La Liga final standings prediction
Por Benno Hansen
statistics,probability,Numancia,Recreativo Huelva,R.C.D.Espanyol, Getafe,Villareal,Atletico Madrid,Valencia CF,Sevilla FC,Real Madrid,FC Barcelona,Primera Division
I have made my computer draw up the final standings - expressed as probability distributions - of the Spanish Primera Division today. For an explanation please see my previous blog post. More than three fourths (3/4) of the season is past now so the prediction is rather confident.

The final standings


Click image for larger view!


The Spanish champions will be (the green box): As immediately obvious from a glance at the standings only FC Barcelona (~86% chance) and Real Madrid (~13%) are competing for the title. Barca's headed for approximately 89 points, Madrid for about 82.

To see any possibility for upsets look for 22nd of April's Barcelona vs currently 3rd Sevilla, 26th of April's Valencia vs Barcelona and Sevilla vs Real Madrid, of course 3rd of May's Real Madrid vs Barcelona, 10th of May's Valencia vs Real Madrid and Barcelona vs Villarreal and 17th of May's Villarreal vs Real Madrid. In short, both Barca and Real have pretty "tough" matches remaining.

Sevilla FC, Villarreal CF, Valencia CF and Atletico Madrid (?) have theoretical chances (~1% total chance) of gold medal only.

UEFA qualifications? (yellow box): Lots of teams can still miss it or improve to get it. Villarreal, Valencia, Atletico Madrid, Malaga, Deportivo La Coruna and Valladolid are in this category. Thus have plenty of reasons for fighting for every last point to get.

Relegation (red box): Not much is settled so I have included Almeria,
Athletic Bilbao, Gijon, Osasuna, Mallorca, Betis, Getafe, Huelva, Numancia and Espanyol. The bookies have their eyes on CD Numancia, RCD Espanyol, Recreativo de Huelva or Getafe.

Next round predictions

Predicting the outcome of one particular game is more difficult than estimating the collective outcome of a buch of games. But of course we have our never ending prediction game going on here at footbo so I'll give next round's games a go.

Or at least, here are the winners: Barcelona FC, Villarreal, Real Madrid and Sevilla. That's just the top four teams getting three more points each not changing anything for now. Barcelona in particular appears to have an easy weekend getting a visit from looking-at-relegation Recreativo Huelva.

Deportivo La Coruna vs Atletico Madrid and Gijon vs Valencia could draw.


Or do the numbers lie? What do you think?