Red cards, Do they matter?

I was watching Barcelona play Olympiacos the other week in the Champions League., Barca were 1-0 up and seemed to be strolling to another comfortable victory in the Nou Camp. Then in the 42nd minute Gerard Pique was sent off for a second yellow card for handling the ball into the net.

So what seemed like a comfortable night for Barca now became complicated, except it didn't... Barca completely dominated the 2nd half and ran out eventual 3-1 winners, thanks to a Messi free kick and a Lucas Digne goal after another bit of Messi magic.

This got me thinking how much difference do red cards actually make? So I decided to look at all the red cards in Europes top 5 leagues this season and see how much difference they made to the results.

Table 1 shows the total number of red cards per league this season (data accurate up until 3/11/17)

The Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga all have a similar number of red cards this season. The Premier League has the lowest with 9 perhaps lending credence to the notion that you can get away with more in the Premier League than in Europe. Serie A has had a few more than the other leagues with 18, While Ligue 1 has had a massive 26 so far, this may be because some of their players go around kicking fans in the head before games?

While the Premier League has on average the earliest red cards shown this season, the average time being in the 47th minute, La Liga red cards happen almost 30 minutes later in the 74th minute.

Table 2 shows the total points and goals gained from teams with a man advantage due to a red card.

Due to the sheer number of red cards shown in Ligue 1 this season, it's a bit surprising that only 5 points have been gained from teams with a man advantage. However the real interesting take from this graph is La Liga, where teams with a man advantage have lost more points and conceded more goals than teams with a man sent off.

In fact as of the 3rd November this season, no team in La Liga that has played against a team with 10 men, has gone on to pick up any points as a result of this.

Another interesting fact when I looked at the data from La Liga is that Barcelona or Real Madrid have not had a man sent off against them so far this season.

Table 3 shows the average points and goals gained from teams with a man advantage due to a red card.

Red cards seem to make the biggest difference in games in the Premier League and the Bundesliga. With a red card in the Bundesliga resulting in an average of almost 1 point per game for the team with a man advantage. The Premier league has an average of 0.8 goals per game, however this is inflated by Manchester City's 5-0 win over Liverpool which accounted for half of the goals gained by teams with a man advantage in the Premier League this season.

There could be a couple of reasons that no match in La Liga has seen a positive change in the result for the team with a man advantage. It could be the fact that Spanish teams are better at keeping the ball so can negate the effect of having a man less. I believe the main reason for the surprising result however, is the fact that Real Madrid and Barcelona are yet to benefit from a red card this season.

If we look at the results involving the elite teams effected by red cards across the leagues we can see how much they can capatalise or negate a red card for or against them.

Table 4 shows on average how many goals and points the elite teams across Europe have gained per match when playing with a man advantage.

Although this is a small sample size there is quite a difference when you compare with the league average in the goals column. It should also be noted that Man City, Juve and Napoli were already winning in all the games mentioned so they could not improve their points total.

Table 5 shows on average how many goals and points the elite teams across Europe have gained per match when having a man sent off.

Bayern and Napoli have not had a man sent off so far this season (correct as of 3/11/17) I added Atletico Madrid to this example as they have had a man sent off this season. Real Madrid have also had 2 men sent off so far, but these were both in injury time and didn't result in a change in the score.

No elite team has dropped points as a result of a red card this season in fact they have all gone on to score more goals than their opposition when down to 10 men. Again this is a small sample size.

Juve were 2-1 up when they were reduced to 10 men against Udinese, they went on to win the game 6-2 with a Sami Khedira hat trick of all people.

All data taken from Whoscored.com