A survey on football network analysis

¹ Research Institute of Sports Economics, East China University of Science and Technology Shanghai 200237, China
² Research Center for Econophysics, East China University of Science and Technology - Shanghai 200237, China
³ School of Business, East China University of Science and Technology - Shanghai 200237, China
⁴ School of Mathematics, East China University of Science and Technology - Shanghai 200237, China

^(a) E-mail: xuligong@ecust.edu.cn
^(b) E-mail: wxzhou@ecust.edu.cn (corresponding author)

Received: 13 June 2023
Accepted: 14 August 2023

Abstract

Being the world’s most popular sport, football research has traditionally concentrated on empirical summaries or statistics, with only limited data available in the past. In recent years, social network analysis has been applied to a variety of fields, which also brings new perspectives to the study of football sports. In this paper, we survey the literature related to football networks and discuss the use of network measures to analyze the performance of footballers and teams in different types of football networks. We aim to find out how to construct appropriate football networks based on different perspectives on football research. Various studies on football network analysis, including team performance, player interactions, and club behavior, are reviewed. The findings provide insights into team performance, player roles, and social dynamics within football teams and clubs.