Monday, November 9, 2009

Spanish Liga Update and Rankings

Unfortunately I managed to miss last week with the Spanish league update. Last week was more interesting than this week with Barcelona held to a draw against Osasuna. All went to plan this week. I still think the league looks a lot like last season, but it's looking more open than before. Last season at this point Barcelona had 25 points, Real Madrid 23 and Sevilla 20. Currently Barcelona sit top with 26, Real Madrid have 25 and Sevilla 22. So it's a bit closer. Depor and Valencia continue to look very good as well. A team continuing to not look good is Atletico de Madrid. Atleti find themselves in the relegation zone and already eliminated from the Champions League with two matchdays to go. Their losses in the derbi and the week before in Bilbao did little to inspire confidence and bring calm to the chaos.

Here are the rankings, using my new ranking system:


O Rank - rank by goal-scoring strength
D Rank - rank by goal-conceding strength
EGD - expected goal difference if they played a full season at the level the results so far indicate

Barcelona rates about five goals better than Real Madrid when it comes to scoring and about half a goal behind Sevilla defensively. In other words the results so far indicate that they are as dominant as ever. Real Madrid to their credit are looking better than usual defensively. Looking closer to the bottom, Atletico de Madrid are looking awful with an expected goal differential under -24. These numbers indicate that Villarreal and Malaga have been running below expectation in luck since their places in the table are significantly lower than what I have here.

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