How are teams and clubs ranked?

Our rankings are worked out from game results, the same way for every team. Here is the idea behind them.

Team rankings

Results decide it. Each team gets a rating from its games: who it played, and by how much it won or lost.

Who you beat matters. Every team's results are worked out together, so beating a team that beats everyone else counts for more than beating a team that loses most of its games. Two teams that never met can still be compared through the teams they both played.

The score counts, up to a point. Winning by three says more than winning by one, but a blowout only counts so much. Running up the score doesn't help.

Recent games count more. A team changes over a season, so older games slowly count for less and drop out after a year.

Close games say the most. A match between two evenly matched teams tells us more than a big team beating a much weaker one.

Where a team plays is its starting point. A team with only a few games starts near the other teams in its league and division. As games come in, its own results take over.

Cups count too. Tournament games count alongside league games, and winning a cup adds a little.

Playing up gets credit. A team that plays older teams gets a small bonus, because it's usually the strongest teams that choose to.

Teams are ranked against others of the same age and gender. A team needs one game to be ranked; with fewer than five it's marked provisional, because a few games can't say much yet.

Club rankings

A club's ranking comes from its teams' rankings.

• At each age from U11 to U19, we take the club's best team and see how far above or below the typical team of that age it is.
• We average that across the club's ages.
• A club needs teams in at least four ages to be ranked. Clubs are ranked within their state.

Using each club's best team at each age keeps it fair both ways: a big club isn't pulled down by its second and third teams, and it isn't pushed up just for having more teams.

What a ranking is — and isn't

A ranking is our best reading of results so far. It isn't a judgment on a club's coaching or how well it develops players, and early in a season, when there are only a few games, it can move a lot.

The full rule is public: github.com/sidbai/kingjuan-ranking.