One of the blogs I love (and link to on the sidebar) is Climbing the Ladder because all he ever does is look at random statistics that 99% of soccer fans wouldn't care about.
His latest post was about trying to predict what lead to success in the home-and-home playoff series that have existed since 2003. Here were the results
Note: I adjusted percentages to not count ties
Fewer games (18-7-7 72.0%)
Goal difference (21-11-0 65.6%)
Less experienced coach (19-12-1 61.3%)
Top goalscorer (17-11-4 60.7%)
Momentum (19-13-0 59.4%)
Higher seed (19-13-0 59.4%)
Goals for (18-13-1 58.1%)
Home record (18-14-0 56.3%)
Older team (18-14-0 56.3%)
Goals against (16-13-3 55.2%)
Won season series (12-10-10 54.5%)
Away record (17-15-0 53.1%)
Younger coach (17-15-0 53.1%)
2 year record (16-16-0 50.0%)
3 year record (14-18-0 43.8%)
Coach w/ better all time record (13-19-0 40.6%)
This is obviously super interesting to me, so I ask him for the data because I'd like to look at how the Elo Ratings do. He's a badass so he replies and it turns out Elo prediction went 21-11, matching goal differential at 65.6% success.
Below are the results of each series with the Elo difference and games-played difference for the winner of each series (winner is on the left):
2007 HOU vs DAL (92.41) (+2)
2006 HOU vs CHV (56.99) (+2)
2008 CLB vs KC (56.84) (-1)
2006 DC vs NY (53.85) (+1)
2003 CHI vs DC (53.84) (0)
2005 NE vs NY (43.24) (0)
2009 CHI vs NE (42.04) (+1)
2007 NE vs NY (40.12) (+3)
2008 CHI vs NE (34.88) (-7)
2003 NE vs NY (34.07) (-1)
2010 LA vs SEA (27.33) (-8)
2006 NE vs CHI (23.31) (0)
2003 SJ vs LA (20.61) (-4)
2003 KC vs COL (16.81) (-1)
2004 LA vs COL (12.96) (0)
2005 COL vs DAL (12.82) (-4)
2009 LA vs CHV (12.48) (-3)
2004 DC vs NY (12.30) (0)
2010 COL vs CLB (8.94) (-10)
2009 HOU vs SEA (8.71) (+5)
2004 KC vs SJ (4.91) (-1)
2008 RSL vs CHV (-30.67) (-4)
2010 DAL vs RSL (-39.07) (-7)
2010 SJ vs NY (-41.22) (-3)
2006 COL vs DAL (-51.11) (0)
2004 NE vs CLB (-61.74) (-1)
2009 RSL vs CLB (-68.02) (-6)
2007 KC vs CHV (-70.75) (0)
2007 CHI vs DC (-77.37) (-10)
2005 CHI vs DC (-81.97) (-4)
2005 LA vs SJ (-99.84) (+2)
2008 NY vs HOU (-105.34) (-14)
The really cool thing to me is that only once in 11 series (2005 LA) did a team with more games played and a lower Elo rating win the series.
So does this mean anything? Well, it's not quite statistically significant (although the fewer games one is pretty damn close to 95% confidence and is over 90% confidence) but I think that some of the results would be trends worth paying attention to next season if you happen to find yourself in a position to wager a little money.
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