By barclays 
Alright folks, let me walk you through my crazy attempt to predict the Ethiopian Premier League champ just by staring at the league table. Total headache, but figured I’d share the mess.
Why Even Try This?
Honestly? Saw some fancy stats guy on Twitter boasting about predicting winners using nothing but the current table. Thought “how hard could it be?” Turns out, real damn hard. Especially for a league where match reports sometimes vanish like my motivation on a Monday.
Grab the Data (The First Fight)
First step: find the bloody table. Simple, right? Wrong. Scrolled through 3 different “official” league social media pages. Points differed slightly on each one. Seriously? Picked the most recent one, screenshot it like a madman praying it was legit. Had to type out every team, played matches, wins, draws, losses, goals… manually into a spreadsheet. Took forever. Nearly threw my laptop when Excel crashed halfway.
My “Genius” Methods (Spoiler: They Flopped)
Started simple. Heard people swear by “Points Per Game” (PPG). Crunched those numbers:
- Top team had a PPG like 2.2
- Second place? 2.1. Hardly a gap.
- Third? Also 2.1! So much for a clear winner.
Next idea: Goal difference! Surely the team smashing goals in wins, right? Looked…
- Top team: +15 GD. Solid.
- Second: +18 GD? Wait, better than the leader?
- Third: +10 GD. Fine, but why wasn’t the second place team top then? Games in hand? Yep. Classic mess.
Panicked. Tried inventing my own formula. Points + (GD 0.5). Made the second-place team look even stronger. This predicted a different winner than PPG! My spreadsheet became a warzone.
The Big Reality Smack
Sweating over my useless formulas, checked a random fan forum. Saw chatter about last weekend’s games not being updated on some sites I used. The table I based my whole mess on? Probably outdated! Felt like an idiot. No wonder my numbers clashed.
Also remembered reading ages ago about how physical the league gets, injuries pile up late season, especially for smaller squads chasing the leaders. My fancy numbers won’t show that. What if the top team has a bunch of walking wounded next month? My “prediction” becomes toilet paper.
So What Did I Learn?
Predicting a league winner just off a snapshot table?
- Almost impossible: Games in hand, schedule difficulty, injuries, form… none of this lives in a simple table.
- Context is king: Especially in leagues where finding reliable, current info feels like treasure hunting.
- Simple stats conflict: PPG said one team, GD hinted at another. Which one lies? Both kinda do without the full picture.
End result? My “prediction” changed three times in an hour. Trashed the whole thing for the blog. Instead, just keeping an eye on that scrappy second-place team with the strong GD and extra games. But honestly? Your guess is as good as mine until that final whistle blows. Gotta respect the chaos.
