you can refer to the playerstats_(league) and goalkeeperstats_(league) file (For scraping player statistics) and similar_player_(league) file for (For scraping similar player).

EPL Data

Outfield Player Statistics

Goalkeeper Statistics

Similar Players

Ligue 1 Data

Outfield Player Statistics

Goalkeeper Statistics

Similar Players

Bundesliga Data

Outfield Player Statistics

Goalkeeper Statistics

Similar Players

Serie A Data

Outfield Player Statistics

Goalkeeper Statistics

Similar Players

La Liga Data

Outfield Player Statistics

Goalkeeper Statistics

Similar Players

Appendix

Goalkeeper Statistics

Performance

SoTA -- Shots on Target Against

GA -- Goals Against

Save% -- Save Percentage (Shots on Target Against - Goals Against/Shots on Target Against)

CS -- Clean Sheets (Full matches by goalkeeper where no goals are allowed.)

PSxG -- Post-Shot Expected Goals (PSxG is expected goals based on how likely the goalkeeper is to save the shot)

Penalty Kicks

PKatt -- Penalty Kicks Attempted

PKA -- Penalty Kicks Allowed

PKsv -- Penalty Kicks Saved

PKm -- Penalty Kicks Missed

Launched

Cmp -- Passes Completed (Passes longer than 40 yards)

PassAttemptedLong -- Passes Attempted (Passes longer than 40 yards)

Cmp% -- Pass Completion Percentage (Passes longer than 40 yards)

Passes

PassAtt -- Passes Attempted (Not including goal kicks)

Thr -- Throws Attempted

Launch% -- Percentage of Passes that were Launched (Not including goal kicks) (Passes longer than 40 yards)

AvgLen -- Average length of passes, in yards (Not including goal kicks)

Goal Kicks

GoalKickAtt -- Passes Attempted

GKLaunch% -- Percentage of Goal Kicks that were Launched (Passes longer than 40 yards)

GKAvgLen -- Average length of goal kicks, in yards

Crosses

Opp -- Opponent's attempted crosses into penalty area

Stp -- Number of crosses into penalty area which were successfully stopped by the goalkeeper

Stp% -- Percentage of crosses into penalty area which were successfully stopped by the goalkeeper

Sweeper

#OPA -- # of defensive actions outside of penalty area

AvgDist -- Average distance from goal to perform defensive actions

Outfield Player Statistics

Passing

Total

Cmp -- Passes Completed

PassAtt -- Passes Attempted

Cmp% -- Pass Completion Percentage (Minimum 30 minutes played per squad game to qualify as a leader)

PassTotDist -- Total distance, in yards, that completed passes have traveled in any direction

PassPrgDist -- Progressive Distance (Total distance, in yards, that completed passes have traveled towards the opponent's goal. Note: Passes away from opponent's goal are counted as zero progressive yards.)

Short (Passes between 5 and 15 yards)

Cmp.1 -- Passes Completed

Att.1 -- Passes Attempted

Cmp%.1 -- Pass Completion Percentage

Medium (Passes between 15 and 30 yards)

Cmp.2 -- Passes Completed

Att.2 -- Passes Attempted

Cmp%.2 -- Pass Completion Percentage

Long (Passes longer than 30 yards)

Cmp.3 -- Passes Completed

Att.3 -- Passes Attempted

Cmp%.3 -- Pass Completion Percentage

Performance

Ast -- Assists

xA -- xG Assisted (xG which follows a pass that assists a shot)

KP -- Key Passes (Passes that directly lead to a shot (assisted shots))

PassFinThird -- Passes into Final Third (Completed passes that enter the 1/3 of the pitch closest to the goal, Not including set pieces)

PPA -- Passes into Penalty Area (Completed passes into the 18-yard box, Not including set pieces)

CrsPA -- Crosses into Penalty Area (Completed crosses into the 18-yard box, Not including set pieces)

PassProg -- Progressive Passes (Completed passes that move the ball towards the opponent's goal at least 10 yards from its furthest point in the last six passes, or any completed pass into the penalty area. Excludes passes from the defending 40% of the pitch)

Goal and Shot Creation

SCA Types

SCA -- Shot-Creating Actions (The two offensive actions directly leading to a shot, such as passes, dribbles and drawing fouls. Note: A single player can receive credit for multiple actions and the shot-taker can also receive credit.)

PassLiveShot -- Completed live-ball passes that lead to a shot attempt

PassDeadShot -- Completed dead-ball passes that lead to a shot attempt. (Includes free kicks, corner kicks, kick offs, throw-ins and goal kicks)

DribShot -- Successful dribbles that lead to a shot attempt

ShLSh -- Shots that lead to another shot attempt

Fld -- Fouls drawn that lead to a shot attempt

DefShot -- Defensive actions that lead to a shot attempt

GCA Types

GCA -- Goal-Creating Actions (The two offensive actions directly leading to a goal, such as passes, dribbles and drawing fouls. Note: A single player can receive credit for multiple actions and the shot-taker can also receive credit.)

PassLiveGoal -- Completed live-ball passes that lead to a goal

PassDeadGoal -- Completed dead-ball passes that lead to a goal. (Includes free kicks, corner kicks, kick offs, throw-ins and goal kicks)

DribGoal -- Successful dribbles that lead to a goal

ShGoal -- Shots that lead to another goal-scoring shot

FldGoal -- Fouls drawn that lead to a goal

DefGoal -- Defensive actions that lead to a goal

OG -- Actions that led directly to an opponent scoring on their own goal

Defensive Actions

Tackles

Tkl -- Number of players tackled

TklW -- Tackles Won (Tackles in which the tackler's team wo