When Basel Scores Four Times and Still Only Wins on Paper

Hook Intro

Once again, the Swiss Super League has proven that football isn't a walk in the park, but more like a casino with underfloor pitch heating. Six games, six little dramas – and by the end of the matchday, the gap between what's written on paper and what the xG curve says is as wide as the Röstigraben itself. FC Lugano continues to sit at the top of the table, but woe betide anyone who looks too closely.

Game of the Week

The biggest xG discrepancy of the matchday came, of all places, from the match between FC Lausanne-Sport and Servette FC at the Stade de la Tuilière. Lausanne racked up an xG of 1.94 – comfortably more than Geneva's tired 1.07 – and still ended up empty-handed. The final score was 0-1, a result that slaps the reality of chance conversion right in the face. Servette took what they could get, and in this case that was: everything.

Close behind is the spectacle at the Kybunpark, where FC St. Gallen went down 0-3 against FC Sion despite posting an xG of 2.29 – the highest of the entire matchday. A debacle that looks like a mockery sitting in the xG table.

Lucky Devil of the Matchday

Two teams share the crown for biggest slice of luck: Servette FC and FC Sion, both with a delta of +2.5. Servette picked up three points against an expected haul of just 0.5 xP – it's hard to be more efficient with wishful thinking than that. FC Sion followed the exact same script in St. Gallen: full points from a measly 0.5 expected.

Not to be forgotten: FC Basel, who "only" posted a delta of +2 in their 4-2 win over FC Luzern, but are nonetheless the big winner of the season so far. With 13 points from just 7.5 xPoints, Basel top the overperformer list with a proud 5.5-point lead over reality. You could say FCB play football the way other people play the lottery – rarely pretty, but profitable.

xG Victim

Here two broken hearts find each other: FC St. Gallen and FC Lausanne-Sport, both with a delta of -2.5. St. Gallen generated 2.29 xG but ended up with zero points – a matchday that hurts like a torn ligament in stoppage time. Lausanne fared no better: 1.94 xG, and again nothing to show for it.

And then there's FC Thun, who in their narrow 0-1 loss to Grasshopper Club Zürich would certainly have deserved something from their 1.80 xG – but didn't get it. A delta of -1 fits seamlessly into Thun's run of bad luck this season, where the Stockhorn Arena is increasingly becoming a place of missed opportunities.

The Honest League Table

Anyone looking at the official table sees FC Lugano sitting proudly at the top – 19 points, a full 6.5 more than their xPoints would allow. The Ticino miracle continues, then. The honest xP table tells a different story: there, BSC Young Boys lead with 15 xPoints, just one point behind their actual 16 – by far the league's most sincere team so far.

FC St. Gallen are hit particularly hard: officially only fifth with 10 points, but second in the xP table with 14.5 expected points. A club that plays like a Champions League contender and stands like a relegation candidate. A similar picture emerges for Servette: officially ninth, but fifth in the xP ranking – reality says this team has earned more than the table shows.

FC Basel, on the other hand, officially sit proudly in fourth place, but according to xP would only be ninth. Anyone who regularly reads ehrlichetabelle.com knows: discrepancies like that rarely survive an entire season.

Outlook

The big question ahead of the next matchday: how long can FC Lugano defend their 6.5-point lead over their own actual performance before the statistics catch up with them? And will FC Basel continue their run of miracle bags, or finally land on the solid ground of xG reality? Meanwhile, for FC St. Gallen and FC Lausanne-Sport, the rule holds: keep creating chances like that, and sooner or later the rewards will follow – that much justice the statistics owe them in the end. At least on ehrlichetabelle.com.