Methodology

The foundation of each football club’s strength rating is derived from their GxG and GAxGA ratios, introduced in my previous blog post. Here is a quick overview of how each club’s strength is calculated:

• After each match, the team’s actual goals and expected goals are used to determine their GxG and GAxGA values.
• These values are then adjusted based on the opponent’s strength and whether the match was played at home or away.
• Lastly, an exponential moving average (EMA) is applied to these values to establish a solid baseline for each team’s true strength within its own league.

The next challenge I faced was comparing clubs from completely different leagues. This is where the clubelo.com ratings proved incredibly helpful. They provide Elo ratings for thousands of clubs, along with a league average. Using these averages, I’m able to account for the variations in overall league strength. For instance, the English Premier League stands out as the strongest, while Serie A, La Liga, and the Bundesliga are roughly the same strength.
Armed with this data, it was now possible to compare teams across different leagues and even simulate hypothetical matchups between them.

Strength Ratings

Determining how to present individual team strength ratings was a bit tricky. One initial idea was to follow Opta’s method, assigning the best team a rating of ‘100’ and adjusting other teams accordingly.

I also considered using a star-based system, similar to the ones in EA Sports’ FIFA, with 5 stars for top clubs and 4 stars for Europa League-level teams. However, this approach made it hard to distinguish between teams that shared the same star rating, so I set that idea aside.

In the end, I decided to use Nate Silver’s “Soccer Power Index” (SPI) concept. The idea is to benchmark every team’s performance against an average team on neutral ground, then apply a Poisson distribution to determine how many points they would earn. By definition, this model shows how many points a club would score against this imaginary opponent. For example, a team with a strength rating of 80 would earn 80 percent of all the possible points against the baseline team.

One challenge remained: teams with strong defenses but weaker offenses—like Everton, Union Berlin, or Real Sociedad—ended up at a disadvantage with this method. They would often draw against the average opponent, while more offensively robust but defensively weaker teams might rack up wins (and losses), ultimately scoring more points on average. To fix this issue, I decided to take the midpoint of the offensive and defensive ratings to calculate the final strength rating, resulting in a fairer representation of each team’s true capabilities. With that change, it is now possible to show accurate strength ratings for each team across all leagues:

Premier League Forecast

Premier League Bundesliga Serie A La Liga Ligue 1

Updated on 11/10/2024

Team	Strength	Win Premier League	UCL Qualification	Relegation	Points	xGD
Liverpool Liverpool LIV	88.6	>99%	100%	–	88	52
Arsenal Arsenal ARS	87.9	<1%	>99%	–	76	37
Nott’ham Forest Nottingham Forest NFO	78.5	–	73%	–	68	17
Manchester City Manchester City MCI	84.9	–	58%	–	66	24
Newcastle Utd Newcastle NEW	80.7	–	29%	–	64	14
Chelsea Chelsea CHE	80.6	–	26%	–	63	19
Brighton Brighton BHA	79.6	–	9%	–	61	9
Bournemouth Bournemouth BOU	80.8	–	4%	–	59	16
Fulham Fulham FUL	77.1	–	<1%	–	56	4
Aston Villa Aston Villa AVL	74.3	–	<1%	–	56	-6
Crystal Palace Crystal Palace CRY	80.5	–	<1%	–	53	4
Brentford Brentford BRE	75.4	–	<1%	–	53	4
Manchester Utd Manchester United MUN	72.3	–	–	–	47	-7
Tottenham Tottenham TOT	76.8	–	–	–	46	12
Everton Everton EVE	75.8	–	–	–	45	-6
West Ham West Ham WHU	71.4	–	–	–	45	-18
Wolves Wolves WOL	70.3	–	–	<1%	37	-20
Ipswich Town Ipswich IPS	61.5	–	–	>99%	24	-43
Leicester City Leicester LEI	58.9	–	–	>99%	23	-51
Southampton Southampton SOU	56.6	–	–	100%	15	-61

Team	Strength	Win Bundesliga	UCL Qualification	Relegation	Points	xGD
Bayern Munich Bayern München FCB	86.5	95%	100%	–	80	63
Leverkusen Leverkusen B04	83.3	5%	100%	–	73	35
Eint Frankfurt Frankfurt SGE	73.5	–	67%	–	58	16
Mainz 05 Mainz 05 M05	75.6	–	64%	–	57	18
RB Leipzig RB Leipzig RBL	74.3	–	29%	–	54	10
Freiburg Freiburg SCF	71.1	–	20%	–	54	-1
Stuttgart VfB Stuttgart VfB	75.2	–	8%	–	51	8
Wolfsburg Wolfsburg WOB	71.7	–	6%	–	50	10
Gladbach Gladbach BMG	68.5	–	5%	–	50	1
Augsburg Augsburg FCA	68.1	–	<1%	–	48	-8
Dortmund Dortmund BVB	76.4	–	1%	–	47	6
Werder Bremen Werder Bremen SVW	66.0	–	<1%	<1%	44	-14
Union Berlin Union Berlin FCU	62.6	–	–	3%	36	-20
St. Pauli St. Pauli STP	63.9	–	–	9%	33	-15
Hoffenheim Hoffenheim TSG	63.6	–	–	10%	33	-23
Bochum Bochum BOC	62.6	–	–	54%	29	-29
Heidenheim Heidenheim FCH	61.5	–	–	77%	26	-28
Holstein Kiel Holstein Kiel KSV	61.7	–	–	87%	25	-31

