论文标题
球员化学：努力争取一个完美平衡的足球队
Player Chemistry: Striving for a Perfectly Balanced Soccer Team
论文作者
论文摘要
足球侦察员通常在评估其团队潜在签约时忽略团队平衡和团队化学反应。相反，他们专注于孤立的球员的个人素质。为了克服对他们招聘过程的局限性，本文朝着客观地提供有关以下问题的洞察力的第一步：足球运动员团队的凝胶团队的表现如何？我们在观察和预测设置中都解决了这个问题。在前一种环境中，我们观察到实际比赛的球员之间的化学反应，这在选择比赛中最佳阵容时很重要。在后一种环境中，我们预测从未一起玩过的球员之间的化学反应，这对于评估与已经在团队中的球员的潜在签约的合适性特别重要。 我们介绍了两个化学指标，分别衡量了一对玩家的进攻性和防御性化学反应。进攻性化学指标在得分目标方面衡量了两人的联合表现，而防守化学指标则衡量其共同的表现，以防止对手得分。我们在106场不同的比赛中计算了361个赛季的指标，并提供了许多具体用例。例如，我们表明，穆罕默德·萨拉赫（Mohamed Salah）和罗伯托·菲尔诺（Roberto Firmino）在利物浦2017/2018冠军联赛竞选活动中的合作伙伴关系表现出了两名球员之间最高的相互化学反应。此外，我们表明，在2018年亚历克西斯·桑切斯（AlexisSánchez）出发前往曼联之后，梅苏特·Özil的化学反应迅速下降。
Soccer scouts typically ignore the team balance and team chemistry when evaluating potential signings for their teams. Instead, they focus on the individual qualities of the players in isolation. To overcome this limitation of their recruitment process, this paper takes a first step towards objectively providing insight into the question: How well does a team of soccer players gel? We address that question in both an observational and a predictive setting. In the former setting, we observe the chemistry between players who have actually played together, which is relevant when selecting the best possible line-up for a match. In the latter setting, we predict the chemistry between players who have never played together before, which is particularly relevant to assess the fit of a potential signing with the players who are already on the team. We introduce two chemistry metrics that measure the offensive and defensive chemistry for a pair of players, respectively. The offensive chemistry metric measures the pair's joint performance in terms of scoring goals, whereas the defensive chemistry metric measures their joint performance in preventing their opponents from scoring goals. We compute our metrics for 361 seasons in 106 different competitions and present a number of concrete use cases. For instance, we show that the partnership between Mohamed Salah and Roberto Firmino in Liverpool's 2017/2018 Champions League campaign exhibited the highest mutual chemistry between two players. Furthermore, we show that Mesut Özil's chemistry has rapidly started declining following Alexis Sánchez' departure to Manchester United in 2018.
