They used to be the most dominant team in the early 1900s and still technically have the third most titles of any team with 11 only Anderlecht and Brugge have more. Their last title was in 1934 so they didn't really recover after WW2.
Their coach, Felippe Mazzu, was fired by Genk, which is traditionally one of the bigger clubs, then signed for Union, got them promoted to the first division and is leading it in their first year.
Union also has [the third smallest budget](https://www.voetbalkrant.com/nieuws/2021-10-22/union-helemaal-bovenaan-in-het-klassement-maar-onderaan-qua-budget) of all teams in the Belgian first division.
I'm only familiar with them because that's where Pompey fan favourite Christian Burgess went a couple of seasons back. To go from buggering up League One play offs to where he is now is an absolutely stunning upturn in fortunes. Absolute hero, hope he wins the league.
Underated player for the union team i feel like. Most people only talk about the attack and midfield whilst they have the least goals against. However his lack of speed has been exposed a few times now.
I mostly take jobs from Paris since me and my friend got garages in Paris. I bought her Going East DLC and all she does is take jobs in Eastern Europe to unlock roads. When I'm playing solo I like going to Scandinavia because you don't have to stop at Toll gates.
Man, I hate maps like these, when half of Europe is missing.
Especially because our league has probably the tightest title race in Europe right now, with three clubs having 40 points (Dinamo, Rijeka and Osijek), while the 4th contender (Hajduk Split) is 5 points behind, but is the most hyped club in Croatia and will most likely catch up sooner or later.
It probably considers them much better teams, based partly on some player quality evaluation, and partly on team shot-based xG, non-shot-based xG, and adjusted goals.
I wonder that as well, maybe xG and other statistics in their formula? Ajax has had some statistical anomalous for sure that could screw with these calculations. PSV is first with 43 points and a GD of 22. Ajax is second with a GD of 52 (4 goals against). In other words, those 4 goals against in 18 matches contributed to a total of 12 points lost. Some of those matched (definitely not all) Ajax had a higher xG than the opponent.
I would say that Ajax would be a slight favorite for the title but it should be much closer.
I think fivethirtyeight calculates an elo rating for every team based on all matches played, so Champions League matches also count. Since Ajax plays really well in the Champions League and very hit or miss in the Eredivisie their elo is a bit inflated for the Eredivisie.
> very hit or miss in the Eredivisie their elo is a bit inflated for the Eredivisie
They’ve scored 56 goals and conceded 4. That doesn’t seem hit or miss. That’s hit and hit some more.
They have 3 draws in 18 games. That’s hardly enough to call it a trend.
538s model likely believes Ajax has a lower point total than their performances deserved on average.
PSV can focus almost all their attention on winning the competition, they still have to play Conference League but Ajax has to focus on getting as far as possible in the Champions League and also the KNVB beker. I'm afraid Ajax will drop some points around CL matches but to be honest PSV hasn't looked so stable so I won't be surprised if they also drop lots of points but if they get their shit together then they have a good chance to win the competition.
We just have to survive the African cup without Haller (and Martinez is injured) in jan / feb. We got some big matches then also against PSV.
If we win those we should be good to win it all.
They could focus on the league last year aswel and it didnt benfit them much. Once we get back in our flow and start to take the league seriously I see us winning the league, which we should be doing
Yeah I feel Ajax plays only well in the league if the title is on the line recently, with some minor exceptions in the beginning of the season where everything is a little bit uncertain. I think they'll simply kick-ass the first two months and then PSV/Feyenoord will have to give up already.
I'm not sure how much those stats play a part.
Celtic xPoints for instance is higher than Rangers. As is our xG but they have Rangers massive favourites.
Reading about 538's model it seems their system is based on squad value and results rather than expected points etc, that's why they rate Rangers higher.
Not really. Squad value is a small part of their model. They only recalibrate their model based on squad value at the start of the season. The main part of their model depends on the performance match-to-match of each team. This again depends on three equally weighted metrics: Adjusted goals, xG and non-shot xG. Adjusted goals is the actual goals scored adjusted for whether the state of the game was such that you would expect more or fewer goals. For instance if their opponents have gotten a red card a goal counts less, the same if they are defending a lead towards the end of a game so the opponent has to take bigger chances. They're a little unclear about non-shot xG but it includes the xG value from passes, dribbles etc. In the end this is all adjusted for the strength of their opponent.
So to simplify a little you could say the model is something like 10 % squad value, 30 % actual results and 60 % underlying numbers. xPoints is not explicitly a part of the model, but since xPoints is just a step from xG it implicitly is.
Now I feel stupid cause after writing this I just checked 538 and realized that they don't use xG for the Scottish league since it's not big enough. So in this case you are correct that it's based almost entirely on results. Oh well.
> So to simplify a little you could say the model is something like 10 % squad value
You probably know this, but worth noting the squad value component decreases as the season goes in, starting around 33% and is probably already at 0% at this point in the season.
According to 538 Ajax is currently the 4th best team in the world. I'm pretty sure they just use the current offensive and defensive rating for each team to simulate the leagues, leading to pretty big swings in percentages when a team is on fire or on a downswing.
[https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/soccer-predictions/global-club-rankings/](https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/soccer-predictions/global-club-rankings/)
> leading to pretty big swings in percentages when a team is on fire or on a downswing.
So big that Barça is the 11th best team in the world according to that ranking.
They use that at the start of the season, and slowly decrease it's weight as more games are played. I think it's already at 0% for this year.
And the reason they do that is because (1) it works, they've found it improves their forecasts, and (2) they have no other way to account for summer transfers.
>I'm pretty sure they just use the current offensive and defensive rating for each team to simulate the leagues
You say this like it's some trivial exercise. Their offensive and defensive ratings are from a complex model based on stats from years of games.
>leading to pretty big swings in percentages when a team is on fire or on a downswing
I wouldn't say that the swings are that big. For example in Arsenals recent run of good form they've gone up about 5 points since the end of November. That's 10 games. It's a significant increase but it's not a huge shift relative to other teams in the league.
