Team's recent performance

Analysis of change in rank

Stepped Up or Back?

Been Helped or Hindered?

The algorithm analyses the match schedules for all teams, and splits the selected team's recent rank change into:

  • Expected change - what was originally expected given match schedules & performance trends for every team
  • Stepped Up / Stepped Back - how much the team over- or under-performed against its recent form
  • Helped / Hindered - how much results of other matches unexpectedly lifted or pulled down the team's rank

The metric to watch is the Stepped Up / Stepped Back number. If this is positive, the team has been improving, and if negative, getting worse.

Helped / Hindered is the impact of the results of matches the selected team didn't play in. It shows how much a team's own performance is being hidden or exaggerated.

The "bridge" starts on the left-hand side from the initial rank at the start of the named period. Then the three named components are shown as stepping stones that lead to the rank at the end of the period.

rank

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rank

take me to the bridge...

Impact on rank of actual league results vs expected

Expected change

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Own matches vs expected

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Other matches vs expected

Effect of match results on rank by day

The team's rank at the end of each day is shown, for the period, as a solid line running left to right.

The team's matches are placed by date below the chart.

The match results for the selected team are colour-coded: red for a loss, grey for a draw, and green for a win.

Move finger/cursor across the chart and see the line's "tooltip", & the details for the most-recently played match, updated for the date moved to.

Standard features of these rank-timeline charts:

  • Rank axis - ordered from best (1) at top to worst (e.g. 20) at bottom
  • Time axis - runs left to right, often with a weekly marker on Saturdays
  • Green bands at top of chart - thresholds for promotion or play-off places, or - for top leagues - international club competition places
  • Red bands at bottom of chart - thresholds for relegation or play-off places
  • Matches - placed by date below the chart; colour-coded by result; solid if played, outlined if scheduled

Daily change in rank

... projected rank over next 30 days

Baseline projection

rank

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rank

Effect of forecast match results on rank by day

The selected team's forecast rank for the end of each day is shown as a dashed line running left to right.

The team's matches are placed by date below the chart.

The forecast match results for the team are colour-coded: red for a loss, grey for a draw, and green for a win.

Light blue areas indicate areas of most uncertainty but are not hard constraints of what's mathematically possible.

Move finger/cursor across the chart to see each day's rank and most-recently played match.

Standard features of these rank-timeline charts:

  • Rank axis - ordered from best (1) at top to worst (e.g. 20) at bottom
  • Time axis - runs left to right, often with a weekly marker on Saturdays
  • Green bands at top of chart - thresholds for promotion or play-off places, or - for top leagues - international club competition places
  • Red bands at bottom of chart - thresholds for relegation or play-off places
  • Matches - placed by date below the chart; colour-coded by result; solid if played, outlined if scheduled

Projected results and ranking

Points per match progression over time

Press play to see how the team got to its current status

Points per match evolution for team & league thresholds

The selected team's points per match is plotted alongside daily values for key league thresholds/ranks.

Use the Play controls under the chart to watch the dance between the team's changing PPM and the moving relegation and promotion thresholds.

Promotion zone:

  • The promotion zone is shaded green and located in the top-right.
  • The zone's lower, diagonal boundary moves back & forth over time, being drawn at the PPM value of the lowest ranked team in that zone.
  • The diagonal boundary is labelled with the team details that day for the boundary rank.

Relegation zone:

  • The relegation/play-offs zone is shaded red and located in the bottom-left.
  • The zone's upper, diagonal boundary moves back & forth over time, being drawn at the PPM value of the highest ranked team in that zone.
  • The diagonal boundary is labelled with the team details that day for the boundary rank.

The maths bits:

  • The PPM value is calculated as the average of the home matches' PPM, read off the bottom axis, and the away matches' PPM, read off the left axis.
  • Using the 50:50 average of the two, home & away PPMs avoids skewing the value when unequal numbers of home and away matches have been played.
  • Worst = bottom left (0.0 PPM).
  • Best = top right (3.0 PPM).

Contour lines:

  • Parallel contour lines are drawn at 0.5 PPM intervals from high-left to low-right, showing that the same PPM value can be reached from different splits of home PPM and away PPM values.
  • Similarly, any PPM value above zero & below 3, would have its own diagonal contour parallel to those shown.

Tooltips:

  • Points are typically labelled with the team's name, its rank, and its PPM value.
  • The home PPM value for the selected team can be read by going straight down and reading off the bottom axis; the away PPM value can be read by going straight across and reading off the left-hand axis.

Points per match progression

"What if...?" extreme projections over next 30 days...

This is from where we started and got our name: wondering what was the best and worst ranks our team could achieve when there were just a few matches to the end of the season.

We've enhanced the algorithms to do a look-ahead for the next 30 days at any point of the season.
We look at 3 broadbrush scenarios of winning, drawing, or losing all matches. This gives a sense of what size of opportunity or risk there is for each team – even if each scenario is by itself unrealistic for most teams.

