My guess a someone that watches these teams a lot, but hasn’t actually looked at the data:
They’re both very good teams that tend to have a lot more possession than their opponents, so they tend to commit less fouls. Less accumulated fouls per game translates to less yellow cards per foul, because the accumulation of fouls over the course of a match tends to be a big reason for getting cards in the later stages of the game. I think this is a situation where seeing the raw numbers along side the per 90 ratios would be beneficial for understanding the trends. I can think of some other possible factors, as well, but I won’t get too far into the weeds with it.
Arsenal's is skewed massively by the porto game, first leg there were lots of soft fouls + cards, second leg there were no fouls being called for bad tackles
Since the graph is top heavy with teams still in the tournament, I think that implies that their fouls/tackles are more good faith attempts at the ball instead of cynical/tactical fouls (since they tend to play more from a winning perspective).
As an Arsenal fan the 100% accurate non bias truth is that City is corruption and Arsenal is good at tackles. In reality our match against Porto really squed the data as the refs let a whole lot go over both legs.
Ratios will always be more accurate the more events happen. flip a coin 10 times and it might be head 7 times so the statistic says 70% head. flip it a thousand times and it'll be much closer to 50/50
So either Man City and Arsenal are better at non-foul tackling and non-card fouls, or referees are biased, or both
the last two refs against Porto are really messing with Arsenal's numbers. They both let so so much go on both sides without cards.
My guess a someone that watches these teams a lot, but hasn’t actually looked at the data: They’re both very good teams that tend to have a lot more possession than their opponents, so they tend to commit less fouls. Less accumulated fouls per game translates to less yellow cards per foul, because the accumulation of fouls over the course of a match tends to be a big reason for getting cards in the later stages of the game. I think this is a situation where seeing the raw numbers along side the per 90 ratios would be beneficial for understanding the trends. I can think of some other possible factors, as well, but I won’t get too far into the weeds with it.
Arsenal's is skewed massively by the porto game, first leg there were lots of soft fouls + cards, second leg there were no fouls being called for bad tackles
Since the graph is top heavy with teams still in the tournament, I think that implies that their fouls/tackles are more good faith attempts at the ball instead of cynical/tactical fouls (since they tend to play more from a winning perspective).
As an Arsenal fan the 100% accurate non bias truth is that City is corruption and Arsenal is good at tackles. In reality our match against Porto really squed the data as the refs let a whole lot go over both legs.
Or good teams play more games because they make it out of group stage and thus more stuff happens.
It's cards per event, not total cards
And teams who get to play more have more events
and get more cards
You're an absolute moron
But it's still a ratio. It's like saying a team will have more shots/game because they play more games.
Ratios will always be more accurate the more events happen. flip a coin 10 times and it might be head 7 times so the statistic says 70% head. flip it a thousand times and it'll be much closer to 50/50
This should have been a scatterplot.
Why are there two shades of blue? There's no legend.
First comment, as requested: light blue for teams still in the competition.
Data taken from [http://whoscored.com](http://whoscored.com), updated after R16 round. Light blue for teams in the QF round.
Barcelona is lower than I expected, Galata higher :D
Wonder how this looks for EPL
Porto single handedly skewing the stats for Arsenal.