Robbed and Miracled: The Table Your Manager Will Never Show You

There's a table nobody wants to read in September, and it's the one that replays every match a thousand times inside a computer counting only the chances created and conceded. No episodes, no saves, no posts. In the end it tells you how many points, on average, that performance was really worth.

We call it Meritometro. You, depending on your team, will call it science or blasphemy.

If you support Bologna, sit down

Two points in five matchdays. Deserved points: 8.02.

Six points vanished into nothing, the biggest hole in Italy. And not because of the play: 7.17 expected goals produced, 3 goals scored. Bologna lost 0-1 at home to Lazio creating 2.06 against 0.81, and lost 0-1 in Bergamo creating 1.24 against 0.18. On those two Sundays the model gave them 4.69 points. They took zero, and in the meantime someone will have already written that they lack character.

Right behind them is Venezia, who have zero points and deserved 5.48, and who in the meantime have produced more expected goals than Napoli. Then Monza, 4 points from 8.68, the only team in Serie A getting hurt on both ends: they score less than they create and concede 4.60 goals more than they give up. If you have Monza on your betting slip, the problem isn't you.

If you support Cagliari, enjoy it while it lasts

Twelve points. Deserved: 5.77.

In five matchdays Cagliari have carried 13 balls into the opposition box. Thirteen. Two and a half per match. They've conceded 51. They've let in 2 goals from 8.77 worth of chances conceded, which means that at Cagliari, right now, the goal is locked with a key.

On Saturday in Udine they entered the box once in ninety minutes and won 1-0. Once. The model assigned that match 0.48 points, Cagliari took 3: it's the second biggest gift of the season.

In this table they're followed by Lazio, 13 points from 8.00, and Frosinone, 10 from 5.19, which is really the freak show of this opening: 4 goals conceded against 11.00 expected goals conceded. Seven goals saved in five matches. By the look of it, either they have a possessed goalkeeper, or the opponents are shooting with someone else's feet.

The awards

The award for the most stolen match goes to Atalanta-Sassuolo on the opening matchday: the Emilians at 2.70 expected goals against 0.92, beaten 2-1, with 2.51 points left on the road. It's the prettiest heist of the season, and nobody's been arrested.

The award for the biggest gift, consequently, goes to Atalanta for that same match: three points from a performance worth 0.35. Seven days later they did the exact same thing against Bologna, 1-0 with 0.18 expected goals against 1.24. Then the bill arrived, because it always arrives: zero points in the last two matchdays, and from the top Atalanta now only sees the backs of the others.

The honesty award is shared by Sassuolo and Parma, 0.60 points from their theoretical value, with Roma at 0.64. That the league leaders are also the team that takes exactly what they produce is the worst news for the other nineteen: there's nothing to give back there.

Then there's Juventus, who deserve an award all of their own. They've conceded 2.11 expected goals in five matches, the best figure in Italy and one of the best in Europe, and in goal they've seen 4 go in. Meaning: they concede nothing and still ship goals. It's the exact opposite of Frosinone, and it's why they have 10 points instead of 12.07.

What will happen, and I'm sorry to say it

These gaps close. Almost always, and without asking anyone's permission.

Not because some justice of the ball exists, but for a much more boring reason: luck doesn't repeat itself, play does. A team that saves seven goals in five matchdays won't save another seven in the next five. One that threw away four will stop throwing them away. When that happens, the papers will write that Bologna have turned it around and that Cagliari have dropped off, and nothing will have happened: the wheel will just have stopped spinning.

That said, if Cagliari are still like this in March, the problem is ours and not theirs. It's also why football is beautiful: every now and then the numbers don't add up for entire months, and those months are worth a season.

We'll talk again on 11 October. Juventus are coming to Cagliari, meaning the team that saves more goals than anyone in Italy against the one that concedes fewer than anyone. If a match exists built in a laboratory for the Meritometro, it's this one, and we'll be watching it with notebook in hand.

T.L.

The match-by-match verdict is in the Meritometro. For those who want the models and not the headlines, there's the Nerd Zone.