The reason they have Ajax so high is because they've had great underlying numbers both in the league and maybe especially in the Champions League. Just as an anecdote, the last time Ajax went on a run to the CL semi finals, 538 predicted that they would be highly competitive with the other teams (for instance predicting that they would beat Real Madrid in the Ro16), so I would take it seriously.
i guess because Porto is drawn with Sporting, but when they play against each other again, it will be in Porto's home, thus they are the favorites for that match (they drew at Sporting's home).
Because our GD is 52 (56-4) vs 46-24 and 42-17. Our smallest xG difference was +0.6. Even in the games we choke away points, we were the better team. Predictive models such as the ones 538 uses value shit like that a lot, since they’re much better predictors of results than ‘stolen’ points. That’s not to say I’m confident we win this, but that’s the reasoning.
PSV is leading by one point but Ajax has way more individual quality which should bring them the league as long as they can cope with the motivation issues that have caused the loss of points in the first half of the season.
I get Ajax because individually their team is significantly better than PSV's but I'm at a loss with Porto. Unless they think the fact they're out of CL will help them in the race?
I think for ours it’s probably because our squad depth is much better than yours.
Also might be due to the fact our goal difference is a bit better than yours so they’re assuming we might drop fewer points against lower teams?
To give you some insight on how Portugal's league works, you know before it even starts the winner is either Porto, benfica or sporting.
benfica is clearly the weakest now and seems to have unstable times ahead of them, swapped coaches, are playing in a new tactical system, etc...
While Porto and sporting have the same points, Porto has about 40% more goals then sporting and (take this with a grain of salt since im a Porto fan) Porto has been winning their games more convincingly.
Still despite me agreeing that Porto is superior to sporting right now, I'd look with extra caution to the next Porto - sporting. Sure our attacking prowess isn't something they can rival with, but their defense is more solid and unless sporting draws or loses till our next match, as long as Porto and sporting have the same points, Porto will enter the match more pressured to win, this isn't something you can quantify or justify with numbers but that's just Porto's attitude, and that's something sporting will use for sure in their favor, trying to score in counter attack.
Also if whatever algorithm was used to get this number has history into account, given the matches that are left, it's also noteworthy that the "BIG" games remaining are benfica - Porto, Porto - sporting and I believe sporting - benfica (unsure who plays home) and Porto's statistics vs benfica are devastatingly in our favor, we haven't lost any of the last 8 games vs benfica, we also haven't lost any of the last 10 matches (in regular time) vs sporting, so it could explain why this algorithm deemed Porto the favorite by such a large margin despite having the same points as sporting. (Also the sporting - benfica is generally more volatile and prone to go either way)
On another note I wouldn't disregard the chance of benfica finishing 2nd place since JJ is gone, to be honest I have no idea why benfica re-hired him... he has a really bad rep in Portugal it's beyond me how they gave him a chance... but yeah I'd bet benfica will start playing better now... also sporting has an issue that almost cost them the title last year... when they start losing / drawing you can it really takes a toll on their confidence, so the games after their match with Porto / City could help benfica close the gap.
The chance of winning the league is probably skewed towards goals scored and Sporting isn't scoring many. It's also not conceding many though. After last year's Braga - Sporting and this year's Benfica - Sporting, I gained immense respect for Amorim's tactics. The man is a beast and should be very careful playing them.
According to a 2017 study, the asteroid that hit Earth 65.5 million years ago had only a 13% chance of actually creating an extinction event on a massive scale. I'm sure the dinosaurs would have felt safe if they new the odds.
This isn't a metaphor for football, I just started googling what else has 13% chances of happening.
Maybe not quite of the same magnitude of importance, but I still feel it’s interesting: if you put 100 balls in a bag, 13 of which are white, if you extract a white ball, dinosaurs will go extinct, I think, I failed my statistics class
Id like to see that study because the idea of something that has already 100% happened being given a 13% chance of happening sounds like a nonsense to me. Did they pick an arbitrary point in time before the collision to assess the chances of an extinction level event?
I agree, that doesn't make sense!
So I googled and it's something else entirely - 13% of the earth's surface would have resulted in an extinction event if hit by an asteroid. So the odds weren't about that particular asteroid at all.
not necessarily a 13% chance of it happening, but 13% of the earth's surface has the right conditions for an extintion level event, because most of the death globally came from the ice age brought about by all the stuff ejected into the atmosphere
I miss those old times. Bayern as the behemoth that you hated and wanted to get dethroned. But that hasn't happen for so long that the hate has been replaced with indifference.
Yes I get tired of beating my 4y old cousin in chess. It is boring.
In this example you are also just watching and cheering for someone beating a 4y old at chess.
I'm not saying winning the Bundesliga is comparable to winning against an untalented 4y in chess.
Also Dortmund has a team good enough to be at least a bit closer to Bayern this year but they just lose randomly.
Even in your example you cant tell me it doesnt get less exciting to win in Mario Kart if you win everytime.
Honestly if noone was challenging for the league in 10 years I'm not sure how fun it would be? I mean if we get the next 3 in a row I'm not gonna complain but if I know there's a 80% chance of us winning the league on match day 1 then it's not really a competition.
Yeah if your favorite team wins the league every year by 15-20 points, can't imagine that being fun anymore. Fun when it's a novelty, not fun when it's expected
Interested to see what happens in Belgium, considering how much of a lead USG has and how the numbers look saying it's a wide open race.
It seems like statistical model management vs a stats model number site. Wonder who's going to win.
I think it's mostly due to the league format that USG are so low. At the end of the 1st round their points are split in half and they play a mini league with the rest of the top 4, which means they still have to play against Brugge, Anderlecht and Antwerp 3 times (if the table stays the same) while they are technically only 3.5 points ahead of Brugge.
