Manchester United most probable league champions in 2011

Mon 13th Sep 2010 | Club & Country Competitions

Researchers have found the most probable national champions in Europe’s five top leagues in 2011 will be Manchester United, FC Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Internazionale Milano and LOSC Lille Métropole.  These are the findings of a new statistics model developed by the Professional Football Players Observatory (PFPO), which combines academic research with the data-collecting expertise and vast database of RunningBall, the Number One in the real-time sports information sector.

The PFPO prediction for the most probable champions in Europe’s ‘Big Five’ leagues in England, Spain, Germany, Italy and France takes into account the number and quality of international players, the players' experience in the best European championships and the stability of teams. By assembling these criteria, stars are assigned to clubs in each league. Teams with three stars have a squad rich enough to win their championship, those with two stars can claim a European place, while the main objective for those with one star is to avoid relegation. Information regarding this model can be accessed for free via the PFPO website at www.eurofootplayers.org.

The prediction comes as a result of a new agreement between the PFPO and RunningBall by which RunningBall puts its know-how in collecting and compiling sports data at the disposal of the French-Swiss research group that is affiliated to the International Centre of Sports Studies (CIES) at the University of Neuchâtel in Switzerland.

Chief researcher, Raffaele Poli, said: “Our new partnership with RunningBall will allow us to expand the frontiers of knowledge in the area of professional football. The demographic indicators of squad composition developed by PFPO since 2005 have been related to club performances in order to create statistical models to predict results in each of the ‘Big Five’ European leagues and also estimate the rank obtained at the end of the season.”

RunningBall CEO, Giancarlo Tottoli, is very pleased about the new cooperation at academic level: “By teaming up with the PFPO, RunningBall is putting its know-how and data assets at the disposal of scientific research. Data and statistics are essential tools to further develop the game and we are happy to enhance this specific dimension of football.”

PFPO and RunningBall have also joined efforts for the last Annual Review of Football Players’ Labour Market, which was published recently and which follows the evolution of the demographic characteristics of the players of the top European leagues.

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