FiveThirtyEight will run a weekly model using ESPN’s Soccer Power Index (SPI) to determine the top clubs in Europe and The Americas. At the first week, Aston Villa came in a lousy 233rd out of 426 clubs studied.
Aston Villa certainly are a far way off from their glory days, but I don’t think anyone expected a slide quite this large.
Aston Villa ranked 233rd in the first week of FiveThirtyEight dot com’s club soccer rankings; sandwiched in between Championship rivals, Sheffield Wednesday and Fulham. The complete list can be found here. The introduction to the piece can be found here.
What does it all mean? Well, not a whole lot realistically. It is seen as a way to compare the top clubs from lesser leagues to the mid-table clubs from others. Moreover, it attempts to analytically derive the power of all 426 clubs in an equal setting.
Their model is interesting. It suggests the top sides from South America can hang with mid/low-table Premier League teams.
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Furthermore, it concludes La Liga 2 and 2. Bundesliga are more top-heavy than the English Championship. Middlesbrough is the top-ranked second-division English side at 142. Sporting Gijon, Darmstadt, Ingolstadt, and Lorient are just a few clubs placed ahead of Boro, as clubs not playing in their countries’ respective top flights.
How high or low will Aston Villa go? It’s pretty easy to imagine that winning the Championship could catapult a team into the top-100. Moreover, making a cup run with some upsets over Premier League sides probably constitutes a move-up as well.
The bottom three in week one all are based in Scotland: Partick Thistle, Kilmarnock, and Dundee currently hold the designation.
Up Next:
The Carabao Cup third-round draw takes place Thursday, August 24 (4:15AM GMT lol). The draw takes place in Beijing, China. Aston Villa is one of the remaining 32 clubs in an unseeded draw. Let’s hope for another match at Villa Park.