There can be some apparent anomalies for the first few days of the scenarios; that's caused by the algorithms maximising the range of possible ranks at the end of the scenario by working out ways to maximise or minimise the number of teams that do better than the selected team. It's complex!
Click here to see how it might actually play out.

"What if?" the team wins all its matches in the period

Unrealistic for most teams, this still is interesting to show:

  • the range rank could end up in, given the impact of all teams' schedules
  • which dates could have the most impact, good or bad, on the outcome
  • the relative opportunity each team has over the period

Move finger/cursor across the chart and see the line's "tooltip", & the details for the most-recently played match, updated for the date moved to.

What's happening under the hood:

  • The algorithms aim for the most extreme rank change possible by the end of the period
  • This involves analysing the schedule of matches as a whole rather than looking at each day on its own which can give momentary rank changes that soon revert
  • The base scenario is applied e.g. the selected team wins, draws, or loses all its matches.
  • The algorithms then try different combinations of results for all the other matches to maximise the selected team's rank at the end of the period
  • The search space is immense: for, say, 50 matches to play with, there are around a trillion trillion combinations of win/draw/lose results before we even consider goal difference.
  • We can't guarantee that the best possible rank is always found, but in-built heuristics and error correction help iterate & improve the analysis.
  • Similarly, we search for the worst possible rank by modelling other teams' results aligning such that as many of them as possible move up past the selected team.

Standard features of these rank-timeline charts:

  • Rank axis - ordered from best (1) at top to worst (e.g. 20) at bottom
  • Time axis - runs left to right, often with a weekly marker on Saturdays
  • Green bands at top of chart - thresholds for promotion or play-off places, or - for top leagues - international club competition places
  • Red bands at bottom of chart - thresholds for relegation or play-off places
  • Matches - placed by date below the chart; colour-coded by result; solid if played, outlined if scheduled

If the team wins all its matches

Analysis summary

"What if?" the team draws all its matches in the period

Unrealistic for most teams, this still is interesting to show:

  • the range rank could end up in, given the impact of all teams' schedules
  • which dates could have the most impact, good or bad, on the outcome
  • the relative opportunity each team has over the period

Move finger/cursor across the chart and see the line's "tooltip", & the details for the most-recently played match, updated for the date moved to.

What's happening under the hood:

  • The algorithms aim for the most extreme rank change possible by the end of the period
  • This involves analysing the schedule of matches as a whole rather than looking at each day on its own which can give momentary rank changes that soon revert
  • The base scenario is applied e.g. the selected team wins, draws, or loses all its matches.
  • The algorithms then try different combinations of results for all the other matches to maximise the selected team's rank at the end of the period
  • The search space is immense: for, say, 50 matches to play with, there are around a trillion trillion combinations of win/draw/lose results before we even consider goal difference.
  • We can't guarantee that the best possible rank is always found, but in-built heuristics and error correction help iterate & improve the analysis.
  • Similarly, we search for the worst possible rank by modelling other teams' results aligning such that as many of them as possible move up past the selected team.

Standard features of these rank-timeline charts:

  • Rank axis - ordered from best (1) at top to worst (e.g. 20) at bottom
  • Time axis - runs left to right, often with a weekly marker on Saturdays
  • Green bands at top of chart - thresholds for promotion or play-off places, or - for top leagues - international club competition places
  • Red bands at bottom of chart - thresholds for relegation or play-off places
  • Matches - placed by date below the chart; colour-coded by result; solid if played, outlined if scheduled

If the team draws all its matches

Analysis summary

"What if?" the team loses all its matches in the period

Unrealistic for most teams, this still is interesting to show:

  • the range rank could end up in, given the impact of all teams' schedules
  • which dates could have the most impact, good or bad, on the outcome
  • the relative opportunity each team has over the period

Move finger/cursor across the chart and see the line's "tooltip", & the details for the most-recently played match, updated for the date moved to.

What's happening under the hood:

  • The algorithms aim for the most extreme rank change possible by the end of the period
  • This involves analysing the schedule of matches as a whole rather than looking at each day on its own which can give momentary rank changes that soon revert
  • The base scenario is applied e.g. the selected team wins, draws, or loses all its matches.
  • The algorithms then try different combinations of results for all the other matches to maximise the selected team's rank at the end of the period
  • The search space is immense: for, say, 50 matches to play with, there are around a trillion trillion combinations of win/draw/lose results before we even consider goal difference.
  • We can't guarantee that the best possible rank is always found, but in-built heuristics and error correction help iterate & improve the analysis.
  • Similarly, we search for the worst possible rank by modelling other teams' results aligning such that as many of them as possible move up past the selected team.

Standard features of these rank-timeline charts:

  • Rank axis - ordered from best (1) at top to worst (e.g. 20) at bottom
  • Time axis - runs left to right, often with a weekly marker on Saturdays
  • Green bands at top of chart - thresholds for promotion or play-off places, or - for top leagues - international club competition places
  • Red bands at bottom of chart - thresholds for relegation or play-off places
  • Matches - placed by date below the chart; colour-coded by result; solid if played, outlined if scheduled

If the team loses all its matches

Analysis summary