Football Data Science

Learn data science through football. Test what football believes. Try the models yourself.

For fans, players, coaches and analysts. Every idea starts with a football question, and you don't need a maths background.

Written by Bryan McGuire, a data scientist with more than 35 years' experience, using real match data.

Start learning Myth or Maths

Start with a question

New here? Start here

I'm here for the football

Home advantage, derbies, 2–0 leads: football's favourite sayings tested against real Scottish results.

Myth or Maths

I want to learn data science

Start from a penalty and build up to machine learning, one football question at a time. No maths background needed.

I work in football

Decisions with real stakes: who to sign, who marks whom, how to rotate the squad. Try the models, or talk to me about your own data.

New on the site

Are gifted players less athletic? Collider bias and the academy

Pick the best 200 of 5,000 young players and, among those picked, the more technical turn out to be the less athletic, even when the two have nothing to do with each other. How the way you choose your data can create a link that was never there, with a simulator and a real check on league tables.

Beginner Part 16 of Statistics Through Football

Who gets there first? Timing a pass, and the cost of waiting

A pass is a race between the ball and the nearest defender. Work out when each gets there, turn the gap into a chance, and one touch on the ball turns a switch that gets there 95% of the time into one that gets there 78%. The idea behind pitch control and the Action and Reaction board.

Intermediate Part 13 of Decision Science Through Football

Do substitutions work? Changes made while losing, like for like

After a change made while losing, a team's chances rise by almost a quarter and the chances it concedes fall by a third. Compare it with teams in the same spot that hadn't changed yet and most of that happens anyway. 1,696 changes from StatsBomb's open data.

7 October 2026 Intermediate Research

Not supported

Do teams struggle after an international break?

Players come back tired, scattered and out of rhythm, so the first game after an international break is supposed to be a lottery. Over 82 breaks and 485 Scottish Premiership matches, results after a break look just like the rest, and no club is cursed.

5 October 2026 Beginner Myth or Maths

This weekend

The Scottish Premiership's next fixtures, with each side's chances from the prediction board .

Sat 17 Oct, 15:00

Hibernian v Falkirk

49% Hibernian26% draw25% Falkirk
Sat 17 Oct, 15:00

Aberdeen v St Mirren

54% Aberdeen26% draw19% St Mirren
Sat 17 Oct, 15:00

St Johnstone v Dundee United

42% St Johnstone27% draw31% Dundee United

All fixtures and the full forecast