Match Ratings

Match Ratings

For years we've been able to rate how well individual players have performed in matches, but there's never been a way to tell how good an entire match has been compared to another.

We watch football to be entertained. That entertainment comes primarily in the form of goals, but let's face it - we all love a derby day bust up too. So, we've come up with a way of rating how good one game was compared to another. It's not perfect, but it does give an indication into which derbies are more entertaining than others.

Note that matches can accrue points adding up to more than 10.0 - but we round these down to ensue all matches are rated 0-10.

Goals, goals, goals

Here's how goals contribute to the match rating:

• Every goal scored in a match is worth 1.50 points
• Every goal scored after the 80th minute gets an additional 0.50 points
• Every goal scored after the 90th minute gets another additional 1.00 point
• A penalty is an extra 0.50 points
• An own is an extra 0.25 points

So a 0-0 gets 0 points.

A 1-0 with a 92nd minute winner gets 3.0 points (1.5 points for the goal, 0.5 extra for the goal being after 80 minutes and another extra point for it being scored in injury time). If that 92nd minute winner was a penalty, we get an extra 0.5 points, so 3.5 points in total.

A 4-4 (this happens more than you'd think in the North London derby) would get a minimum of 12 points and it might be more if any goals were scored late on or were penalties… However, as all matches are scored out of 10, we round our 12 down to a 10.0 match rating.

Referee's impact

But it's not just about the goals. Derby games often get feisty with yellow and red cards flying about like confetti in some games, so we've included them in our scoring too:

• A yellow card is worth 0.25 points
• A red card is worth 1.5 points

So, let's say we have a 1-1 draw, each team gets 3 yellows and one player is sent off, we get a total of 7.5 points (3 points for the goals, 1.5 points for the 6 yellow cards and 3.0 points for the 2 red cards). Straight away we can see that this 1-1 draw was more entertaining than a "standard" 2-0 game with only a couple of yellow cards (which would be 3.5 points).

Cup games

Cup games can be extra special, especially between local rivals. Whilst matches going into extra time can often be a damp squib, it does heighten the tension in the stadium with the potential for penalties just around the corner. As a result, for knockout matches we award an extra 1.00 point if the game goes to extra time and another 2.00 points if the game is settled through a penalty shoot-out.

Here's a run-down of all point-scoring factors:

Action	# points
Goal	1.50 points
Penalty	0.50 additional points
Own goal	0.25 additional points
Goal after 80 mins	0.50 additional points
Goal after 90 mins	1.00 additional points
Match goes to extra time	1.00 points
Match goes to penalty shoot-out	2.00 points
Yellow card	0.25 points
Red card	1.5 points

It's not perfect and it's not official (by any means), but it's a good way of being able to see which derbies are better than others.