A tongue-in-cheek analysis of how “fair” the results have been this season.
One day, “normal” computers will become obsolete. Superior and vastly more-powerful quantum computers will make computing both much easier and much more productive (also potentially more dangerous…). They will do this by replacing standard computer “bits” (the binary switches that read either 0 or 1) with “qubits” (binary switches that are both 0 and 1 at the same time, albeit until they are looked at). What this means is that, with enough qubits, computers with be able to perform millions of calculations simultaneously, rather than processing them one after the other as they do currently.
“How does this relate to us?” I hear you ask (from those that have read this far anyway!) Well, we only play one league match at a time, according to a schedule set before the season begins. Would it not be more fun if we played all opponents at the same time every week? The simple answer is: No, it wouldn’t. We would lose the jeopardy of the fixture schedule, the anticipation and build-up before facing a rival once every nine weeks, and the ability to craft our lineups to pit our strengths against our opponents weaknesses. But would it be more fair…?
[TL;DR: If every team played all nine other teams every week, this is what the League tables might look like… see below]
Have you ever notched up the second-best score in your league, only to lose to the only other team that outscored you? Or maybe you’ve scored so badly that only one other team has been worse, yet somehow you’ve lucked out and played the right opponent that gameweek?
After 640 games this season, we have seen the second-best team in a league beaten by that better team a total of 14 times (Prem: 3x, Champ: 4x, Lge 1: 2x, Lge 2: 5x). The most unfortunate of those were Stafford Stallions, losing 88-78 to Jaysokker in Gameweek 15 (average team score that week was 58.4). Also, a notable mention to Hung Like A Bony who lost to Housewives Favourite 65½-65 in GW7.
Obviously, whoever scores the most is guaranteed a win (save for a league rival exactly matching that top score… and that hasn’t happened since GW31 in Season 10). But what about the other scores? Is there any merit in being third-best? Is sympathy warranted to those that repeatedly score well and lose more often than mathematically expected? (I think so – just look at Bigger Than Brolin (then “Drafty”) in the first three weeks of the 2021/22 season – GW1: 2nd-best and lost (by 1 point!), GW2: 2nd-best and lost, GW3: 3rd-best and lost, leaving them bottom with zero points despite being second in the Best-ish rankings!)
Now, as some of you are aware, this all-against-all-every-week type of league does exist. It’s very similar to the Roto system (which might be worth looking at for a future sister league). This simplified all-v-all is a really good way of highlighting which teams have been “lucky” and which teams have been “hard done by” (dare I say “jinxed”?)
So, in the spirit of today’s Physics-That-We-Don’t-Completely-Understand celebrations, here are what the BFFA leagues would look like today if they were “fair”!
Premier League // Championship // League One // League Two
What we see below:
Well, when we open the box to look at Schrodinger’s Cat, there is only one outcome to see. For the cat-lovers out there that would be a Win or a Loss. (I don’t want to complicate this analogy by talking about ties, so we’ll say no more about that hypothetical pussycat).
In a quantum league, all the fixtures are happening at the same time. Using the same team scores, every team plays nine matches a week, gets 3 points for a win or 1 for a draw as per usual. To compare it to the real leagues, the total number of points is divided by nine to demonstrate who’s been getting more lucky results and who isn’t earning as much as they perhaps deserve.
Premier League
The top two in the Premier League are the same in both formats, and both have substantial leads over the rest of the pack. Therefore, I think it’s fair to say that Housewives Favourite and De Bruyne Trousers deserve to be way up there at the top. Below that it gets interesting.
Gloopy Yarbles, 6th place in real life, could easily be 3rd, but for fate and circumstance. Conversely, Mighty Fine (4th) and El Dude Bros (5th), are both at least ten points better off, due to meeting opponents on convenient off-days. Smash & Grab, fighting for survival, are one of the better-scoring teams in the whole association (11th/40), and if they played all teams every week, they’d be four places better off in 5th.
In the Quantum Premier League, Beyer Neverleusen and Vanishing Spray would be on opposite sides of the red line. The remaining two, Hung and ATC, would be in reasonably similar situations – Hung tied on points for 3rd and ATC propping up the division.
