Temporal Multilayer Fuzzy Quantum Graphs for Football Outcome Prediction and Player-Influence Ranking

Authors

  • Nivedita Kuity * Department of Computer and Information Science, Raiganj University, Raiganj–733134, India.
  • Laxminarayan Sahoo Department of Computer and Information Science, Raiganj University, Raiganj–733134, India.

https://doi.org/10.48314/tsc.v1i3.69

Abstract

Identifying structurally influential football players and predicting match outcomes from player interactions are challenging because event networks are temporal and multi-relational. This study proposes a Temporal Multilayer Fuzzy QuantumGraph framework that combines fuzzyweighted passing, defensive, possession, and spatial-progression layers with a continuous-time quantum walk. A real-symmetric aggregate adjacency matrix is used as the Hamiltonian so that the evolution is unitary. The framework is illustrated using event data from all 64 matches of the 2018 FIFA World Cup in StatsBomb Open Data. Fifteen-minute temporal windows are aggregated into player-level quantum centralities and team-level descriptors. In the supplied results, a random forest using fuzzy-quantum descriptors obtained a macro-AUC of 0.551, compared with 0.525 for a classical-centrality baseline, although its accuracy was lower. A
World Cup Final case study ranked Paul Pogba highest among France players by the proposed structural centrality. These findings are exploratory: the attached source package contains neither executable analysis code nor fold assignments, so the reported predictive metrics require independent reproduction with match-grouped validation before publication. The framework is therefore presented primarily as an interpretable player-influence model, with outcome prediction as a preliminary application.

Keywords:

Continuous-time quantumwalk, Fuzzy graph, Multilayer network, Football analytics, Quantum centrality, StatsBomb

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Published

2025-09-17

How to Cite

Kuity, N., & Sahoo, L. (2025). Temporal Multilayer Fuzzy Quantum Graphs for Football Outcome Prediction and Player-Influence Ranking. Transactions on Soft Computing , 1(3), 203-216. https://doi.org/10.48314/tsc.v1i3.69