Statistical Analysis for the First Bundesliga in the Current Soccer Season

Statistical analysis for the 153 matches of First Bundesliga, i.e. the first national soccer league in Germany, in the first 17 “playing days” (August 10, 2013 to January 29, 2014) of the current soccer season was made. Various team parameters were compared between the winning and losing teams in the 118 non-drawing matches. The results support the conclusions of our earlier analysis (Yue, Broich, & Mester, 2014) that the quality of shots, represented by the goal efficiency, defined by the number of goals divided by the number of shots, is more important than the quantity of shots for winning a soccer game. This conclusion is also confirmed by the correlation analysis based on all the 153 matches: The correlation between the number of goals and the goal efficiency is found to be much stronger than the correlation between the number of goals and the number of shots. The team parameters of the second to the fourth importance are the number of shots, the number of passes and the number of ball contacts respectively. In contrast, the distance coverage is found to be statistically not important for winning a game.