Fantasy Football and online soccer management games have been around for years. There's Soccer Manager, Online Soccer Manager, Trophy Manager and many others. At the heart of most of these games is the match engine software. This can drive everything from simple abstract playing to detailed kick-by-kick simulations. In all cases, the input is each team with individual player stats plus modifiers due to injuries. Now add formations and style of play, such as aggression to win more tackles but risk yellow or red cards. The match engine takes all of these into consideration, then delivers a realistic score. It has to simulate a full 90 minute match. 
These simulations can be very detailed indeed. If you have a player out of position, will the simulation take this into account? What if he's been caught by photographers in a hotel with someone clearly not his wife the night before? Has he had a row with a teammate? I used "realistic" before, but perhaps "convincing" is better as we don't have access to the simulation code. But think of it this way: If the results appear convincing then they must be realistic! Thanks to a recent joint initiative by an English Premier League team and a sports data team, there's a new way to bring realism into the games. What if you could get detailed stats for each player in the Premier League, kick by kick, positioning, action, right down to formation and even position in that formation?
These simulations can be very detailed indeed. If you have a player out of position, will the simulation take this into account? What if he's been caught by photographers in a hotel with someone clearly not his wife the night before? Has he had a row with a teammate? I used "realistic" before, but perhaps "convincing" is better as we don't have access to the simulation code. But think of it this way: If the results appear convincing then they must be realistic! Thanks to a recent joint initiative by an English Premier League team and a sports data team, there's a new way to bring realism into the games. What if you could get detailed stats for each player in the Premier League, kick by kick, positioning, action, right down to formation and even position in that formation?