Championship
Starting at the bottom this time, Gnonto Seed have had an incredibly difficult season. Despite remaining active (and they deserve to be respected for that), poor scores and injuries have forced the tenth-year side into relegation. Even with the quantum set-up, they’d be a long, long way down. Above them, Alleviate the Tedium would also be facing relegation, but might have had another couple of points to take into battle. Thirdly, Uncle Monty are also in the drop zone, but are a little bit better off IRL, being four points closer to Peltier.
It is occasionally joked that Peltier will be seventh and bored by Easter, Seasons 9 & 10 had a very familar feel about them. Again, the League One Champions find themselves not-quite down and not-quite safe, and that’s perfectly reflected in the all-against-all format on the left. Similarly, the next three up – All Star Gunners, Slots Fired and Sporting Wicker Park are all hovering around midtable with almost identical tallies of 48 & 49.
And so into the top three, who are all excelling this season and don’t look like being caught now. What’s interesting here is that not only have they all won more games than the computer expects (retrospectively), but they’ve done so to different magnitudes, thus, the top three are in a different order based on their relative week-to-week scores. Regardless, it is an extremely close set and Barons still have to play both The Phenoms and Preliminary Version in the remaining weeks. Exciting stuff!
League One
After Whiskey De Bruyne‘s 8-pt loss to GoFYS this week, they are tied on league points with Bigger than Brolin. The top four matches the quantum league here, but they and the aforementioned Stafford Stallions seem to be overperforming. Not by a lot, but enough to make AFC Chester’s run-in extremely hard.
Chester, who appear to be owed a win from somewhere, would only be six points behind the top three if the results were “fairer”, but instead are fifteen points from promotion with just six games to go. And if you think that seems harsh, spare a thought for Jaysokker, who may go down as the unluckiest team this season. They seem to be underachieving to the tune of (practically) seven wins / twenty-one points, compared to what their weekly scores were worth. Although not a high-scoring side this season, they are losing several games that they probably could have won, for example, five of the six times that they’ve been 4th-best, they’ve found themselves up against someone better that week; twice more they’ve been 3rd-best and lost to 2nd-best (like when Stallions got revenge in GW28).
GoFYS are 4th in both formats and although four league points better off in the real L1, they’re slightly further back from 3rd. They do play the Stallions in the penultimate week of the season though, and have beaten Stafford 3/4 in the league this season. At the bottom, Toastenham Hankdog, Shams Army and Sporting Thrillhaus are fighting for survival in both formats, and East Loop United are being muscled out by the other nine, but real-life ELU have seven points more than imaginary ELU and that gives them a fighting chance. They are nine points down with eighteen points available; those three wins could come from remaining games against the three teams above them.
League Two
The problem with League Two is that towards the end of the season, one-by-one teams will slowly reach a point where they are mathematically unable to escape the fourth tier. At this point, only two teams are outside the realms of promotion possibility (unless a Saracens-style points deduction is slapped on the teams above them). Scott FC and Borussia Teeth are laying 9th and 10th in both sets and are sadly done for the season, apart from serving their roles as Kingmakers – they both have the top three still to play.
Goleta Hotspur are a couple of places below where they perhaps should be, volunteers AI-Jiggery-Pokery are one place improved but four points worse off compared to the promotion line, and Team Zizouare also further adrift than the quantum league suggests they should be. If Zizou had those six extra points, they would be just two wins away from promotion, instead of being twelve points behind.
At the business end of the League Two table, Wrockwardine Wood Wolves have the same number of league points as they do in the simulation, but they are two places lower and currently outside of the promotion places. BVAR are six points and one place further up, which today puts them level on league points with FPL Daddy in 3rd. FPL Daddy are just a couple of points up on their mathematical performance, but they have lost a place to possibly the luckiest team of the forty – Bigo1. Judging by the quantum format, Bigo1 could have been struggling this season, but instead they are have been blessed to peak at the right times and put themselves right in the middle of a promising promotion chase. What’s more, their games against 1st & 3rd are behind them, so they only have lower-ranked teams to face in the rest of the run-in.
So that just leaves Beedle’s Boys. 12 points and a whole heap of matchpoints above 4th place, puts them in the driving seat for not only promotion, but for the title too. Just as with Wives Fave, Beedle’s Boys are top of the league (and comfortablly so) in the quantum analysis, and that reflects their high-scoring premiere season. It’s been an impressive entry into the BFFA, however, we are contractually obliged to repeat the fact that there still a lot of games to play and strange things do happen to good teams! Whatever happens in the remainder of the tournament, let’s hope it’s fun for all. Enjoy!
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