When Vaduz Loses Honestly and Basel Wins Dishonestly

Hook Intro

Nine matchdays have been played, and the Super League once again presents itself as exactly what it always is: a stage where the football gods roll the dice while genuine performance sometimes just has to watch from the stands. Six matches, six little dramas – and at the end of it all, FC Lugano sit top with 25 points, while FC St. Gallen are stuck on the same 13 points as FC Basel, even though the numbers tell a completely different story. Welcome to the honest table, where Fortune has been especially creative this week.

Match of the Week

The biggest xG discrepancy of the round comes from the clash between BSC Young Boys and Servette FC in Bern. The Bernese racked up 2.31 xG against Servette FC's meagre 0.88 – a gap of a whopping 1.43. The final score was 3:2, a result that looks far tighter than the stats suggest. BSC Young Boys really should have dominated this game more comfortably, but Servette, at least on paper, put up two goals' worth more resistance than their chance conversion actually earned them.

Even more striking was the picture in Lausanne, where FC Lugano racked up 2.15 xG against FC Lausanne-Sport's paltry 0.94 – and then exceeded even that expectation with a 4:0 scoreline. When the expected numbers already point to a thrashing and the actual result turns out even more brutal, you know that chance quality and chance conversion were, for once, in perfect agreement.

Lucky Devil of the Week

The biggest overachiever of the week? FC Thun. With just 1.64 expected goals against Vaduz, FC Thun still walked away with all three points – against an expected points value of only 1.0, that's a delta of +2. The Rheinpark Stadion witnessed a match that, according to xG, should have been much tighter, but on this day efficiency was firmly on the visitors' side.

FC St. Gallen and FC Lugano also crop up in the luck statistics with +0.5 each – for Lugano, this is basically becoming tradition by now. The Ticino side lead the official table by nine points over the xP table, which in industry terms roughly translates to "we win even when we don't have the better chances."

xG Victim

On the other end of the luck scale stands Vaduz. The Liechtensteiners created 1.77 xG against FC Thun – more than their opponents – yet came away empty-handed, and even took the loss. A delta of -1 on an expected points value of 1.0, but zero actual points. That stings, especially considering Vaduz, with their 6 points, are already stuck in the relegation zone.

Servette FC and Grasshopper Club Zürich also join the ranks of the unlucky with -0.5 each. For Grasshopper Club Zürich, who managed just one goal from 2.08 xG in Lucerne and went down 1:5, that's cold comfort indeed.

The Honest Standings

The real scandal of the round, though, is hiding in the big table. FC Basel officially sit in 4th place with 13 points – against an expected points value of just 8. A difference of +5 makes FC Basel the official "biggest winner" of the season so far, even though the underlying performance data would suggest a spot in the lower midtable instead.

The exact opposite is happening to FC St. Gallen: with an xP of 19.5, the club would actually be the clear leader of the honest table – but in reality they sit only 5th with 13 points. A difference of -6.5 is the biggest discrepancy in the entire league, making FC St. Gallen the tragic hero of this campaign. Servette FC (-3) and Grasshopper Club Zürich (-1) also have every right to feel hard done by.

FC Lugano, despite everything, still look strong even in the xP table – 4th place with 15.5 expected points is nothing to sneeze at, though the nine-point gap to the official table shows just how much Fortune has been lending a hand.

Outlook

With only nine of 36 matchdays played, the season is still young, but the patterns are already solidifying. Can FC St. Gallen break their unlucky streak and finally collect points that match their style of play? Will FC Basel continue their fairy-tale form, or will regression to the mean come knocking? And will FC Lugano remain fortune's favourite pupil, or is reality about to come calling in Cornaredo? The honest table will tell us – matchday by matchday.