Extreme Variance Personified

Lessons from FC Magdeburg

The idea for this column occurred on Friday, when one of the people who follow my Twitter account, Sweetie, shared a wild outlier unfolding so far during the 2024-2025 German Bundesliga 2 season. Thank you to Sweetie for tagging Alan and I, as it was like catnip for this spreadsheet shagger.

That is the league table through Friday, January 24, 2025. FC Magdeburg top of the table, though Hamburg SV nearby and with a game in hand.

Here is an expected points table - for those who are unaware, expected points (xPts) are derived off of xG, with points assigned to each team for each game on a modeled probability based upon the relative xG between the two teams.