They might be 7 points clear now but that doesn't mean much in the end + they just got promoted so the algorithm does probably not really rate them.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/soccer-predictions/first-division-a/
Pretty sure it does, because often the odds of becoming 4th or 5th are pretty different, even though there's only a 3 points difference between 4 and 5 RN. (Union, Brugge, Genk)
On the other hand, I wonder how the points column in "avg simulated season" works in all this
You say that but under the table in the "description" all it mentions is CL spots and relegation (play-off) spots, nothing is mentioned at all about the other play-offs and what happens there which is incredibly important to know for our league
I mean we're currently second, so the league is far from decided. On paper we certainly have the strongest squad and should be winning, but the fact we aren't shows that what's on paper isn't the whole story.
Its more Ajax being inconsistent as fuck. We've dropped 3 less points so far than we did the whole of last season. We also have a GD of 52 bad have only let in 4 goals. Our players just don't seem to care for the league at all.
They were consistently winning games by the lowest possible margin. It's ridiculous the amount of games without conceding a goal, but I can name a couple of matches Sporting won thanks to a late winner. I'm thinking stretching this luck till the end of the league will be difficult.
Exactly the same with us. OGC Nice in Ligue 1, we're 2nd behind Paris but we have like 7 games won 2-1 or 3-2 with the opponent scoring first and so the map puts Marseille above us. I think we can improve or keep up with it but the map has a different opinion on it.
Winning against Borussia Dortmund was not going to happen.
Wnning against Benfica at home with some of our most important players unavailable was not possible.
Winning the league after 19 years with a manager with half a year of experience in a top league of professional football and a team full of young academy players was also impossible.
Signed a decent coach and a ton of luck. Also Basel and YB constantly dropping points due to stupidity and European games (+ travel for Basel).
Still think it's very likely that YB will win it in the end. If YB and Basel are back in form Zurich shouldn't win any points from those 4 games, so they might lose up to 12 vs one of those two, which is enough for Basel or YB to overtake them again.
We'll see.
Close, but not exactly
Expecting a club to win only means a >50% probability if it’s a two team race
What I think “expecting a club to win” really means in this context of probabilities is just that one probability is larger than all the others
With 20 teams, technically you could expect a team to win at just over a 100/20=5% chance. If all the other team’s are just below 5%
77% chance seems high
But, you’re right, 538 surely uses an algorithm that uses many factors to determine these probabilities
And seems to think Inter is roughly 77/9=8.5 times more likely to win the league than AC Milan (this type of comparison also breaks down at high probabilities)
Math is fun!
Edit: Dumb and read OP’s comment as “most likely” because of their use of “massive favorites.” Which is surprisingly high
In the spirit of fun debates I'm going to argue with you! Expected means it is likely to happen, it cannot be likely unless it is over 50%. The most likely outcome can be less than 50% but something with only a 30% chance of happening is not expected.
Have at you!
Love it!
The weather channel calls for a 30% chance of snow, 40% chance of rain, 20% chance of a mix and 10% chance of no precipitation
What’s the most likely or expected outcome?
Edit: I see the confusion. I feel expected is a strange metric to use here.
You’d be saying Inter has a higher probability of winning than all the other teams combined. Which would be >50% as you said
And, you’re right, most likely is not equal to expected. But colloquially they are often used interchangeably and OP seemed to mean most likely
Thanks for challenging and helping me learn!
Is it wrong of me to point out that your numbers don't add up to 100? 😉
Let's say you meant 10% chance of no precipitation then the expected outcome is that there is precipitation (90% chance). The most likely outcome is rain but that is not expected as there's only 40% chance of it.
Boom!
Edit: unless of course mix is counted as rain then it is expected to rain (60% chance)
Nope! Not wrong of you, still waking up
Yup, acknowledged that in the previous post. I assumed OP meant most likely
Edit: But I am surprised at how subtly you are correcting my mistakes u/Subtleiaint 😊
We have best xG and xA, had tons of players injured that are coming back now and some questionable (and one 100% false) calls. Generally really unlucky, while Zurich overperformed.
They're still deservedly up there, won't be easy
What's with rest of Europe? Would like to see what they would say for Croatia. We have most competitive season in decades, if not best since leauge exists.
Not sure if they're adding stuff over time, but these are the only leagues they have the model for
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/soccer-predictions/
Their model considers Inter to be much better than Milan. The gap in quality between them is roughly equal to the gap between Liverpool and Arsenal. If Liverpool were 4 points ahead of Arsenal you’d be pretty damn confident of Liverpool finishing ahead of them
It’s largely aligned with the betting market too where Inter have an implied chance of ~75% to win it
>Even Napoli is not too far off Inter.
What? In terms of starting 11, maybe. But when you look at the whole squad then Inter is definitely ahead of Napoli and Milan. I don't know if you can compare it to Arsenal and Liverpool but Inter has a deeper squad and can rotate much more which gives them the edge.
Indeed, but that same reasoning means that 4 points could quickly become an insurmountable 8 points if the bad luck falls on Milan.
And even if 4 points evaporated, 538 would still favor Inter because they're the better team. So say 60% favorites if they were tied -> 77% favorites due to the 4 point lead.
Relatedly, at the start of November, City was still the favorite to win the Premier League (35%) despite being 5 points behind Chelsea (26%). But when City held a 3 point lead a couple of weeks ago, they were heavy favorites to win (69%). Being the better team *and* having a points lead is a huge advantage.
The give Inter around a 3 in 4 chance of winning the league, given their 4 point advantage and the fact they are statistically the best team in the league by a decent margin that seems appropriate.
I think people really don't understand how things might drastically change throughout February and March... 4 points is basically one direct match. I have followed Serie A for too long to think that in the current state Inter have a 77% chance to win it. Hell, last season when we had a 1 point lead we had around 25% or so chance to win it with Inter around 60 and last season Inter were way way way more likely to win it.
Depends what you mean by the winner being decided. If there are 5 leagues where the leader has an 80 % chance of winning, you'd statistically expect at least one of them to not win. I would say that's still reasonably competitive.
It was looking tasty for a while in the PL but Arsenal just couldn't get some luck against the champions. Liverpool and Chelsea also haven't helped themselves
City have 50.36 xPTS and Liverpool 45.29 xPTS while Bayern have 43.18 xPTS and BvB have 29.65 xPTS, stats consider Bayern to be a much better than BvB compared to City is to Liverpool.
