Money(proper foot)ball?

Probably the best football computer game ever

This is an interesting (although a bit overused, of late) topic. In some quarters, we statisticians are all akin to “moneyballs” (by the way: I should say I haven’t read the book or watched the movie $-$ but that’s by design, as I suspect I wouldn’t really like either. Also, I’ve never understood why the Americans call theirs “foot”ball, when it’s mostly played using the hands…) and are trying to take over the world by senselessly reducing every possible problem in the world to estimating proportions…

As any good old decision problem, I think football can be aided, not necessarily managed by formal stats. And in any case, for this to happen, one would need to assume rational behaviour on the part of the actors (chairmen, managers, players) $-$ not really their cup of tea, though, rationality…