An analysis of 524 Stanford pickup-soccer games (Aug 2024 – Sep 2026), reconstructed from the group's WhatsApp history. Who hands out strikes, who collects them, and whether some people just make strikes more likely by showing up.
Updated Sep 28, 2026. Every played game now counts. A game where nobody called a strike had no strikes; before, games with no post-game chatter were left out. Cleaning up for that also recovered 7 games the parser had been dropping and fixed 22 misdated ones. It removed 24 called-off games that had been counted as played, and restored 4 played games that had been marked cancelled. Five of the six findings hold. The exception is Conor's effect as a non-captain, which is now borderline.
Abu is the soft touch. As captain, AbuBakr hands out strikes in only 12% of his games vs. the 57% baseline. It's still the strongest effect in the dataset (Fisher p < 0.001). Everyone else with a real sample captains at roughly baseline (58–64%). (A newcomer to the table: Peter Danenberg, 0 strikes in 6 games as captain, p = 0.006. A small sample, but no longer just a curiosity.)
Conor is a strike magnet. Games Conor plays average ~1.5× the strikes (1.42 vs 0.92 per game) and hit a strike 63% of the time vs 51% without him (odds ratio 1.67, p = 0.005). Whether that holds when someone else captains is now borderline: 63% vs 51%, odds ratio 1.59, p = 0.052.
Noah is a red herring. His apparent "effect" disappears once you control for captaincy: present-but-not-captain, the rate is 59% vs 57% (OR 1.11, p = 0.80). Noah only looks strike-prone because he captains often.
It's the Conor effect, not a duo effect. When either Conor or Noah is on the field, strikes hit 61% (p = 0.03). When neither is present, the rate drops to 51%. "Only Noah" sits at 50%, while every scenario that includes Conor sits at 63–64%. The signal is entirely Conor.
Strikes are concentrated. A handful of repeat offenders absorb most of the punishment: Mwad leads with 15, then the two Peters with 14 each and Luka with 13. Simon is close behind with 12.
It's a morning league. ~97% of games are morning games, most of them at 7am. Evening games are too rare (15 played) to analyze separately. They are also undercounted: an evening game can get merged into the next morning's roster (see the report's caveats).
Strike risk is driven by two people: Abu, who suppresses it as a lenient captain, and Conor, who elevates it as the strictest enforcer and, less certainly, just by being on the field. Noah, despite the reputation, is noise. If you want a quiet game, pick a Saturday. Conor plays fewer than half of them, and it's the calmest day of the week (42%).
Methodology and full significance tables: see REPORT.md. Every played game counts; games called off before kickoff are left out.