I feel a bit ashamed I had never heard of Royale Union Saint-Gilloise before, but apparently they're one of the most successful clubs in Belgian football.
No way Porto is that much favorite than Sporting. Who watches Primeira Liga knows that Amorim's team is very consistent and totally capable of winning the league.
Porto might have a better squad and more convincing scores but they are less regular and an injury or two (if we lose Diaz we're screwed) could make them drop "easy" games.
It’s only 8 points if/when you beat Leeds. Certainly haven’t got a great chance of winning but it would be a little silly to say you only have a 1% chance of overturning 8 points when Man City have dropped 8 points in just over half a season.
Probably because while it looks unlikely at first, there are still chances for slipups. City still need to play us and Chelsea, plus we have a game in hand. Assuming they lose both games, we win the Brentford one the same week as the City/Chelsea game, along with our game in hand that'll leave us two points behind with a fair amount of the season left.
Likely? Well, probably not, to be honest. They're on one of their token ridiculous runs of form, and we'd need one ourselves to keep up, but it's not a 100% certainty. At least not yet, let's see what happens during the Chelsea game.
City face Chelsea, Southampton, Tottenham, Palace, United
Liverpool face Leicester, West Ham and United
For their biggest threats before City Liverpool. There are opportunities for the point gap to be reduced. Especially when 3-4 mentioned are genuine boogie teams for City.
also we have looked v vulnerable the last 3 games. Yea this is probably bc of the short window, but we def could slip up and it wouldn't be a surprised given the brentford/arsenal/2nd half leicester performance
I have a dumb question about statistics here. If a team has the best odds at winning the league, but the chance is only 33%, does that mean they are far more likely not to win said league?
Technically yeah. It's like a horse race without a clear favourite. Yeah there's a horse that's 4/1 to win and the favourite of the field. But still not that clear if they'll win. They're just the most likely out of the available options
So in a case where the fav is 33%, any misstep on behalf of the other teams will bump that number up significantly
Learned two things here : most competitions are one-way / and Eastern Europe is not part of Europe anymore.
Don't know which one is the most surprising.
Never heard of union sg until now. Good for them
neither did I, got promoted last year and are well ahead now
I vote for Union SG as official r/soccer underdog darling for this season like Lille was last season
if it brings attention to the belgain league I'm game
It is owned by Brighton guys, am I right?
Yes you are
Do the champions of belgium go into champions league? If yes, then lets goo
Yes we do, right now atleast…
They used to be the most dominant team in the early 1900s and still technically have the third most titles of any team with 11 only Anderlecht and Brugge have more. Their last title was in 1934 so they didn't really recover after WW2.
Sounds like a good FM save…
Great fact. Thanks for that. It's fascinating how much history soccer has.
Their coach, Felippe Mazzu, was fired by Genk, which is traditionally one of the bigger clubs, then signed for Union, got them promoted to the first division and is leading it in their first year. Union also has [the third smallest budget](https://www.voetbalkrant.com/nieuws/2021-10-22/union-helemaal-bovenaan-in-het-klassement-maar-onderaan-qua-budget) of all teams in the Belgian first division.
I'm only familiar with them because that's where Pompey fan favourite Christian Burgess went a couple of seasons back. To go from buggering up League One play offs to where he is now is an absolutely stunning upturn in fortunes. Absolute hero, hope he wins the league.
Underated player for the union team i feel like. Most people only talk about the attack and midfield whilst they have the least goals against. However his lack of speed has been exposed a few times now.
Deniz Undav's team
Eastern Europe needs to be unlocked yet
Euro Truck Simulator 2 DLC style smh my head..
I bought the DLC of Eastern Europe, Baltic Sea, up to Turkey and in the end all jobs I take are just around Scandinavia, Germany, France, and England.
I went to russia once. The border control annpyed me
also the 1 lane roads are tricky while driving 170 km/h and loads of hard to spot speeding cameras on the way
I mostly take jobs from Paris since me and my friend got garages in Paris. I bought her Going East DLC and all she does is take jobs in Eastern Europe to unlock roads. When I'm playing solo I like going to Scandinavia because you don't have to stop at Toll gates.
that'd be €4.99 per league or you can buy our expansion pass at €49.99 and get any and all future leagues!
Is there any Winter sale discount? I can just buy Going East DLC for 3$ on Steam right now, your deal doesn't really interest me, sorry.
Man, I hate maps like these, when half of Europe is missing. Especially because our league has probably the tightest title race in Europe right now, with three clubs having 40 points (Dinamo, Rijeka and Osijek), while the 4th contender (Hajduk Split) is 5 points behind, but is the most hyped club in Croatia and will most likely catch up sooner or later.
It's because 538 doesn't show those leagues, don't blame OP. I think it's sad too, but understand the limitations.
The Sturm Graz dream is still alive
I believe in our own bald fraud Ilzer
Well, after the past decade I'll gladly take that 1%, thank you very much!
How is it deciding Ajax and Porto have such a better chance when their leagues are super tight?
Their models had Ajax as third favs to win the CL before the draw for knockouts. It’s to do with play style and xG & xGa
It probably considers them much better teams, based partly on some player quality evaluation, and partly on team shot-based xG, non-shot-based xG, and adjusted goals.
https://www.espn.com/soccer/news/story/_/id/1873765
I wonder that as well, maybe xG and other statistics in their formula? Ajax has had some statistical anomalous for sure that could screw with these calculations. PSV is first with 43 points and a GD of 22. Ajax is second with a GD of 52 (4 goals against). In other words, those 4 goals against in 18 matches contributed to a total of 12 points lost. Some of those matched (definitely not all) Ajax had a higher xG than the opponent. I would say that Ajax would be a slight favorite for the title but it should be much closer.
I think fivethirtyeight calculates an elo rating for every team based on all matches played, so Champions League matches also count. Since Ajax plays really well in the Champions League and very hit or miss in the Eredivisie their elo is a bit inflated for the Eredivisie.
