What does it truly mean for a team to be "strong"? Is it just about goals scored and conceded? At Betmance, we believe true strength is a nuanced story told by data. This post dives into how our proprietary algorithms calculate the offensive and defensive ratings that power our entire prediction engine.

How We Calculate Offensive Strength

It’s not just about how many goals a team scores. Our offensive strength rating is a weighted combination of several key metrics:

• Shot Volume & Quality: We look at the number of shots and, more importantly, the quality of each chance using Expected Goals (xG).
• Build-Up Proficiency: Pass completion rates in the final third and successful dribbles indicate an ability to break down defenses.
• Conversion Efficiency: How clinical is the team at turning chances into goals compared to the average?

This multi-angle approach ensures we capture both the quantity and quality of attacking threat.

How We Calculate Defensive Strength

A clean sheet can be lucky. Our defensive rating digs deeper to measure true defensive resilience:

• Opponent xG Suppression: The best defense minimizes high-quality chances. We measure how much a team reduces the xG of their opponents.
• Defensive Actions: Successful tackles, interceptions, and clearances are factored in, but weighted by their location and impact.
• Goalkeeper Impact: We analyze save percentages and performance against post-shot xG to account for the last line of defense.

Normalization and Scaling: Ensuring a Level Playing Field

A dominant team in one league may not be in another. To ensure fair comparisons, we normalize our ratings across leagues and match contexts. A tackle in a high-tempo Premier League match might be valued differently than one in a slower-paced league. This scaling is crucial for accurate head-to-head matchup modeling.

Why Our Ratings Are More Predictive

While other platforms show you raw stats, Betmance interprets them in context. Our algorithms synthesize these metrics into a single, powerful number for offense and defense. This means you're not just looking at what happened in the last game; you're seeing a data-driven measure of a team's underlying potential for the next one.