# What if football were played with Elo? The league without 3 points for a win · Sir Balone > Today a win is worth 3 points, a draw 1 and a defeat 0, whoever the opponent and whatever the score. Swap it for an Elo rating, the chess system, and replay the Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga or Ligue 1 season. You set the rules; see who changes place. URL: https://sirbalone.com/en/la-lente/elo-league/ Datos al: 2026-11-14 Fuente de los datos: Sportmonks (https://www.sportmonks.com/). Métricas, notas y textos: La Lente, de Sir Balone, a cargo de Juan Carlos Vasquez (https://sirbalone.com/authors/juan-carlos-vasquez/). Mini app · The big five leagues, match by match ## What if football were played with Elo? Today, in every league, a win is worth 3 points, a draw 1 and a defeat 0. It does not matter who you play or by how much: beating the leader is worth the same as beating the bottom side, and a 1-0 the same as a 5-0. Elo, the chess system, works differently: every club has a score that says how good it is, and after each match it goes up or down depending on how surprising the result was. Beating a big club earns a lot; beating a small one, little. Here you replay a real season with Elo and compare it with the real table. With these rules, Sunderland goes down. The real table had it 7th. 17 of 20 clubs change position. Arsenal is champion in both tables. Last season counts a lot. Also: West Ham United stays up (it was 18th). ### The table · Premier League 2025-26 The top line marks the first 4; the bottom one, the last 3. | # | Club | Change | Real table | Rating | Started | |---|---|---|---|---|---| | 1 | Arsenal | = | 1 85 pts | 1799 | 1690 | | 2 | Aston Villa | ▲ 2 | 4 65 pts | 1690 | 1617 | | 3 | Manchester City | ▼ 1 | 2 78 pts | 1680 | 1608 | | 4 | Manchester United | ▼ 1 | 3 71 pts | 1656 | 1571 | | 5 | Liverpool | = | 5 60 pts | 1627 | 1687 | | 6 | AFC Bournemouth | = | 6 57 pts | 1610 | 1569 | | 7 | Newcastle United | ▲ 5 | 12 49 pts | 1589 | 1589 | | 8 | Nottingham Forest | ▲ 8 | 16 44 pts | 1589 | 1560 | | 9 | Brighton & Hove Albion | ▼ 1 | 8 53 pts | 1582 | 1581 | | 10 | Crystal Palace | ▲ 5 | 15 45 pts | 1571 | 1575 | | 11 | Chelsea | ▼ 1 | 10 52 pts | 1568 | 1666 | | 12 | Brentford | ▼ 3 | 9 53 pts | 1563 | 1556 | | 13 | Fulham | ▼ 2 | 11 52 pts | 1550 | 1532 | | 14 | Tottenham Hotspur | ▲ 3 | 17 41 pts | 1541 | 1544 | | 15 | Everton | ▼ 2 | 13 49 pts | 1533 | 1537 | | 16 | Leeds United | ▼ 2 | 14 47 pts | 1500 | 1365 | | 17 | West Ham United | ▲ 1 | 18 39 pts | 1499 | 1494 | | 18 | Sunderland | ▼ 11 | 7 54 pts | 1489 | 1365 | | 19 | Wolverhampton Wanderers | ▲ 1 | 20 20 pts | 1411 | 1497 | | 20 | Burnley | ▼ 1 | 19 22 pts | 1348 | 1365 | Tap a club to see its curve and the matches that moved it most. ### How it is calculated Every club has a rating. Before each match, the rating gap (plus home advantage) says how much of a favourite each side is. Afterwards, the winner takes points from the loser: many if nobody expected it, few if it was the expected result. A draw costs the favourite points. The result is not just win, draw or loss: a big win multiplies the points, each extra goal is worth less than the one before and, with the cap, never more than double. xG, if it counts, weighs less than goals. The starting rating comes from 2024-25. At the start of each season, part of it goes back to the league average, like the soft reset of ranked video games; promoted clubs start with the average of those who went down. Leagues are linked through the Champions League, Europa League and Conference League: that is why a European match can move the league table. A home advantage of 50 points is the one that best predicts the 2024-25 matches. “Only what it gained this season” is the sum of what each club won and lost in the season. It rewards whoever beat expectations most, not the best team: it is the table of this year’s Leicester. ### Frequently asked questions **What would happen to the Premier League 2025-26 with Elo?** With these rules, Sunderland goes down. The real table had it 7th. With the starting rules, 17 of 20 clubs change place compared with the real table, with 3 points for a win, 1 for a draw and 0 for a defeat. **How would Elo work in a football league?** Every club has a rating. Before each match the system works out the favourite, home advantage included, and afterwards the winner takes points from the loser: many if it was a surprise, few if it was expected. A big win multiplies the points up to a cap, and xG can add with less weight. The table is the rating. **Why can the table not be the sum of Elo points from zero?** Because it would reward whoever beats expectations most, not the best team: a big club winning as expected would stay near zero and every year’s champion would be that season’s Leicester. That is why the table is the rating, with part of it pulled back to the average at the start of each season. **What is the soft reset?** At the start of the season, part of each club’s rating goes back to its league average, as in ranked video games. That way the champion does not start with a huge lead and the promoted side is not hopeless. How much goes back is a choice, and in the mini app it is yours.