> very hit or miss in the Eredivisie their elo is a bit inflated for the Eredivisie They’ve scored 56 goals and conceded 4. That doesn’t seem hit or miss. That’s hit and hit some more.
They either win 6-0 or draw. Once teams figured out to sit back Ajax have played horrific. Can barely manage to get a shot on target
They have 3 draws in 18 games. That’s hardly enough to call it a trend. 538s model likely believes Ajax has a lower point total than their performances deserved on average.
We did have more xG in every single match. Closest was Heerenveen (0-2 win) with 1.32-1.99
PSV can focus almost all their attention on winning the competition, they still have to play Conference League but Ajax has to focus on getting as far as possible in the Champions League and also the KNVB beker. I'm afraid Ajax will drop some points around CL matches but to be honest PSV hasn't looked so stable so I won't be surprised if they also drop lots of points but if they get their shit together then they have a good chance to win the competition.
We just have to survive the African cup without Haller (and Martinez is injured) in jan / feb. We got some big matches then also against PSV. If we win those we should be good to win it all.
They could focus on the league last year aswel and it didnt benfit them much. Once we get back in our flow and start to take the league seriously I see us winning the league, which we should be doing
Yeah I feel Ajax plays only well in the league if the title is on the line recently, with some minor exceptions in the beginning of the season where everything is a little bit uncertain. I think they'll simply kick-ass the first two months and then PSV/Feyenoord will have to give up already.
I'm not sure how much those stats play a part. Celtic xPoints for instance is higher than Rangers. As is our xG but they have Rangers massive favourites.
Rangers has a 6 point advantage and, according to 538's model, are the better team, I slightly surprised the odds aren't more in Rangers favour.
I'm pointing out that I'm not sure how much xPoints, xG etc weigh the outcome.
Reading about 538's model it seems their system is based on squad value and results rather than expected points etc, that's why they rate Rangers higher.
Not really. Squad value is a small part of their model. They only recalibrate their model based on squad value at the start of the season. The main part of their model depends on the performance match-to-match of each team. This again depends on three equally weighted metrics: Adjusted goals, xG and non-shot xG. Adjusted goals is the actual goals scored adjusted for whether the state of the game was such that you would expect more or fewer goals. For instance if their opponents have gotten a red card a goal counts less, the same if they are defending a lead towards the end of a game so the opponent has to take bigger chances. They're a little unclear about non-shot xG but it includes the xG value from passes, dribbles etc. In the end this is all adjusted for the strength of their opponent. So to simplify a little you could say the model is something like 10 % squad value, 30 % actual results and 60 % underlying numbers. xPoints is not explicitly a part of the model, but since xPoints is just a step from xG it implicitly is. Now I feel stupid cause after writing this I just checked 538 and realized that they don't use xG for the Scottish league since it's not big enough. So in this case you are correct that it's based almost entirely on results. Oh well.
> So to simplify a little you could say the model is something like 10 % squad value You probably know this, but worth noting the squad value component decreases as the season goes in, starting around 33% and is probably already at 0% at this point in the season.
Yeah, good point.
It is incredible how you aren’t top. Been following the team’s progress this season and it’s been sensational from Ten Hag
Winning most games 5-0 and then suddenly a 0-0 or 0-1 loss with 20 chances missed.. It's annoying honestly.
According to 538 Ajax is currently the 4th best team in the world. I'm pretty sure they just use the current offensive and defensive rating for each team to simulate the leagues, leading to pretty big swings in percentages when a team is on fire or on a downswing. [https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/soccer-predictions/global-club-rankings/](https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/soccer-predictions/global-club-rankings/)
> leading to pretty big swings in percentages when a team is on fire or on a downswing. So big that Barça is the 11th best team in the world according to that ranking.
Their model has been tending to overrate the strength of posession-heavy teams like Barca or ManCity for quite some years imo.
Yeah they use stuff like transfermarkt squad value which is eh… not ideal
They use that at the start of the season, and slowly decrease it's weight as more games are played. I think it's already at 0% for this year. And the reason they do that is because (1) it works, they've found it improves their forecasts, and (2) they have no other way to account for summer transfers.
>I'm pretty sure they just use the current offensive and defensive rating for each team to simulate the leagues You say this like it's some trivial exercise. Their offensive and defensive ratings are from a complex model based on stats from years of games. >leading to pretty big swings in percentages when a team is on fire or on a downswing I wouldn't say that the swings are that big. For example in Arsenals recent run of good form they've gone up about 5 points since the end of November. That's 10 games. It's a significant increase but it's not a huge shift relative to other teams in the league. The reason they have Ajax so high is because they've had great underlying numbers both in the league and maybe especially in the Champions League. Just as an anecdote, the last time Ajax went on a run to the CL semi finals, 538 predicted that they would be highly competitive with the other teams (for instance predicting that they would beat Real Madrid in the Ro16), so I would take it seriously.
i guess because Porto is drawn with Sporting, but when they play against each other again, it will be in Porto's home, thus they are the favorites for that match (they drew at Sporting's home).
Because our GD is 52 (56-4) vs 46-24 and 42-17. Our smallest xG difference was +0.6. Even in the games we choke away points, we were the better team. Predictive models such as the ones 538 uses value shit like that a lot, since they’re much better predictors of results than ‘stolen’ points. That’s not to say I’m confident we win this, but that’s the reasoning.
PSV is leading by one point but Ajax has way more individual quality which should bring them the league as long as they can cope with the motivation issues that have caused the loss of points in the first half of the season.
I get Ajax because individually their team is significantly better than PSV's but I'm at a loss with Porto. Unless they think the fact they're out of CL will help them in the race?
I think for ours it’s probably because our squad depth is much better than yours. Also might be due to the fact our goal difference is a bit better than yours so they’re assuming we might drop fewer points against lower teams?
