The Voronoi Diagram in Soccer: a theoretical study to measure dominance space

TL;DR

This paper challenges the use of standard Voronoi diagrams for measuring dominance in soccer, proposing a kinematically accurate alternative that accounts for players' motion and dynamics.

Contribution

It introduces a corrected diagram model for soccer dominance areas based on player motion, highlighting the limitations of traditional Voronoi diagrams in dynamic settings.

Findings

Standard Voronoi diagrams are only accurate when players have equal speeds.

Corrected diagrams have more complex boundaries reflecting player motion.

Promotes the development of 'soccerdynamics' for better modeling of the game.

Abstract

In this article, I argue that the concept of the standard Voronoi diagram is incorrect for the calculation of dominance area in soccer. The correct region that should replace the polygonal Voronoi region controlled by a player emerges naturally by studying the motion of the players. It turns out that the widely-used standard Voronoi diagram is true only when all 22 players have the same speed (with vanishing speed being a special case) and it should be replaced by other diagrams whose regions have more complicated boundaries. The unfortunate error happened when the mathematical concept of the Voronoi diagram that has an implicit vanishing speed for its points was transferred to soccer without looking at the kinematical issues involved in the game of soccer. For this reason, as a byproduct of this work, I argue for the promotion of "soccerdynamics", model building for soccer by looking at the underlying mechanisms and not just adopting mathematical ideas only for their appeal and beauty.