Last week’s results hammered home what’s seemed pretty clear for a while – it’s a two-horse race for the W-League title. And even within that, Melbourne City are the clear frontrunners, dismantling Melbourne Victory (who themselves were on a four-game winning streak) 4-0 on Sunday afternoon.
City have nine wins and a draw from their ten games so far, and have almost guaranteed themselves first spot on the table. The only way they could lose out is by losing both their games and Sydney FC winning both theirs, something with a ~1 in 300 chance – and even then, Sydney need to overcome the goal difference gap.
Enough about finishing first though, what about the finals? Only one team that’s not currently in the four can make it, Brisbane Roar – and it’d be tough for them too, needing to rely on other results.
The Roar would be replacing one of the Wanderers or Victory in the final. To overtake Victory, Brisbane need to get three more points than they do over the last few rounds, which could happen through several different ways:
- Brisbane win both of their games (4.2%), Victory win one and lose the other (29.4%) – 1.23%*
- Brisbane win both of their games (4.2%), Victory win neither (49%) – 2.05%
- Brisbane win one of their games (84.6%), Victory lose both (20.7%) – 17.51%*
- Brisbane win one of their games and draw the other (14%), Victory get 1 or 0 points (43.2%) – 6.05%
So, based on our simplified calculations (we haven’t gone in depth with goal difference, the ones where it matters are marked with a *), Melbourne Victory have a 73.16% chance of making the finals.
How about the Wanderers? They’ve got five points and a +7 goal difference on Brisbane, so the only realistic way they’ll lose out is if they lose two and Brisbane win two – the chances of that are 4.2% * 38.9% = 1.63%. So there’s a 98.37% chance the Wanderers are playing finals, and a 28.47% chance the Roar are.
But we’re thinking further ahead than we normally do with our soccer predictions – what do they say for this week? Easy wins for Sydney and Brisbane, less easy wins for Melbourne City and Newcastle.
The Flag 