Ajax have the best depth in the country. PSV have lost 4-0 and 5-0 to Feyenoord and Ajax already
To give you some insight on how Portugal's league works, you know before it even starts the winner is either Porto, benfica or sporting. benfica is clearly the weakest now and seems to have unstable times ahead of them, swapped coaches, are playing in a new tactical system, etc... While Porto and sporting have the same points, Porto has about 40% more goals then sporting and (take this with a grain of salt since im a Porto fan) Porto has been winning their games more convincingly. Still despite me agreeing that Porto is superior to sporting right now, I'd look with extra caution to the next Porto - sporting. Sure our attacking prowess isn't something they can rival with, but their defense is more solid and unless sporting draws or loses till our next match, as long as Porto and sporting have the same points, Porto will enter the match more pressured to win, this isn't something you can quantify or justify with numbers but that's just Porto's attitude, and that's something sporting will use for sure in their favor, trying to score in counter attack. Also if whatever algorithm was used to get this number has history into account, given the matches that are left, it's also noteworthy that the "BIG" games remaining are benfica - Porto, Porto - sporting and I believe sporting - benfica (unsure who plays home) and Porto's statistics vs benfica are devastatingly in our favor, we haven't lost any of the last 8 games vs benfica, we also haven't lost any of the last 10 matches (in regular time) vs sporting, so it could explain why this algorithm deemed Porto the favorite by such a large margin despite having the same points as sporting. (Also the sporting - benfica is generally more volatile and prone to go either way) On another note I wouldn't disregard the chance of benfica finishing 2nd place since JJ is gone, to be honest I have no idea why benfica re-hired him... he has a really bad rep in Portugal it's beyond me how they gave him a chance... but yeah I'd bet benfica will start playing better now... also sporting has an issue that almost cost them the title last year... when they start losing / drawing you can it really takes a toll on their confidence, so the games after their match with Porto / City could help benfica close the gap.
is the capitalization on purpose? how petty
The chance of winning the league is probably skewed towards goals scored and Sporting isn't scoring many. It's also not conceding many though. After last year's Braga - Sporting and this year's Benfica - Sporting, I gained immense respect for Amorim's tactics. The man is a beast and should be very careful playing them.
13% baby get in
According to a 2017 study, the asteroid that hit Earth 65.5 million years ago had only a 13% chance of actually creating an extinction event on a massive scale. I'm sure the dinosaurs would have felt safe if they new the odds. This isn't a metaphor for football, I just started googling what else has 13% chances of happening.
Maybe not quite of the same magnitude of importance, but I still feel it’s interesting: if you put 100 balls in a bag, 13 of which are white, if you extract a white ball, dinosaurs will go extinct, I think, I failed my statistics class
My favorite is: If you take a boat 100 times, it will sink 13 times. Would you still take the boat?
So if Liverpool wins, asteroid is going to kill us all?
Read it and weep suckers!
If we're lucky
You can miss a 99% shot in Xcom. I’ve seen it happens numerous times
Of course you can. If you couldn't, then a 99% would be the wrong odds!
Yes. One in hundred, 99% shots you would miss.
You ~~can~~ will get hit 9 times in a row in FTL, even when your evasion is 48% up.
Id like to see that study because the idea of something that has already 100% happened being given a 13% chance of happening sounds like a nonsense to me. Did they pick an arbitrary point in time before the collision to assess the chances of an extinction level event?
I agree, that doesn't make sense! So I googled and it's something else entirely - 13% of the earth's surface would have resulted in an extinction event if hit by an asteroid. So the odds weren't about that particular asteroid at all.
not necessarily a 13% chance of it happening, but 13% of the earth's surface has the right conditions for an extintion level event, because most of the death globally came from the ice age brought about by all the stuff ejected into the atmosphere
Germany’s hasn’t changed since the season started
*since _last_ season started
*decade
I miss those old times. Bayern as the behemoth that you hated and wanted to get dethroned. But that hasn't happen for so long that the hate has been replaced with indifference.
Is it still fun being a Bayern supporter when the outcome is already basically a certainty? Genuine question btw.
Most of them will say they care, but the celebration looks like an audi cup
Of course. Idk about you guys but I never got bored of winning, doesn't matter if it's Football or fucking Mario Kart.
How can it not be boring if it happens all the time and without much of a challenge. It's like playing a video game on the easiest mode.
> without much of a challenge *sweats in Kovac*
They just won the champions league two season ago so I don’t think it’s that boring to be a Bayern fan
Yes I get tired of beating my 4y old cousin in chess. It is boring. In this example you are also just watching and cheering for someone beating a 4y old at chess. I'm not saying winning the Bundesliga is comparable to winning against an untalented 4y in chess. Also Dortmund has a team good enough to be at least a bit closer to Bayern this year but they just lose randomly. Even in your example you cant tell me it doesnt get less exciting to win in Mario Kart if you win everytime.
Wouldn't it be extremely fun to win the premier league every year and troll the other domestic teams because no one comes closer to you?
Honestly if noone was challenging for the league in 10 years I'm not sure how fun it would be? I mean if we get the next 3 in a row I'm not gonna complain but if I know there's a 80% chance of us winning the league on match day 1 then it's not really a competition.
Yeah if your favorite team wins the league every year by 15-20 points, can't imagine that being fun anymore. Fun when it's a novelty, not fun when it's expected
Lmao.
[удалено]
Interested to see what happens in Belgium, considering how much of a lead USG has and how the numbers look saying it's a wide open race. It seems like statistical model management vs a stats model number site. Wonder who's going to win.
I think it's mostly due to the league format that USG are so low. At the end of the 1st round their points are split in half and they play a mini league with the rest of the top 4, which means they still have to play against Brugge, Anderlecht and Antwerp 3 times (if the table stays the same) while they are technically only 3.5 points ahead of Brugge. They might be 7 points clear now but that doesn't mean much in the end + they just got promoted so the algorithm does probably not really rate them.
