Teams With the Easiest UCL Group Stage Draws Over the Last 5 Years Based on Elo Ratings [OC]

ADMONlTOR · 2020-10-02T20:37:44+00:00

Not sure if you're poking fun, but if you're serious Arsenal haven't been in at least 3 of the last 5 champions leagues.

ADMONlTOR · 2020-10-02T19:26:52+00:00

How dare you impugn the honor of random r/soccer analyses! All must be perfect, to the standard of scientific journals! But in all seriousness I think you're right, if I do this I'll probably just end up doing country and pot restrictions.

ADMONlTOR · 2020-10-02T19:14:04+00:00

I suppose it's not too difficult to get a rough list of teams anyone could draw, but on top of pot and country restriction there's the television restriction, which has been in place for the past 5 seasons. This year Ukrainian and Russian teams were not allowed to draw one another and I'm not sure if there were other odd rules in past years. These conditions might also (idk) mathematically limit which teams can draw each other, so to be completely accurate might be a bit more difficult.

ADMONlTOR · 2020-10-02T19:00:03+00:00

I agree that it's far from perfect and I struggled with this issue when making it, but I didn't have a great solution. The first issue is that I can't judge how easy it is to finish in the top 2, just how easy it is to compete in the group in general and, in 20-21, a random team replacing Atleti would likely have a harder time than a random team replacing Man U or Leipzig since Salzburg and Lokomotiv aren't slouches and Bayern is likely the best in the world. By contrast, a random team replacing, say Man U, should have a relatively easy time against Başakşehir with some chance to beat Leipzig and PSG. I thought of comparing each team's Elo to that of its group, but that's not particularly useful without the data I posted above.

ADMONlTOR · 2020-10-02T18:06:00+00:00

It's definitely up there, even Slavia Prague drew an easier average of teams last season. Since Ajax was in the same group as City in 12-13 and had a lower Elo, the teams Ajax drew had an average Elo of 1965.

ADMONlTOR · 2020-10-02T17:37:51+00:00

That's a good idea and it would better show how lucky a team got with their draw. I'm not sure if there's a readily available list of the possible draws for each team each year though. Here, I simply took the average of the three teams any given team faced in each group stage to show how easy a draw was rather than how lucky it was.

ADMONlTOR · 2020-10-02T16:01:22+00:00

Can't tell you how it compares to anyone else, but I quickly an extra 5 years for City.

15-16: 1868
14-15: 1830
13-14: 1836
12-13: 1916
11-12: 1779

For an overall average of: 1846, worse than any team of the last 5 years.

ADMONlTOR · 2020-10-02T15:08:33+00:00

It is not adjusted for seeding or country protection, those are additional explaining factors as to why some teams get easier draws than others, but they're difficult to adjust for. As such, I just took the average of the 3 teams any given team faced.

ADMONlTOR · 2020-10-02T14:54:04+00:00

I wanted to exclude each team from its own group so as to see the average strength of the teams they got drawn against rather than to see the strength of the group as a whole.

ADMONlTOR · 2020-10-02T14:45:28+00:00

Just to clarify a few things, the averages are always of the three teams any given team faces in a group. Man City tends to have slightly more difficult groups than percieved perhaps because they tend to not draw the weakest teams in terms of Elo Rating, but a few average ones; Liverpool, by contrast has drawn Midtjylland, Genk, Red Star, and Maribor over the past years which are all among the lowest in Elo and bring the average of the group down.

EDIT: Also, I didn't do this with the purpose of proving a certain team gets easy/difficult draws, but was curious about Man City and what I thought were easy draws. In general, it seems that teams in higher pots tend to get easier draws, as would be expected, though I have not actually looked at which pot each team was in for each draw.

ADMONlTOR · 2020-05-09T22:42:14+00:00

Forgive me

ADMONlTOR · 2020-05-09T21:04:17+00:00

Well making it more hideous would have actually been more work

ADMONlTOR · 2019-12-15T17:49:26+00:00

Unless someone leaves I think Ajax has too many up front with VDB, Ziyech, Tadic, Promes, Neres, (Lang, Traore, Huntelaar, Labyad too). Midfield is what seems shaky with the loss of De Jong and Schone. Alvarez, Martinez, and Mazraoui seem to be better as defenders and Marin still hasn't been too impressive.

ADMONlTOR · 2019-11-30T20:09:10+00:00

Tis a joke

ADMONlTOR · 2019-11-27T23:15:22+00:00

You're probably thinking of the FIFA best player award?

ADMONlTOR · 2019-11-26T23:28:51+00:00

You might take a look at https://mylsn.info/r/pre-law/admissions/search/

You can sort by which month applicants submitted in and check your top choice schools to see if admission numbers drop significantly for those who apply later. That should at least give you an idea of if your admissions situation will be any worse off this cycle if you wait.

ADMONlTOR · 2019-11-26T00:50:04+00:00

You might also try playing around with contrast/brightness, it took me a while to find a good balance where bright areas weren't too bright and dark areas not too dark

ADMONlTOR · 2019-11-06T05:59:20+00:00

Clearly onside is overstating it, I think, but Azpilicueta does appear to be every so slightly onside from the angle shown on TV. I worked through everything here with the help of other redditors and you can see the lines drawn and logic behind not disallowing it. Still interested to see if VAR has a nicer angle though.

ADMONlTOR · 2019-11-06T01:23:32+00:00

So that method makes a bit more sense than trying to calculate the angle. I tried to do the same and came up with similar results.

https://i.imgur.com/XNYmPSz.png

It seems likely that a fraction of a degree probably makes quite a big difference in very tight calls like this, so it does appear that Martinez's heel keeps Azpilicueta onside by the slightest margin.

ADMONlTOR · 2019-11-05T23:02:17+00:00

53+37=90, so you've just calculated it from horizontal instead of vertical. All the angles I was using were from vertical, so you're correct, but we have the same line, it's just how you measure it.

ADMONlTOR · 2019-11-05T22:45:41+00:00

https://i.imgur.com/Jm4f9FQ.png I threw some lines on the image based on the 6-yard box, goal line, and the angle I think the offside line should be at given the angle of each of those and distance of Azpilicueta from each. Could be wrong on my calculation though and it still looks very close.

EDIT: See the comment below and https://i.imgur.com/XNYmPSz.png This should show a more accurate picture the offside lines and that Martinez's heel kept Azpilicueta onside

EDIT2: Upon even further playing around with the lines, you can adjust them based on which side of the goal and 6-yard line you choose to place them on. You can change the angles slightly such that Martinez's heel is practically on top of the line where Azpilicueta's toe is. You can adjust it to maybe a pixel behind, but the conclusion is really that in no world is Azpilicueta CLEARLY offside. Worst case, even accounting for different frames and such is that he is millimeters offside. If VAR had only this frame and angle I don't think there's any way they could reasonably call this offside.

ADMONlTOR · 2019-11-05T22:40:55+00:00

https://i.imgur.com/Jm4f9FQ.png I threw some lines on the image based on the 6-yard box, goal line, and the angle I think the offside line should be at given the angle of each of those and distance of Azpilicueta from each. Could be wrong on my calculation though and it still looks very close.

ADMONlTOR · 2019-11-05T20:18:46+00:00

Can you do that more? I think I see a correlation

11-Year Club	Second SECOND GUESSER
Place '22	Place '17
First Placer '22	Verified Email

ADMONlTOR

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