TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2010//
TI  - Optimizing strategic behaviour in a dynamic setting in professional team sports
JO  - European journal of operational research
A1  - Dobson, Stephen
A1  - Goddard, John
SP  - 661
EP  - 669
VL  - 205
IS  - 3
N2  - This article develops a dynamic game-theoretic model of optimizing strategic behaviour by football (soccer) teams. Teams choose between defensive and attacking formations and between a non-violent and a violent playing style, and can vary these choices continuously throughout each match. Starting from the end of the match and working backwards, the teams' optimal strategies conditional on the current state of the match are determined by solving a series of two-player non-cooperative subgames. Numerical simulations are used to explore the sensitivity of strategic behaviour to variations in the structural parameters. The analysis demonstrates that the strategic behaviour of football teams can be rationalized in accordance with game-theoretic principles of optimizing strategic behaviour by agents when payoffs are uncertain and interdependent.  2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.<p /> 
LA  - 
SN  - 0377-2217
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ejor.2010.01.024
ID  - ref1
ER  -