Lowzer's Low Country Revue: Expected and Actual Outcomes in the Belgian Jupiler Pro League 2014/15 Season - Part One

After the initial euphoria died down after Gent became Jupiler Pro League champions for the first time in their history at the end of May, something kept popping up in the aftermath, namely how unlikely the Buffalo's title victory was... 

At the beginning of the 2014/15 season, very few predicted Gent would eventually be crowned champions. I remember in February, when Gent beat their Flanders' rivals - and the then league leaders - Club Brugge 2-1, I began to think they looked like an outside chance (see here for my piece on Football Every Day from Feb) - but an outside chance at best. Surely they could not topple Club Brugge and Anderlecht?

In April I saw odds of 14-1 on Gent winning outright flash up on Unibet. As time went on, I kept asking the questions more: "could they actually do this? is it possible? is this going to happen?!" See the below tweet exchange with Jonas Van De Veire (who works at KAA Gent) from May, which summarises the progression of the odds:

@SatThereThinkin 35/1 at the start of the season.

— Jonas Van De Veire (@Jonasvdv_) May 18, 2015

But were Gent the team that most outperformed expectations?

It is hard to see past Gent winning the JPL as being the biggest overperformance of expectations of the 2014/15 season. However, with the next couple of posts I aim to look into a little bit more detail at the differences between expected and actual outcomes of the past season.

One fairly simple method of comparing the actual (observed) outcome to what is expected, is by using the bookmakers' odds as a proxy for "expectations". I have done this previously, and it naturally assumes that the bookies' are generally accurate with their odds. The methodology is explained at the end of this post.

In short, when I look at the data, Sporting Charleroi is the team that most overperformed expectations over the course of the regular season (the first 30 gameweeks), and Zulte-Waregem is the team that most underperformed expectations. If you look at the table below, you will see Charleroi highlighted in green and Waregem highlighted in red:

Belgian Jupiler Pro League – Regular Season Expected Position and Points (Bookies’ odds) vs. Actual Position and Points – Season 2014/15
Team	Actual Points	Actual Finish	Expected Points	Expected Position	Diff. Between Actual and Expected Points	Diff. Between Expected and Actual Position
Club Brugge	61	1	57.926	2	3.074	1
Anderlecht	57	2	58.560	1	-1.560	-1
Gent	57	3	50.655	4	6.345	1
Standard	53	4	51.418	3	1.582	-1
Kortrijk	51	5	41.129	8	9.871	3
Charleroi	49	6	38.019	10	10.981	4
Genk	49	7	44.350	6	4.650	-1
Lokeren	42	8	45.896	5	-3.896	-3
Mechelen	41	9	39.681	9	1.319	0
Oostende	38	10	36.148	11	1.852	1
Westerlo	33	11	33.728	12	-0.728	1
Waregem	31	12	41.181	7	-10.181	-5
Mouscron-Peruwelz	26	13	33.002	13	-7.002	0
Waasland-Beveren	26	14	29.910	14	-3.910	0
Cercle Brugge	24	15	28.554	15	-4.554	0
Lierse	22	16	28.502	16	-6.502	0

--------------------------------------------------------------

Methodology Explained

1) I first calculate the 'Expected Points' per game: using odds from football-data.co.uk, I averaged the odds of eight different bookmakers on each game. I used the average of the odds to convert to 'Expected Points'.

2) Taking the example of the Genk-Anderlecht game in GW 27 (which ended 1-0 Anderlecht), the average of the bookmakers' odds were: 3.3 home win, 3.31 draw and 2.18 away win. I put these all as the denominator under 1 to get a %age chance of the odds.

3) The odds then became 30% Genk win, 30% draw and 46% Anderlecht win = totalling 106% - the 6% being the bookmakers' profit. So, to convert these figures into workable ones, I divided all these odds by 1.06 (or, 106%) to ensure the odds added up to 1.

4) In so doing the odds became 28.5% Genk win, 28.4% draw and 43.1% Anderlecht win.

5) To convert these odds into 'Expected Points' you multiply the odds by the points for winning (3) and points for drawing (1) - e.g. Genk (3*0.285) + 0.284 = 1.1 points; and, Anderlecht (3*0.431) + 0.284 = 1.6 points, ie Anderlecht favourites to win.

6) So, with Anderlecht, there expected points = 1.6 and actual points = 3 (difference being 1.4 points)

7) I then summed up all expected points of the 30 games played and compared them to actual points in the 30 games, ie expected vs actual.

Lowzer's Low Country Revue: Could Gent win their first Premier League?

KAA Gent just beat Club Brugge 3-2 at the Jan Breydel Stadium...

