What's the most common winning margin in football?

Oct 11th, 2011 - Posted by Andrew_Brocker in Football

bettingexpert blog editor. Always taking the alternative route to finding the value.

Email : andrew at bettingexpert.com

How often do home cliubs win by 2 goals? How often do favourites win by 3 goals when playing away? What is the variance from league to league? Andrew has once again dug into the numbers and charted the occurrence of margins or victory in the major football leagues of Europe.

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Click here for the BettingExpert 2012/2013 Football Stats Guide. Detailed stats for the 8 biggest leagues of Europe.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote an article for Natter Football concerning the average margins of victory across a number of the football leagues of Europe. I looked at the average margins for home clubs as well as away clubs and ranked each league based on which had the greatest margin of victory proportional to the average goal total for a match in that league.

So this week, I decided to dig a little deeper and look at the occurrence of particular margins for the four major leagues of European football.

English Premier League
Italian Serie A
German Bundesliga
Spanish Primera

In this article I will chart the occurrence of fulltime margins of victory for the last 10 seasons across these leagues.

We will also be breaking down each by 6 odds ranges:

Home teams starting odds of 1.25 or less
Home teams starting odds between 1.26 and 1.50
Home teams starting odds between 1.51 and 2.00
Home teams starting odds between 2.01 and 2.80
Home teams starting odds between 2.81 and 5.00
Home teams starting odds between 5.01 and above

Home club odds 1.25 or less

So let's begin by looking at margins when home clubs start of odds 1.25 or less. First thing we can see is that the Bundesliga has had the higher proportion of matches with 1.25 or less favourites ending in a draw with just over 23% of their matches in this category ending with scores tied at fulltime the last 10 seasons.

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We also see that the Primera has had just under 4% of its matches in this category end in a draw the last 10 seasons, significantly lower than the other 3 leagues of study.

On average we see that over 30% of matches across the 4 leagues end with the home club winning by at least 3 goals the last 10 seasons. The Premier League has been the most significant of the 4 leagues here with just over 40% of home clubs starting 1.25 or less favourites winning by at least 3 goals the last 10 seasons. They also saw just over 20% ending with the home club winning by 4 or more goals, higher than the Primera with just under 19% and significantly higher than both the Bundesliga and Seire A.

Serie A has seen just over 6% of it's home favourites of 1.25 or less the last 10 seasons winning by at least 4 goals, with just under 2% winning by 5 goals or more, comparing to the Premier League which saw almost 10% of home clubs in this category win by at least 5 goals the last 10 seasons.

Home club odds 1.26 to 1.50

Let's turn to matches when home clubs start of odds between 1.26 and 1.50. Here we don't see that much of a variation between leagues.

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We can however see that Serie A again sees a lower than average proportion of matches ending in significant blowouts of 4 goals or more at around 7% the last 10 seasons. This compares to the other 3 leagues which see around 10% of home clubs in this cateogry winning by at least 4 goals.

At the other end of the chart we can see that the Premier League sees just under 7% of away clubs in this category winning by a margin between 1 and 3 goals, comparing to the other 3 leagues where we see away clubs winning between 1 and 3 goals roughly 10% of the time.

Home club odds 1.51 to 2.00

When we look at situations where home clubs have started at odds between 1.51 and 2.00 we see that the Bundesliga has seen a greater proportion of blow out home wins of 3 goals or more the last 10 seasons.

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In this category, around 17% of Bundesliga matches over the last 10 seasons has seen the home club win by at least 3 goals. This compares with the other 3 leagues which have seen roughly 10% of matches end with such margins of victory.

Home club odds 2.01 to 2.80

The first thing that leaps out in this category is the high rate of draws in Serie A. Over the last 10 seasons, almost 37% of Serie A matches in this category ended at fulltime with scores level. This compares with the other 3 leagues which have seen a drawn match rate in this category of around 27%.

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We can also see that the Bundesliga has seen a higher rate of blow-out wins by home clubs than the other 3 leagues. Over the last 10 seasons, just over 10% of Bundesliga matches in this category have ended with the home club winning by at least 3 goals. This compares to the other 3 leagues, which saw home clubs winning by such margins around 6% of the time.

Home club odds 2.81 to 5.00

Now we are heading into home underdog territory. Here we can see that the Premier League has a slightly higher rate of drawn matches the last 10 seasons, at around 32%, while the other 3 leagues hover at around 26%.

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We can also see that both the Bundesliga and Primera see a higher rate of blow-out wins for home clubs in this category with both seeing home clubs winning by 3 goals or more just under 4% of the time, in comparison to both the Premier League and Serie A both at 1.4%.

Additionaly, the Bundesliga has seen the higher rate of wins from away favourites in this category by 3 goals or more the last 10 seasons, at just under 12%, comparing to the other 3 leagues at around 7%.

Further, the Serie A has seen a disproportionate number of 2 goal wins by away clubs in this category in comparison to the other 3 leagues. Over the last 10 seasons Serie A has seen 2 goal wins by away clubs 25.5% of the time when home clubs start at odds between 2.81 and 5.00, while the other 3 leagues do so at an average rate of 14%.

Home club odds 5.01 and above

Let's finally look at when home clubs are heavy underdogs. Here we can see that the Premier League has a slightly lower rate of drawn matches than the 3 other leagues, with 20.5% of matches in this category ending with scores level at fulltime the last 10 seasons.

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We can also see that the Bundesliga has seen a disproportionate amount of matches in this category ending with the home club winning by either 1 or 2 goals just under 23% of the time. This compares to the other 3 leagues which saw similar results around 12% of the time.

Finally we see that Serie A saw away favourites in this odds range win by 4 or more goals just under 2% of the time, compared to the other 3 leagues which saw away clubs in this category win by such margins around 7% of the time.

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Click here for the BettingExpert 2012/2013 Football Stats Guide. Detailed stats for the 8 biggest leagues of Europe.