Here is a challenge: predict the number of points teams will have in the first half of the season the moment the transfermarkt closes. Here is the catch: you are only allowed to use statistics of individual players. No team statistics like wins, goals scored, goals conceded or historical team records are allowed. The reason why no historical team data is allowed is that if you are able to predict sufficiently accurately how many points each team scores, you have established a clear predictive relationship between the statistics of individual players and the number of points the team score in the league.

That is also the reason why we only look at the prediction half way through the season. Otherwise your statistic is more likely to correlate with the richness of the club, rather than the quality of the players. For rich clubs who disappoint in the first half of the season, can buy themselves better players and improve their situation. 

Football Behavior Management (FBM) predicted on September 1st 2019 for the Dutch Eredivisie using only statistics of individual players. Even though the Eredivisie had quite a different season than usual, here are the correlations between our prediction and the actual points scored:

• Correlation = 80%
• R² = 64%

This establishes a strong and clear relationship between how well players do in the FBM system and how many points the clubs get that employ them. If you want more points, hire players who do well in the FBM system. That doesn’t mean that if a player does bad in the FBM system, that he is automatically a bad player. The FBM system is set up with a strong bias to underestimate players, rather than overestimate them. That means that a player who does badly according to us, could very well play better next season. But more importantly, it does mean that hiring that player increases the risk of hiring the wrong players. Whereas hiring a player who does well in the FBM system lowers this risk while at the same time increase the chance of winning more points!

Prediction & evaluation

Here is our original prediction and what actually happened: