IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0240438.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Are goals scored just before halftime worth more? An old soccer wisdom statistically tested

Author

Listed:
  • Henrich R Greve
  • Jo Nesbø
  • Nils Rudi
  • Marat Salikhov

Abstract

There is an old soccer wisdom that a goal scored just before halftime has greater value than other goals. Many dismiss this old wisdom as just another myth waiting to be busted. To test which is right we have analysed the final score difference through linear regression and outcome (win, draw, loss) through logistic regression. We use games from many leagues, control for the halftime score, comparing games in which a goal was scored after 1 minute remained of regulation time with games in which it was scored before the 44th minute. Our main finding is that the home team scoring just before halftime influence these outcomes to its advantage, compared with scoring earlier with the same halftime score. We conclude that a goal scored just before halftime has greater value than other goals provided it is scored by the home team. In other words; the wisdom may be old, but it’s still wise.

Suggested Citation

  • Henrich R Greve & Jo Nesbø & Nils Rudi & Marat Salikhov, 2020. "Are goals scored just before halftime worth more? An old soccer wisdom statistically tested," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(10), pages 1-11, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0240438
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0240438
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0240438
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0240438&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0240438?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ioannis Asimakopoulos & John Goddard, 2004. "Forecasting football results and the efficiency of fixed-odds betting," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(1), pages 51-66.
    2. Andreas Heuer & Oliver Rubner, 2012. "How Does the Past of a Soccer Match Influence Its Future? Concepts and Statistical Analysis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(11), pages 1-7, November.
    3. Tversky, Amos & Kahneman, Daniel, 1992. "Advances in Prospect Theory: Cumulative Representation of Uncertainty," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 5(4), pages 297-323, October.
    4. Alexander Puetz & Stefan Ruenzi, 2011. "Overconfidence Among Professional Investors: Evidence from Mutual Fund Managers," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(5-6), pages 684-712, June.
    5. Justin Wolfers & Eric Zitzewitz, 2004. "Prediction Markets," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 18(2), pages 107-126, Spring.
    6. David Card & Gordon B. Dahl, 2011. "Family Violence and Football: The Effect of Unexpected Emotional Cues on Violent Behavior," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(1), pages 103-143.
    7. Devin G. Pope & Maurice E. Schweitzer, 2011. "Is Tiger Woods Loss Averse? Persistent Bias in the Face of Experience, Competition, and High Stakes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(1), pages 129-157, February.
    8. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    9. Alex Edmans & Diego García & Øyvind Norli, 2007. "Sports Sentiment and Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(4), pages 1967-1998, August.
    10. Forrest, David & Goddard, John & Simmons, Robert, 2005. "Odds-setters as forecasters: The case of English football," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 551-564.
    11. Stijn Baert & Simon Amez, 2018. "No better moment to score a goal than just before half time? A soccer myth statistically tested," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(3), pages 1-17, March.
    12. Mathew L. A. Hayward & Violina P. Rindova & Timothy G. Pollock, 2004. "Believing one's own press: the causes and consequences of CEO celebrity," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(7), pages 637-653, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Marius Ötting & Christian Deutscher & Carl Singleton & Luca De Angelis, 2023. "Gambling on Momentum in Contests," Economics Discussion Papers em-dp2023-08, Department of Economics, University of Reading.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Karle, Heiko & Schumacher, Heiner & Vølund, Rune, 2023. "Consumer loss aversion and scale-dependent psychological switching costs," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 214-237.
    2. Yusufcan Masatlioglu & Collin Raymond, 2016. "A Behavioral Analysis of Stochastic Reference Dependence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(9), pages 2760-2782, September.
    3. Heiko Karle & Heiner Schumacher & Rune Vølund, 2020. "Consumer search and the uncertainty effect," Working Papers of Department of Economics, Leuven 657766, KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Department of Economics, Leuven.
    4. Aurélien Baillon & Han Bleichrodt & Vitalie Spinu, 2020. "Searching for the Reference Point," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(1), pages 93-112, January.
    5. Heiko Karle & Dirk Engelmann & Martin Peitz, 2022. "Student performance and loss aversion," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 124(2), pages 420-456, April.
    6. Georgalos, Konstantinos & Paya, Ivan & Peel, David, 2024. "The Kőszegi–Rabin expectations-based model and risk-apportionment tasks for elicitation of higher order risk preferences," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 224(C), pages 749-770.
    7. Heiko Karle & Martin Peitz, 2014. "Competition under consumer loss aversion," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 45(1), pages 1-31, March.
    8. Clist, Paul & D’Exelle, Ben & Verschoor, Arjan, 2021. "An endowment effect for risk levels: Evidence from a Ugandan lab," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 182(C), pages 297-310.
    9. Ariane Charpin, 2018. "Tests des modèles de décision en situation de risque. Le cas des parieurs hippiques en France," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 69(5), pages 779-803.
    10. Stefano DellaVigna, 2009. "Psychology and Economics: Evidence from the Field," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 315-372, June.
    11. Chen Lian & Yueran Ma & Carmen Wang, 2019. "Low Interest Rates and Risk-Taking: Evidence from Individual Investment Decisions," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 32(6), pages 2107-2148.
    12. Leković Milјan, 2020. "Cognitive Biases as an Integral Part of Behavioral Finance," Economic Themes, Sciendo, vol. 58(1), pages 75-96, March.
    13. Stekler, H.O. & Sendor, David & Verlander, Richard, 2010. "Issues in sports forecasting," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 606-621, July.
      • Herman O. Stekler & David Sendor & Richard Verlander, 2009. "Issues in Sports Forecasting," Working Papers 2009-002, The George Washington University, Department of Economics, H. O. Stekler Research Program on Forecasting.
    14. Babatunde Buraimo & David Peel & Rob Simmons, 2013. "Systematic Positive Expected Returns in the UK Fixed Odds Betting Market: An Analysis of the Fink Tank Predictions," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 1(4), pages 1-15, December.
    15. Harding, Matthew & Hsiaw, Alice, 2014. "Goal setting and energy conservation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 107(PA), pages 209-227.
    16. Björn Bartling & Leif Brandes & Daniel Schunk, 2012. "Expectations as reference points: field evidence from experienced subjects in a competitive, high-stakes environment," ECON - Working Papers 073, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    17. Bar-Eli, Michael & Krumer, Alex & Morgulev, Elia, 2020. "Ask not what economics can do for sports - Ask what sports can do for economics," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    18. Matthew Gould & Matthew D. Rablen, 2019. "Are World Leaders Loss Averse?," CESifo Working Paper Series 7763, CESifo.
    19. Hsiaw, Alice, 2013. "Goal-setting and self-control," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 148(2), pages 601-626.
    20. Gagnon-Bartsch, Tristan & Bushong, Benjamin, 2022. "Learning with misattribution of reference dependence," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 203(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0240438. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.