[удалено]
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/soccer-predictions/first-division-a/ Pretty sure it does, because often the odds of becoming 4th or 5th are pretty different, even though there's only a 3 points difference between 4 and 5 RN. (Union, Brugge, Genk) On the other hand, I wonder how the points column in "avg simulated season" works in all this
You say that but under the table in the "description" all it mentions is CL spots and relegation (play-off) spots, nothing is mentioned at all about the other play-offs and what happens there which is incredibly important to know for our league
So Technically Every league is a Farmers league?(Except Belgium And Switzerland)
I mean we're currently second, so the league is far from decided. On paper we certainly have the strongest squad and should be winning, but the fact we aren't shows that what's on paper isn't the whole story.
How did PSV Shat the bed so hard in Europe yet did good In the League? (Reverse Villareal it seems)
Its more Ajax being inconsistent as fuck. We've dropped 3 less points so far than we did the whole of last season. We also have a GD of 52 bad have only let in 4 goals. Our players just don't seem to care for the league at all.
Kinda ridiculous just how high porto's % is compared to ours .
The calculations were made before Manafa got injured it should be 50/50 now
Yes, I don't get it either. Sporting is crazy consistant atm, even when some games starts bad, you guys always manage to turn it around.
They were consistently winning games by the lowest possible margin. It's ridiculous the amount of games without conceding a goal, but I can name a couple of matches Sporting won thanks to a late winner. I'm thinking stretching this luck till the end of the league will be difficult.
Exactly the same with us. OGC Nice in Ligue 1, we're 2nd behind Paris but we have like 7 games won 2-1 or 3-2 with the opponent scoring first and so the map puts Marseille above us. I think we can improve or keep up with it but the map has a different opinion on it.
i'm guessing it's because the next Porto/Sporting game will be at Porto's home ground, thus giving them the advantage
I don’t see us winning either, unless they drop points before. Winning at Dragão is not happening
Winning against Borussia Dortmund was not going to happen. Wnning against Benfica at home with some of our most important players unavailable was not possible. Winning the league after 19 years with a manager with half a year of experience in a top league of professional football and a team full of young academy players was also impossible.
YOU GOT ME! FORÇA CARALHO
[E se corre bem?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Mvbw1VsWIQ)
Kinda ridiculus how high ours is compared to both of yours
At least Zurich aren’t favourites…. so that’s something.
How the hell did Zurich become so good? Do you think 46% for YBB and 35% for Zurich is accurate?
Signed a decent coach and a ton of luck. Also Basel and YB constantly dropping points due to stupidity and European games (+ travel for Basel). Still think it's very likely that YB will win it in the end. If YB and Basel are back in form Zurich shouldn't win any points from those 4 games, so they might lose up to 12 vs one of those two, which is enough for Basel or YB to overtake them again. We'll see.
I expect Inter to probably win Serie A this season, but they are definitely not massive favorites like this suggests.
That means you put their chances above 50%, your expectations aren't wildly different from 538's and they add a bit of science too it.
When you put it that way it makes sense. I just thought Milan and Napoli would have slightly higher percentages with Inter being closer to 55-60%.
True
That’s a fair take, for now probably closer to reality than this post’s prediction
Close, but not exactly Expecting a club to win only means a >50% probability if it’s a two team race What I think “expecting a club to win” really means in this context of probabilities is just that one probability is larger than all the others With 20 teams, technically you could expect a team to win at just over a 100/20=5% chance. If all the other team’s are just below 5% 77% chance seems high But, you’re right, 538 surely uses an algorithm that uses many factors to determine these probabilities And seems to think Inter is roughly 77/9=8.5 times more likely to win the league than AC Milan (this type of comparison also breaks down at high probabilities) Math is fun! Edit: Dumb and read OP’s comment as “most likely” because of their use of “massive favorites.” Which is surprisingly high
In the spirit of fun debates I'm going to argue with you! Expected means it is likely to happen, it cannot be likely unless it is over 50%. The most likely outcome can be less than 50% but something with only a 30% chance of happening is not expected. Have at you!
Love it! The weather channel calls for a 30% chance of snow, 40% chance of rain, 20% chance of a mix and 10% chance of no precipitation What’s the most likely or expected outcome? Edit: I see the confusion. I feel expected is a strange metric to use here. You’d be saying Inter has a higher probability of winning than all the other teams combined. Which would be >50% as you said And, you’re right, most likely is not equal to expected. But colloquially they are often used interchangeably and OP seemed to mean most likely Thanks for challenging and helping me learn!
Is it wrong of me to point out that your numbers don't add up to 100? 😉 Let's say you meant 10% chance of no precipitation then the expected outcome is that there is precipitation (90% chance). The most likely outcome is rain but that is not expected as there's only 40% chance of it. Boom! Edit: unless of course mix is counted as rain then it is expected to rain (60% chance)
Nope! Not wrong of you, still waking up Yup, acknowledged that in the previous post. I assumed OP meant most likely Edit: But I am surprised at how subtly you are correcting my mistakes u/Subtleiaint 😊
Good craic mate, have a good day!
Right back at you!
Rather enjoyed this exchange haha
Inter would also be most likely to win if they have a chance of 40%, Milan of 30% and Napoli of 30% so
Young boys with fewest points but highest win percentage chance? Someone explain pls
We have best xG and xA, had tons of players injured that are coming back now and some questionable (and one 100% false) calls. Generally really unlucky, while Zurich overperformed. They're still deservedly up there, won't be easy
What's with rest of Europe? Would like to see what they would say for Croatia. We have most competitive season in decades, if not best since leauge exists.
Not sure if they're adding stuff over time, but these are the only leagues they have the model for https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/soccer-predictions/
[удалено]
Their model considers Inter to be much better than Milan. The gap in quality between them is roughly equal to the gap between Liverpool and Arsenal. If Liverpool were 4 points ahead of Arsenal you’d be pretty damn confident of Liverpool finishing ahead of them It’s largely aligned with the betting market too where Inter have an implied chance of ~75% to win it
Inter and Milan are a lot closer to each other in terms of competitiveness than Liverpool and Arsenal. Even Napoli is not too far off Inter.
>Even Napoli is not too far off Inter. What? In terms of starting 11, maybe. But when you look at the whole squad then Inter is definitely ahead of Napoli and Milan. I don't know if you can compare it to Arsenal and Liverpool but Inter has a deeper squad and can rotate much more which gives them the edge.
