Statistical Analysis of Leading Goal Scoring Pattern of Europe’s Top Five Football Leagues

Abstract

Previous researchers have discussed goal-scoring patterns of different football leagues, but little has been done on leading or top goal scorer. In this study, the focus is on the relationship between leading goal scoring and final league position for the top five European leagues (Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga and Ligue 1). The five leagues are the current top leagues in Europe as ranked by the Union of European Football Association (UEFA). The data were obtained from the respective leagues’ football association websites. The data were entered into Microsoft Excel spreadsheet to create frequency counts. Thereafter correlation and analysis of variance (ANOVA) was done using Minitab 18.0 and SPSS version 23. From the result, it was observed that there is a significant relationship between leading goal scoring and league positions for La Liga at a p value equals 0.013 and Germany at a p value equals 0.042, but no relationship for the remaining three leagues. Choosing the last 20 seasons only, the analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed that the final league positions of the clubs that produced the leading goal scorers are the same across the leagues at p value = 0.349. However, the opposite is the case of the goal-scoring pattern and p value < 0.005 were obtained. Further investigation using the Post Hoc analysis revealed that the goal-scoring pattern of leading goal scores in Spanish La Liga is significantly different from others.