How the score works: EFL Championship

Every match in the second tier gets a number from 0 to 100 before it starts, from seven inputs in six weighted terms. It becomes a pick at 40. Afterwards a spoiler-free verdict says whether it was worth watching. The numbers on this page are read from the configuration the pipeline runs on. The wording around them is written by hand, so if the two disagree, the numbers are right and we want to hear about it.

The six terms

Closeness

The draw is set aside and the two sides are compared: closeness is 4p(1−p) on the probability that the home side beats the away side, from a consensus of bookmaker prices with the margin removed. A coin flip scores 1, a 90% favourite 0.36. An earlier version measured uncertainty across home, draw and away; because a draw is always fairly likely, nearly every match looked equally open, so it ranked nothing. Before a market opens, the probability comes from the two teams' points per game, pulled towards the league average early in the season, with home advantage worth roughly 60/40, and the game page says the number is a rating estimate rather than a price.

Quality

Each club's Elo-style strength rating is mapped onto 0 to 1 between 1300, roughly a weak second-tier side in one of Europe's big leagues, and 1700, a contender in one of its top flights. Quality is 60% the average of the two and 40% the weaker club, so a mismatch is pulled down by its weak link. A club without a rating is treated as middling.

Stakes

Each position in the table carries a weight for what it decides (promotion, relegation): places 1–2 weigh 1.0; places 3–6 weigh 0.8; places 22–24 weigh 0.8; the three places either side of those weigh 0.4, the rest nothing. Stakes are 50% the average of the two weights, 30% their product (so it rises when both sides have something to lose) and 20% how far the season has run. A promotion or relegation play-off scores at least 0.9, because it decides a season on its own.

Rivalry

Rivalry is a hand-kept table of 20 pairs in the second tier. Each pair has a weight between 0.3 and 1.5: we call 1.5 marquee, 1.0 to 1.4 established and anything lower minor (5 marquee, 10 minor). The signal is the weight divided by 1.5, so a marquee rivalry scores 1 and a 0.5 rivalry a third. See the map and tell us what is missing.

Pace

Pace is the expected total, from the over/under line when there is one, else from the two teams' scoring and conceding rates, mapped from 2 goals (0) to 3.5 (1). With neither, pace is 0.4.

Form and spice

Form is the share of points from each team's last five, averaged. Upset spice is 1 when a team whose table place decides something (zone weight 0.8 or more) is priced under 45% to win, read from the market only, never from the rating estimate.

The verdict

After the game the verdict comes from the goal timeline, because we have no win-probability series for the second tier. Each goal adds 0.9, each lead change 1.5, each equaliser 1.0, each goal from the 80th minute 0.8, each stoppage-time goal 0.6, each goal of a comeback 1.5, each red card 0.4, and a one-sided finish takes one away. That number earns stars at 4, 6 and 8. One more star comes from a two-goal comeback, an upset (a favourite priced at 60% or more lost) or a lead change, and one more from a goal from the 85th minute in a game decided by one goal or level. Four or five stars is worth it, three is maybe, one or two is skip. A one-sided finish caps the verdict at maybe, so a late flurry cannot turn a rout into a recommendation.

What it never does

No match is ranked against another after the fact, and no result is printed outside the disclosure on its page. The weights were set by hand and are revised against notes on games actually watched; the numbers above are the current version.

This season so farthe numbers behind the pages

In the second tier nearly every match clears 40, so the picks are the top five of the day rather than everything above the bar.