With their victory, Gent made three huge achievements:

• they put one over their Flanders rivals by giving them their first home defeat at home this season
• they effectively killed Club Brugge's chances of winning the Premier League - there is now five points between the two clubs with two games remaining; and,
• inched closer to their first Premier League title

If, and it is a big if, Anderlecht fails to win against Standard Liège later today, Gent will only need one more victory to become champions.

Deserved Victory

The game began as every game in the play offs has so far for Club Brugge - they fell behind 1-0. Today's game was the eight consecutive game Club Brugge has conceded the first goal. 

It was a simple goal, too. Benito Raman capped off some good wide-play with a low cross in from Gent's right-side, which found Neto who's clash with Brugge's Goalkeeper, Matty Ryan, deflected the ball up and over the stranded keeper and Lasse Nielsen finished it off just on the goal-line to make sure.

Brugge pulled back seven minutes before half-time. Izquierdo's surging run to the byline was capped off with a neat finish from Ruud Vormer.

Gent almost went 2-1 up right after the second-half whistle, Raman capitalised on shocking defending and forced Ryan into a good, jumping save.

The Buffalo's eventually regained the lead when, from a long way out, and in oceans of space, Brech Dejaegere picked up the ball for Gent and marched unchallenged towards the Brugge box, Unbelievably nobody showed for Club Brugge, giving Dejaegere all the time in the world to line up his shot and when he hit the ball from roughly 25 metres out, Brugge's Duarte finally showed and made a challenge. The ball deflected off of Duarte and the ball looped over the a speechless Matty Ryan.

Gent's GK Matz Sels was equal to almost everything that Club Brugge threw at him at the beginning of the second-half. Sels made three good saves from Club Brugge players turning infield from their left-side and hitting inwards-curling shots with their right-foot. Gent's right-side of defence showed some signs of weakness and were lucky to have Sels in such strong form. 

Brugge made it 2-2 when Ruud Vormer acrobatically volleyed in Vazquez's cross, which came from the interplay after a short corner. Interestingly enough, Brugge won the corner from an Izquierdo shot from just inside the box that he hit with the inside of his right foot.

At 2-2, you began to fancy the game to end in a draw. The Unibet odds came across my screen around the 85th-minute, showing Gent as 7.5/1 to win the game, for instance. But two minutes later, some neat work on Gent’s left-flank by a combination of Asare, Simon and Van Der Bruggen who’s one-two with Asare split the Brugge defence, allowed Asare to reach the byline, pull back the ball where Raman was waiting. He first hit the ball straight at Ryan, Ryan’s save then fell kindly on Raman’s head and his deft pointed header was directed to the back-post, 3-2.

Gent held on and were deserved winners in the end. After the game, interviews with Club Brugge's captain Tom De Sutter, and their manager Michiel Preud'homme painted two exhausted and despondent figures. Club Brugge has had a long season what with the Europe League and domestic cup runs. Preud'homme in the end put the defeat down to defensive errors but in my view that takes a lot of merit away from Gent's performance. After all, this was Club Brugge's first defeat in the league at home all season.

Gent's Rami Gershon was more effusive in his post-match interview, he explained to the interview that, while it is not over yet, he feels no JPL team has played better football throughout the season than Gent. It is hard to disagree with him. Gent's manager, Hein Vanhaezebrouck reiterated that it is not over yet but took great pride in saying that his team came and played at Brugge - not many do that. He is not wrong.

Lowzer's Low Country Revue: Belgian JPL Top-6 Mini-League

We are three games away from the end of the Belgian Jupiler Pro League season...

And, that means we are three games away from the eventual champion being crowned (which makes for a nice change compared to the top 6 European leagues). 

As it stands there are (technically) four teams in with a chance of becoming champion: Gent sit on top with 43 points, Anderlecht and Club Brugge are hot on their heels, both on 41 points; and, in fourth, with a rank outside chance (but still a chance!) is Standard Liège on 36 points.

Gent have never before been champions of Belgium's top-tier football league. So, I would like that it to happen for them...

Anyway, I wanted to look at the top 6's record against each other in the normal season, ie the first 30 gameweeks. Looking at this mini-league, Standard Liège comes out on top in terms of points taken from the rest of the top 6 teams. However, they were really an all or nothing team: they won 6, lost 4. Club Brugge lost the fewest, and were generally a more consistent team than the rest of their peers. I've highlighted the best record of various measures in green and the worst in orange.

Belgian Jupiler Pro League: Top 6 Mini-league in first 30 Gameweeks
Team	GP	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Points
Standard Liège	10	6	0	4	14	12	2	18
Club Brugge	10	4	4	2	19	11	8	16
Gent	10	4	3	3	13	13	0	15
Anderlecht	10	4	2	4	14	15	-1	14
Kortrijk	10	4	1	5	13	16	-3	13
Sporting Charleroi	10	1	4	5	5	11	-6	7