Aplikace systému Elo pro predikci výsledků fotbalových utkání

The bachelor thesis Application of Elo rating system for forecasting football match results is about use of Elo rating system, originally developed for chess, in the football environment. The first chapter of the thesis deals with the Elo rating system itself – both its history and use in the present time. The following chapter aimed its focus on describing methods used for evaluation of the football teams, not only by official authorities but also by other analysts. The research itself is situated into the second half. Firstly, the thesis concerns the topic of evaluating European football national teams based on Elo rating and maximum likelihood estimation and describes optimal calculation methods, difficulties, or specifics of football environment. Based on research results we run the Monte Carlo simulation for European championship in 2021 with continuously updated Elo rating. On the basis of this, the reader learns not only which participant has the highest title chance according to Elo rating but also gets the probability of every single result for each team. This simulation’s results indicated that despite some specifics of European championship draw Belgium as the team with highest Elo rating is the favourite.