Just as Billy Beane of the Oakland A’s labored to overcome the biases of a stable of grizzled and skeptical scouts, Anderson and Sally went to work to try to debunk the myths and conventional wisdom that have defined soccer for the last century. Among their conclusions:

■ Corner kicks into the goal mouth do not increase a team’s chances of scoring as much as people think. When he first arrived in England with Chelsea, Manager José Mourinho said: “How many countries can you think of where a corner kick is treated with the same applause as a goal? One. It only happens in England.” Perhaps an overstatement — it also happens in the United States. But the numbers tell the real story: according to figures from Major League Soccer through last weekend, 45 of 485 goals over all have been scored this season from 1,894 corners, or only 9 percent.

■ The authors’ data showed that the accepted wisdom that teams are most vulnerable to allowing a goal immediately after scoring simply is not true. Instead, they assert, the converse is true, no matter what an army of TV commentators have to say.

■ Possession has become the stat of the millennium, but in the opinion of the authors, it is abused and misused. From Spain to Barcelona to the local under-10 team, they say, the more important metric is managing turnovers. And the most damaging turnovers occur in a team’s defensive third of the field.

■ Based on the research of others, the authors say players from countries with civil strife are more likely to have discipline problems on the field, receiving an inordinate number of yellow and red cards.

■ While the biggest transfer fees in the world continue to be paid for strikers (Paris St.-Germain spent $71 million to acquire Edinson Cavani this month), Anderson and Sally assert that championships are won by the lunch-bucket guys on defense, who are often undervalued and misunderstood. The glamour boys garner all the attention for what they make happen, but it is defenders who keep things from happening. Sally said soccer “is not a game of superstars, it’s a game of galoots and a game of mistakes.”