Kieran Duffey – Myths and Facts about Football

Football is the beautiful game, loved by millions of people across the globe regardless of religion, caste or gender. It is the common man’s game. The first international match was played between Scotland and England on 30th November 1872 at Hamilton Crescent in Partick, Scotland and since then there has been no looking back.

Myths and Facts about Football, draws together academic research from around the world, taking to task widely held notions about the beautiful game. Many intuitive beliefs are shown to be flawed. By subjecting what happens in football to scientific and mathematical tests, economists and psychologists argue that other "football phenomena" are indeed provable.

Kieran Duffey knows home advantage is a well established phenomenon across many sports, including football.   The home team has the perceived advantage because the atmosphere, the intimidation and the psychology involved usually helps break the away team.

Football is a game where the two opposing sides look to feel each other out during the opening period of a tie, particularly in a two-legged match. First legs are often extremely tight and cagey affairs, with the second becoming more open and free-scoring. The two legs can often have completely contrasting natures as a result of this. Teams that celebrate goals collectively achieve better results. Penalty takers who shoot down the middle have the best chance of scoring. This was really simply because the second leg was naturally more open, rather than a particularly more attacking attitude away from home.

The secret to taking penalties is to ignore the goalkeeper and focus on the target.  In a penalty kicking competition the only thing that threatens success is the goalkeeper, so we need to monitor his/her movements. Our findings suggest we should try to ignore the goalkeeper and focus on where we are kicking the ball.

"There really is a gap in the understanding of football that could be filled with more rigorous scientific analysis of what happens."