The best statistic available for isolating a team’s ability to win, especially in consequential matches, is the Elo rating system, which was first adapted to sports in 1997 by a California software engineer named Bob Runyan. As a lifelong fan of World Cup soccer, Runyan had always wondered which historical soccer teams would rate the highest if their performances could somehow be fairly compared across time. He had grown weary of the official team-rating system of FIFA, the sport’s governing body, in which a team received three points for a victory and one point for a draw in any
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innovation -- Runyan didn't start from scratch, he had a model and adapted it
