Need help in understanding the input data

[shivanikamera]

Can any one help me understand the input data in challenge #169?

What does home_i, home_j, score_i, score_j mean?

I understand that the data has score for matches won and for matches that were draw. However, I could not connect it.

I am not familiar with fifa matches. Please assist me.

[EricR · Accepted solution]

Hi @shivanikamera ,

The first two columns (Team_i and Team_j) associate each of the teams with either letter i or j. For instance, record 1 has China as team i and Thailand as team j. This is just done for identification purposes. This way when you see score_i, you know that was the number of goals scored by team i, and the likewise for team j. (In record 1, China scored 4 goals and Thailand scored 0).

Home_i and Home_j are less important for this particular challenge, but they are boolean variables. All they do is identify which of the teams was the home team for that particular game. (In record 2, the game was played in Jordan, in record 18 it was played in Ghana). In many instances, the game was not played in either of the competing teams country's, and so both of the values are 0. Think of this like the recent world cup in Qatar. Teams from all over the world played against each other in Qatar, so in most of the games neither team was playing in their home country.

Hope this helps and have fun solving!

[shivanikamera]

Thank you for helping me understand.