Team	Strength	Win Serie A	UCL Qualification	Relegation	Points	xGD
Inter Inter INT	87.6	84%	100%	–	84	52
Napoli Napoli NAP	82.7	12%	>99%	–	79	31
Atalanta Atalanta ATA	83.4	4%	98%	–	76	44
Juventus Juventus JUV	79.8	<1%	56%	–	69	23
Bologna Bologna BOL	78.4	–	22%	–	66	16
Lazio Lazio LAZ	74.7	–	10%	–	64	10
Fiorentina Fiorentina FIO	76.4	–	6%	–	63	19
Roma Roma ROM	77.6	–	6%	–	62	15
Milan Milan MIL	77.2	–	3%	–	61	13
Udinese Udinese UDI	67.0	–	–	–	50	-8
Torino Torino TOR	71.3	–	–	–	50	0
Genoa Genoa GEN	69.8	–	–	–	45	-12
Como Como COM	69.9	–	–	<1%	43	-9
Hellas Verona Hellas Verona VER	61.0	–	–	3%	39	-34
Cagliari Cagliari CAG	64.4	–	–	7%	36	-20
Lecce Lecce LEC	60.6	–	–	33%	33	-34
Parma Parma PAR	61.9	–	–	39%	32	-24
Empoli Empoli EMP	60.5	–	–	43%	32	-27
Venezia Venezia VEN	58.7	–	–	76%	29	-24
Monza Monza MON	59.2	–	–	98%	23	-32

Team	Strength	Win La Liga	UCL Qualification	Relegation	Points	xGD
Barcelona Barcelona BAR	88.1	83%	100%	–	85	65
Real Madrid Real Madrid RMA	85.2	15%	>99%	–	80	41
Atletico Madrid Atlético Madrid ATM	83.2	2%	>99%	–	76	33
Athletic Club Athletic Club ATH	81.3	<1%	85%	–	69	26
Villarreal Villarreal VIL	78.8	–	14%	–	62	16
Betis Real Betis BET	74.9	–	2%	–	59	5
Celta Vigo Celta Vigo CEL	72.5	–	<1%	–	53	-1
Mallorca Mallorca MLL	70.4	–	–	–	53	-8
Rayo Vallecano Rayo Vallecano RAY	72.0	–	<1%	–	51	0
Sevilla Sevilla SEV	70.2	–	–	<1%	49	-6
Getafe Getafe GET	70.8	–	<1%	<1%	49	2
Real Sociedad Real Sociedad RSO	70.2	–	–	<1%	48	-7
Girona Girona GIR	69.7	–	–	<1%	47	-7
Osasuna Osasuna OSA	66.4	–	–	2%	45	-12
Alaves Deportivo Alaves ALA	69.2	–	–	19%	40	-11
Valencia Valencia VAL	68.2	–	–	18%	40	-17
Espanyol Espanyol ESP	62.7	–	–	34%	39	-20
Leganes Leganes LEG	61.2	–	–	50%	37	-23
Las Palmas Las Palmas LPA	59.2	–	–	76%	34	-22
Valladolid Real Valladolid VLL	53.4	–	–	100%	23	-56

Team	Strength	Win Ligue 1	UCL Qualification	Relegation	Points	xGD
Paris S-G PSG PSG	86.7	100%	100%	–	88	64
Marseille Marseille OM	75.3	–	66%	–	63	24
Monaco Monaco ASM	79.4	–	59%	–	62	25
Nice Nice NIC	76.5	–	36%	–	60	22
Lyon Lyon OL	75.8	–	25%	–	59	21
Lille Lille LIL	74.0	–	9%	–	57	15
Strasbourg Strasbourg STR	71.4	–	4%	–	55	10
Lens Lens RCL	69.2	–	<1%	–	50	2
Brest Brest BRE	69.3	–	<1%	–	48	-2
Toulouse Toulouse TFC	72.5	–	–	–	47	6
Auxerre Auxerre AJA	64.4	–	–	<1%	42	-5
Rennes Rennes REN	70.4	–	–	<1%	40	-1
Nantes Nantes NAN	62.1	–	–	1%	36	-17
Angers Angers SCO	55.1	–	–	6%	33	-24
Reims Reims SDR	58.0	–	–	21%	31	-19
Le Havre Le Havre HAC	58.0	–	–	58%	28	-36
Saint-Etienne Saint-Etienne ASS	54.7	–	–	74%	27	-42
Montpellier Montpellier MON	56.2	–	–	88%	24	-44

Below, you’ll find the strength ratings for the top 20 clubs. The offensive rating indicates how many goals a team is likely to score against the hypothetical average opponent, while the defensive rating shows the average number of goals they would concede, so a lower number is better:

Football Club Strength Ratings