Environmental Determinism in Football Modeling: How Pitch Degradation and Weather Volatility Dictated Over/Under Outcomes in 2013/2014 Serie A
Quantitative football modeling frequently prioritizes player-specific data such as expected goals, passing completion percentages, and defensive tracking distances while ignoring the physical surface upon which the match is contested. In historical contexts, particularly within the diverse geographical landscapes of the Italian top flight, environmental variables function as powerful hidden catalysts that can completely disrupt theoretical…