Three Clubs Roll the Dice for the Jackpot, While Venice Slowly Sinks

A Matchday That Brings the xG Table to a Boil

Matchday 5 of Serie A delivers exactly what honesttable.com is addicted to: a reality that argues with statistics and loses spectacularly. No fewer than three teams pocketed a full three points with a ridiculous Expected Points value of 0.5 – while on the other side, three teams drove home with 2.5 xP and not a single point to show for it. Welcome to the Serie A casino, table stakes: fairness.

Match of the Week: Udine Turns into a Ghost Town of Finishing

Forget the scorelines with the big numbers – the real drama played out at the Dacia Arena. Udinese Calcio racked up a sensational 2.27 xG against Cagliari Calcio, firing at goal practically non-stop, and still ended up losing 0-1. The xG differential of 1.78 is by far the highest of the matchday. Cagliari Calcio needed barely half the chance quality (0.49 xG!), but scored exactly once – and that was enough. A textbook lesson in how little the football gods care about statistics.

Lucky Devil of the Matchday: A Triple Jackpot

This time the podium isn't enough for just one winner – three teams share the title of luckiest side of the week: Frosinone, Parma Calcio, and SS Lazio all took home three points with an expected value of just 0.5 xP. Particularly bitter for the stats crowd: Frosinone beat Como 1907 2-0, yet were clearly behind on expected goals (2.08 to 2.72) – Como were the better side on the pitch and still went home empty-handed. Parma Calcio turned a 1.44-to-0.63 xG deficit at Genoa CFC into a 2-1 win. And SS Lazio? Rolled into Venezia with just 1.19 xG and left the home side, who managed 1.88 xG, standing – 0-2 for the Romans. Three wins that look great on paper, but statistically owe more to a lucky roll of the dice than to actual football.

xG Victims: Venice Drowns Once and for All in Its Own Wastefulness

And who foots the bill? Here too, a trio of horror: US Sassuolo, Udinese Calcio, and Venezia share the sad title of unluckiest teams of the matchday with -2.5. All three ended up with zero points despite statistically deserving 2.5. It hurts Venezia doubly: the side from Stadio Pierluigi Penzo now leads the overall table of misfortune with a whopping 7 xP against just 0 actual points – a gap of -7 that has no equal league-wide. If you're wondering why Venice is slowly sinking: here's the answer, xG edition.

The Honest Table: Cagliari in Cloud Cuckoo Land, Fiorentina in the Basement of Injustice

The official table keeps cheerfully lying in several places. Cagliari Calcio officially sit in 4th place with 12 points – but by xP the team would only be 14th with a mere 5 xP. A difference of +7, the biggest in the entire league. SS Lazio (3rd officially, 9th by xP) and Frosinone (6th vs. 15th) have also flattered their positions well beyond what the actual football justifies.

At the other end of the truth spectrum, ACF Fiorentina suffer the most: officially only 17th with 4 points, but by xP comfortably 6th-worthy with 9 xP – a gap of -5. Bologna FC (18th officially, 8th by xP) and Venezia (dead last despite a respectable 7 xP) also have every right to feel hard done by. At least at the top the world remains somewhat in order: AS Roma and Inter Milan lead both the official and the xP tables with 13 and 11 points respectively – here, appearance and reality more or less align.

Outlook: Is a Correction Coming?

With Cagliari Calcio, SS Lazio, and Frosinone comfortably sitting above their statistical worth, the laws of regression to the mean show little mercy. Teams that consistently collect more points than their chance conversion justifies usually get the bill presented with a delay. For ACF Fiorentina and Venezia, on the other hand: keep creating this many good chances, and sooner or later you have to start scoring. The next matchday will show whether the football gods are revising their mercy lists – or whether Udinese Calcio once again proves that creating chances is as useless as an umbrella in a hurricane.