On a normal soccer weekend, it's hard to know where to start. You might have a couple of headliners around which the weekend revolves -- an Arsenal vs. Liverpool here, a Real Madrid vs. Barcelona there -- but on an hour-to-hour basis, you've just got so many choices. How do you know which matches to watch? How do you know where to get the best entertainment bang for your buck?
In 2023-24, you start with Tottenham Hotspur. Under new manager Ange Postecoglou, Spurs have played in the most consistently watchable matches in Europe. My eyes can back that up, but most importantly, so does my cold, hard math.
Each year, I rank the most watchable teams in Europe's Big Five leagues based on criteria of my liking. (Here are last year's rankings, for reference.) Shots and goals are fun, so I reward teams that produce the most of those (and allow their opponents to do the same). Defensive intensity is entertaining, so you get points for pressing.
Pretty passing? Occasional directness? Through balls and switches? Not going into a shell against good teams? I divvy out credit for all the fun things I like ... and in the end Bayern Munich always finishes No. 1.
This year I've tweaked the approach a bit. (So has Bayern.) Instead of ranking teams mostly by full-season stats, what would it look like if I gave every match a watchability score? What if I used all the watchability criteria above and threw in some extra flourishes? Metrics include a propensity for closeness (the percentage of time a match is tied or within one goal), late-game franticness, lead changes, draw avoidance (read: bonus points for ending with someone winning) and, perhaps most importantly, an element of pure quality (via Opta's power ratings).
Here are this year's most watchable matches and European teams according to cold, hard, forever-infallible math. (All matches from Europe's Big Five leagues, plus Portugal's Primeira Liga, the Netherlands' Eredivisie and all three UEFA competitions were thrown into the pot.)