The first and second halves of a football match are both 45 minutes long. So on average, there should be as many goals scored in the first half as in the second half. That makes right? Except for the fact that it’s completely false, this sounds pretty reasonable.
I’ve taken a look at all matches played in the English Premier League (EPL) from the 2015/2016 season up to the 2021/2022 season. That’s 2660 matches in total and 7309 goals. In these matches 3264 goals were scored in the first half, and 4045 in the second. This means that roughly 55% of all goals are scored in the second half. Below is a chart showing the goal distribution through the match in more detail
So why does this happen? One theory is that players are more fatigued during the end of the match, which makes mistakes more frequent, which in turn leads to more goals. Another theory is that the difference is due to tactical considerations. If a team is down by a single goal, then it makes sense to risk a lot more, as another goal will not lose the team any points, so they have everything to win.
For the purpose of modeling the progress of a match, it actually matters which it is, and it’s not trivial to distinguish the two. Hopefully I’ll manage to give it a shot in a later post.
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