Performance Evaluation of Goalkeepers of Slovak Football League

Abstract

Football is a popular sport in Slovakia. Every year football clubs spend large sums of money on buying individual players. However, there is a small number of scientific studies dealing with statistical, economic dimensions, and performance evaluation of football players. The performance of individual players, as well as the performance of the whole team, are very important indicators that predetermine the success of the whole club. The aim of this research is to develop a new system for evaluating the efficiency of football players and then apply this system to football practice and identify technically efficient players. The present research uses the data envelopment analysis, specifically the input-oriented Charness, Cooper, Rhodes model and the Andersen-Petersen super-efficiency model. Both models are empirically applied to only one group of football players, namely goalkeepers of the first and second Slovak football leagues in the 2020/21 season. The model proposed in this article attempts to incorporate greater objectivity into making decisions and thus may be an important step in developing a systematic methodology for evaluating not only goalkeepers but also other player positions.