PONE-D-24-17238Data-driven understanding on soccer team tactics and ranking trends: Elo rating-based trends on European soccer leaguesPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Jung,

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Reviewers' comments:

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Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Partly

Reviewer #2: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Abstract: Provides good overview, though with some grammatical errors, and lacks details about the methodology.“Using a dataset comprising matches from the top five European soccer leagues, we analyze team performance trends over time using the Elo rating system and rolling regression.” should be “Using a dataset comprising matches from the top five European soccer leagues, we analyzed team performance trends over time using the Elo rating system and rolling regression.”

There are some areas with too few references, and the current references could be more varied and recent.

Introduction: Well-structured, though with the potential for further detail and more recent references.“The main goal of this research is not to directly assist coaches’ decision-making by predicting specific teams’ tactics and game outcomes, but rather to forecast strategies based on team trends, thereby aiding their game preparation process.” should be revised for clarity: “The main goal of this research is to forecast team strategies based on trend analysis, thereby aiding coaches in their game preparation process, rather than directly predicting specific teams’ tactics and game outcomes.”

Add recent references for claims about the impact of big data and AI on sports analytics. Moreover, plos one does not consider reviews.

The manuscript presents an interesting study but requires major revisions to enhance clarity, detail, and academic rigor.

Reviewer #2: Thank you to the authors for producing an insightful manuscript based on interesting and potentially very useful research and statistical analysis techniques.

Overall, the manuscript is well written and detailed, however there are some changes required to prepare this manuscript for publication. Specific points and requests are outlined throughout this document.

Abstract

1. In the following sentence:

‘In this study, the application of these technologies within the domain of association soccer is examined, with a particular focus on predicting team strategies via team trend analysis.’

Would methodologies be a more appropriate term to use instead of technologies?

2. The following sentence does not read correctly and does not make sense:

‘The prediction of strategies from soccer match datasets challenges.’

Please rewrite this sentence.

Introduction

Line 31 – It should read ‘overlook’ not ‘overlooking’ – please change this.

Methodology

There appears to be no title for the methodology section. Please add this.

There is no mention of the statistical program/coding method that was used to calculate all of the models outlined within the study. Please include this.

Line 115 and 119/120 repeat the same information about using the Elo rating system for teams not individuals. This only needs to be included once in this section so one of these sentences should be edited/removed.

Line 141 – the manuscript has already mentioned that Elo was used in chess, so it is not required to be mentioned again here.

Line 188 – The authors have highlighted that the Elo-based approach addresses limitations that other ranking systems have such as the ability to consider opponent strength and the impact of home and away matches. I understand that opponent strength is considered within the RA and RB, but I am unsure how the Elo system considers the impact of home and away matches. I may have missed this point, but please can you clarify this point in the text.

Results

Line 294 – The authors should provide reasons as to why domestic and continental club tournaments do not provide a consistent and reliable set of data, but domestic league games do.

Line 318 – the description of the requirements for each cluster is very vague. The authors should expand on these explanations to provide further insights into the tactics and strategies incorporated into each cluster:

‘For instance, Cluster 2 consisted of teams that adopted widely used strategies, whereas Cluster 1 was characterized by teams that employed less common tactics.’

Line 321 – The description of ‘Cluster 0’ should be moved earlier with the descriptions of cluster 1 and cluster 2.

Table 4 and Table 5 – the different models within these tables have not been described within the methodology section of the paper. A description of any statistical models used within the study should be clearly written for the reader to understand and be able to replicate.

Line 372 – ‘The superior recall of random forest in the ranking-based approach suggests its strength in accurately classifying true-positive instances, indicating its ability to effectively capture nuanced differences in the impact of strategic factors on match outcomes.’

This statement on the effectiveness of the random forest model for rank-based approaches seems to be too strong. This model had a recall of 0.72 which, while it was the best predictor compared to the other models, it still means that it is incorrect 28% of the time. This is not highly accurate, so this sentence needs to be rewritten to reflect that.

Conclusion

Figure 8a and 8b should not appear in the conclusion and need to be moved into the model evaluation section – no more new data should be presented within the conclusion.

The conclusion is well written, clear and concise and summarizes the main findings of the manuscript well.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Nadjat Umaru Djagana

Reviewer #2: No

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PONE-D-24-17238R1Data-driven understanding on soccer team tactics and ranking trends: Elo rating-based trends on European soccer leaguesPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Jung,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Jan 06 2025 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Julio Alejandro Henriques Castro da Costa

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #3: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #4: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Partly

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

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4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #3: Question 1:Line 13-14，“Despite market expansion, soccer coaches’ training and tactical decisions are often influenced more by personal judgment and experience than by data-driven insights.”This description is too absolute. Is there any literature to support it?

