In earlier posts, I looked at the correlation between fouls and red and yellow cards in the Big 4 leagues as well as the distribution of yellows and reds in the 2009/10 season or the cost of receiving yellow cards, but I haven't spent much time talking about red cards in and of themselves. There's a simple reason for that: red cards are relatively rare events compared to other things that happen on the field, like shots, goals, or even yellow cards. But they are the ultimate punishment in soccer, and when they do happen, they can be very costly to teams and individual players.
But how rare are red cards, really? And do the big leagues look similar in terms of how common red cards are? So let's take a look, starting with the distribution of red cards per team and match for the big leagues of soccer during the 2005/6 to 2009-10 seasons - that is, for five full seasons.
Clearly and as you'd expect, red cards are very unusual: the vast majority of matches teams play do not involve any reds at all. Between 2005 and 2009, the percentage of matches without a red range from highs of over 91% in the Premier League and the Bundesliga (91.9 and 91.5%, respectively) to a somewhat lower 84.7% in Serie A and a slightly lower 82.4% in La Liga. The distribution also shows that matches with 1 red card are about twice as common in La Liga and Serie A than in the Bundesliga and the EPL (roughly 15% v. 8%). So the southern leagues Serie A and La Liga "lead" the northern leagues Bundesliga and Premier League in red cards given.
These patterns are completely consistent with calculations of fouls per match I reported in a post back in September, with one interesting exception:
Bundesliga teams, on average, commit only slightly fewer fouls per match than teams in Serie A and La Liga, but red cards are clearly less common in the German league.
The graph also shows that receiving no red or a single red card accounts for 98-99% of all red card occurrences of for teams across the leagues, making matches with more than 1 red car exceedingly rare events. So you may immediately wonder which team would have that unfortunate honor of seeing red four times in a match - it's Osasuna in the 2006/07 season in a match against Atetico Madrid; and by the way, in the 2008/09 season, they managed to get three red cards in another match).
But I digress - back to red cards across the leagues. Next, here's a graph of red cards per team for each of the five seasons covered by the data. Take a look.
The graph shows that there are no clear trends in red cards across the leagues. But what the graph does reveal is that the numbers for Serie A are somewhat inflated by the relatively high occurrence of red cards in the 2006/07 season.
So what do we make of these numbers? In La Liga, the frequency of red cards per team/match is about .2. This doesn't sound like much, but it translates into 1 red card per team for every 5 matches played or 1 card for every 2.5 matches. In contrast, the frequency of around .8 for the Bundesliga and the EPL translate into 1 red card for every 12.5 matches played by team, or 1 red for slightly more than every 6 matches. Serie A is in-between; its red card numbers come out to around 1 per 6.25 team or 1 in every (slightly more than) 3 matches.
In a few days, I'll take a look at whether red cards are associated with match outcomes.
PS: Wonder where Osasuna stands? Their average across the five seasons is .23, which comes out to 1 red in every 4.5 matches they played.
But how rare are red cards, really? And do the big leagues look similar in terms of how common red cards are? So let's take a look, starting with the distribution of red cards per team and match for the big leagues of soccer during the 2005/6 to 2009-10 seasons - that is, for five full seasons.
Clearly and as you'd expect, red cards are very unusual: the vast majority of matches teams play do not involve any reds at all. Between 2005 and 2009, the percentage of matches without a red range from highs of over 91% in the Premier League and the Bundesliga (91.9 and 91.5%, respectively) to a somewhat lower 84.7% in Serie A and a slightly lower 82.4% in La Liga. The distribution also shows that matches with 1 red card are about twice as common in La Liga and Serie A than in the Bundesliga and the EPL (roughly 15% v. 8%). So the southern leagues Serie A and La Liga "lead" the northern leagues Bundesliga and Premier League in red cards given.
These patterns are completely consistent with calculations of fouls per match I reported in a post back in September, with one interesting exception:
Bundesliga teams, on average, commit only slightly fewer fouls per match than teams in Serie A and La Liga, but red cards are clearly less common in the German league.
The graph also shows that receiving no red or a single red card accounts for 98-99% of all red card occurrences of for teams across the leagues, making matches with more than 1 red car exceedingly rare events. So you may immediately wonder which team would have that unfortunate honor of seeing red four times in a match - it's Osasuna in the 2006/07 season in a match against Atetico Madrid; and by the way, in the 2008/09 season, they managed to get three red cards in another match).
But I digress - back to red cards across the leagues. Next, here's a graph of red cards per team for each of the five seasons covered by the data. Take a look.
The graph shows that there are no clear trends in red cards across the leagues. But what the graph does reveal is that the numbers for Serie A are somewhat inflated by the relatively high occurrence of red cards in the 2006/07 season.
So what do we make of these numbers? In La Liga, the frequency of red cards per team/match is about .2. This doesn't sound like much, but it translates into 1 red card per team for every 5 matches played or 1 card for every 2.5 matches. In contrast, the frequency of around .8 for the Bundesliga and the EPL translate into 1 red card for every 12.5 matches played by team, or 1 red for slightly more than every 6 matches. Serie A is in-between; its red card numbers come out to around 1 per 6.25 team or 1 in every (slightly more than) 3 matches.
In a few days, I'll take a look at whether red cards are associated with match outcomes.
PS: Wonder where Osasuna stands? Their average across the five seasons is .23, which comes out to 1 red in every 4.5 matches they played.