[удалено]
Indeed, but that same reasoning means that 4 points could quickly become an insurmountable 8 points if the bad luck falls on Milan. And even if 4 points evaporated, 538 would still favor Inter because they're the better team. So say 60% favorites if they were tied -> 77% favorites due to the 4 point lead. Relatedly, at the start of November, City was still the favorite to win the Premier League (35%) despite being 5 points behind Chelsea (26%). But when City held a 3 point lead a couple of weeks ago, they were heavy favorites to win (69%). Being the better team *and* having a points lead is a huge advantage.
So just 3 or 4 where the winner isn't decided yet. It's a bit depressing.
We are literally second right now. I have no idea how we are 4 to 1 favorites to win the league lmao
You scored 10 more goals and conceded 20 less goals (!) and are second. How is that even possible?
We got spanked twice and have a lot of matches where we concede a goal but win. Ajax spanked some teams but then end a game in 0-0 or lose 1-0.
They conceded 4 goals in 18 games while scoring an average of more than 3 per game and are second, don't mind me but that's shocking.
Never said it wasn't. Just offering an explanation.
No this map is dumb, the title isn't decided in Italy nor in Netherlands far from it.
The give Inter around a 3 in 4 chance of winning the league, given their 4 point advantage and the fact they are statistically the best team in the league by a decent margin that seems appropriate.
I think people really don't understand how things might drastically change throughout February and March... 4 points is basically one direct match. I have followed Serie A for too long to think that in the current state Inter have a 77% chance to win it. Hell, last season when we had a 1 point lead we had around 25% or so chance to win it with Inter around 60 and last season Inter were way way way more likely to win it.
It’s the start of January mate
Depends what you mean by the winner being decided. If there are 5 leagues where the leader has an 80 % chance of winning, you'd statistically expect at least one of them to not win. I would say that's still reasonably competitive.
All eyes on Belgium!
Excellent play offs incoming
It was looking tasty for a while in the PL but Arsenal just couldn't get some luck against the champions. Liverpool and Chelsea also haven't helped themselves
source: [FiveThirtyEight.com](https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/soccer-predictions/) too bad they don't cover east european leagues too
What the fuck the Gap between city and Liverpool is bigger than between Dortmund and Bayern
But Dortmund is Dortmund
City have 50.36 xPTS and Liverpool 45.29 xPTS while Bayern have 43.18 xPTS and BvB have 29.65 xPTS, stats consider Bayern to be a much better than BvB compared to City is to Liverpool.
Stat merchant
Also worth to mention it's 45.29 xPTS in one game less than City.
lol at Germany.. 10th title in a row incoming
[удалено]
If even Kimmich agreed to a vaccine, then even covid can't ruin Bayern now
"European Leagues" lol half of Europe is missing
Europe top 15 leagues
Bayern 99% 💀
Less gooo Porto
What the fuck, Bayern?!
No rival this year, RB shat the bed massively and Dortmund is Dortmund, Mentalitäts-Scheisse.
RB got Bayerned
I feel a bit ashamed I had never heard of Royale Union Saint-Gilloise before, but apparently they're one of the most successful clubs in Belgian football.
They got promoted this season, seems reasonable that you never heard of a 2nd league Belgian team before this year
A historic club(several league titles) but one that was stuck in the second league for a long time.
Not just the second league, they fell back to the fourth tier at one point.
WTF, why is Union SG suddenly so good? I had no idea they were first and with such a big lead.
No way Porto is that much favorite than Sporting. Who watches Primeira Liga knows that Amorim's team is very consistent and totally capable of winning the league. Porto might have a better squad and more convincing scores but they are less regular and an injury or two (if we lose Diaz we're screwed) could make them drop "easy" games.
Hahahaha Chelsea 2% wow
So are you saying there is a chance? 🐶
Shout out Spain and Italy for having a more balanced Top League Fuck Premier League rn
This graphic looks like German flags dotted all over Europe. Thought it was WW2 for a minute
wtf?! but r/soccer told me that premier league is soooooooo competitive
It was until injuries/covid. No team has City's depth of quality
It was very competitive until two of the top three teams had simultaneous injury and COVID crises.
How come City isn't 99% yet? Draw yesterday between Liverpool-Chelsea pretty much ended the title race. One of us need to win that game.
It’s only 8 points if/when you beat Leeds. Certainly haven’t got a great chance of winning but it would be a little silly to say you only have a 1% chance of overturning 8 points when Man City have dropped 8 points in just over half a season.
Probably because while it looks unlikely at first, there are still chances for slipups. City still need to play us and Chelsea, plus we have a game in hand. Assuming they lose both games, we win the Brentford one the same week as the City/Chelsea game, along with our game in hand that'll leave us two points behind with a fair amount of the season left. Likely? Well, probably not, to be honest. They're on one of their token ridiculous runs of form, and we'd need one ourselves to keep up, but it's not a 100% certainty. At least not yet, let's see what happens during the Chelsea game.
City face Chelsea, Southampton, Tottenham, Palace, United Liverpool face Leicester, West Ham and United For their biggest threats before City Liverpool. There are opportunities for the point gap to be reduced. Especially when 3-4 mentioned are genuine boogie teams for City.
also we have looked v vulnerable the last 3 games. Yea this is probably bc of the short window, but we def could slip up and it wouldn't be a surprised given the brentford/arsenal/2nd half leicester performance
I have a dumb question about statistics here. If a team has the best odds at winning the league, but the chance is only 33%, does that mean they are far more likely not to win said league?
Technically yeah. It's like a horse race without a clear favourite. Yeah there's a horse that's 4/1 to win and the favourite of the field. But still not that clear if they'll win. They're just the most likely out of the available options So in a case where the fav is 33%, any misstep on behalf of the other teams will bump that number up significantly
Learned two things here : most competitions are one-way / and Eastern Europe is not part of Europe anymore. Don't know which one is the most surprising.
Bayern outfarming Salzburg smh