Question 2:The introduction of experimental data sources should be placed in the first half of the paper

Question 3:It is suggested to add the introduction of football game Tactics

Reviewer #4: Dear Author,

The paper addresses an important and emerging field in sports analytics, particularly soccer. By focusing on team trends and strategy prediction, it contributes to advancing the use of data science in sports. The study is well-structured and provides clear research questions. However, there are areas where clarity and depth could be improved, particularly in explaining the methodological approaches and integrating findings with practical applications.

The introduction provides a clear overview of the significance of soccer analytics and highlights the role of big data and machine learning in advancing sports analytics. However, A brief explanation of the Elo rating system and its relevance to team performance could strengthen the context.

The qualitative methodology is suitable for the study, the dual approach of count-based and rank-based methods provides a comprehensive framework for analyzing strategies but more clarity on dataset specifics (e.g., sample size, range of seasons analyzed, preprocessing steps) would enhance replicability.

Results provides quantitative findings, such as the accuracy of predictions (85% for defensive strategies and 89% for aggressive strategies), but Lack of comparative benchmarks with other models or methods makes it difficult to evaluate the study’s innovation.

The discussion highlights the practical implications of predictive models for coaching and game preparation, but it could delve deeper into the limitations of the study, such as potential overfitting or generalizability issues.

References are diverse and relevant, covering foundational concepts and recent advancements in sports analytics, but some references appear dated; more recent studies could be incorporated to reflect current trends in machine learning and sports analytics.

The study’s focus on trend-based strategy prediction is novel and valuable, but the lack of practical implementation diminishes its immediate impact.

The study is a valuable contribution to soccer analytics, but certain areas need refinement, particularly in methodology transparency, results presentation, and discussion depth.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #3: No

Reviewer #4: No

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: Review of Research Paper.pdf

Data-driven understanding on soccer team tactics and ranking trends: Elo rating-based trends on European soccer leagues

PONE-D-24-17238R2

Dear Dr. Jung,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

Kind regards,

Julio Alejandro Henriques Castro da Costa

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #4: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #4: Yes

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #4: (No Response)

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4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #4: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #4: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #4: General Comment

The manuscript provides a compelling analysis of soccer match outcomes, focusing on the unexpected victories of weaker teams against stronger opponents. The combination of clustering and predictive modeling is well-executed, offering valuable insights into team strategies and match dynamics. The study is methodologically sound, with appropriate use of gradient boosting, logistic regression, and neural networks, alongside detailed clustering analysis. The findings contribute to a growing understanding of how data-driven methods can enhance sports analytics.

The manuscript's strengths lie in its clear articulation of the research goals, comprehensive results analysis, and balanced evaluation of methodologies. Overall, this is a well-constructed and insightful study that holds potential for advancing the field of sports analytics. With minor revisions and additional context, it could make a significant contribution to the literature.

Introduction

• It highlights the increasing adoption of advanced analytics in sports, particularly for optimizing training schedules, injury prevention, and tactical decisions.

• The introduction ties the significance of these technologies to the global popularity and commercialization of soccer.

Methodology

• This methodology offers a robust and nuanced framework for analyzing soccer team performance and strategies. Its adaptability and use of advanced computational techniques ensure its applicability across various competitive leagues.

Results

• This study offers valuable insights into soccer team strategies through robust clustering and prediction methodologies. While the findings demonstrate strong predictive capabilities and nuanced strategic patterns, expanding the dataset and integrating additional features would significantly enhance the depth and applicability of future analyses. The models and methodologies used lay a strong foundation for advancing sports analytics.

Discussion

• The discussion specific model performances, like gradient boosting’s success, and situates this in the context of soccer strategies. This shows an understanding of the interplay between model design and data characteristics.

Bibliography/References

The references cover key areas such as machine learning, sports analytics, clustering techniques, injury prediction, big data applications, and tactical performance analysis, providing a holistic view of the subject matter. However, some entries lack uniform formatting, especially in terms of punctuation, capitalization, and inclusion of complete publication details.

Decision

The manuscript exhibits a strong understanding of the subject and provides a comprehensive analysis of machine learning and sports analytics, particularly in the context of soccer.

Recommendations for Authors:

• Standardize and verify all references for completeness and relevance.

• Align the manuscript’s discussion, results, and references to highlight the study's contributions more clearly.

• Emphasize the practical applications of the research in areas like performance improvement, injury prevention, or strategic planning in soccer.

• Improve the manuscript’s readability and graphical presentation for better engagement with readers.

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Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #4: Yes: Kalidoss D

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