Matchday 4 preview: the numbers behind the slip

Two near coin-flips, three gaps of more than nine points between the public and the market, and four Liga F fixtures with no precedent. The numbers of matchday 4, with no forecast attached.

This is the matchday 4 preview for La Quiniela, Spain's classic football pool: one slip, fourteen fixtures to sign from the men's and women's leagues plus a fifteenth bonus game, and a single sign to pick for each of the fourteen — 1 for the home win, X for the draw, 2 for the away win. Matchday 4 has arrived with an awkward slip. In several positions the betting market and the Spanish public are looking in different directions, and in two of them the gap between the most likely and the least likely outcome is under ten points. There is no forecast here and no completed slip — just the numbers people build their own from: market probabilities, the actual percentages the public filled in, and the head-to-head record of each fixture. In the background, a €1.5 million rollover and fifteen games that start on Saturday at 14:00 and do not finish until Monday night.

The fixtures that decide the round

Position 8: Real Sociedad B vs Tenerife, the most open game on the slip

The market splits it 35.8% / 29.6% / 34.6%, a spread of just 6.3 points between the likeliest and the least likely sign. That is comfortably the flattest position of matchday 4 — in practice, a three-sided coin. It opens the slip on Saturday at 14:00 at Real Sociedad's Zubieta facilities, where the reserve side arrive on 4 points from a win, a draw and a defeat, and Tenerife on 6 from two wins and one loss. The interesting detail is how little home advantage the market grants: Tenerife are given 34.6% on the road, barely below the hosts. The public is equally non-committal — 39% on 1, 26% on X, 35% on 2. When all three figures sit this close together, almost any result will make somebody look clever.

Position 6: Málaga vs Levante, six market points and survival at stake

At La Rosaleda on Sunday evening the market reads 38.5% / 29.1% / 32.4% — the tightest game in the Spanish top flight this round, with a spread of only 9.3 points. That is not an accident. Málaga finished the third matchday in the relegation places, still without a win and with the treatment room as their main storyline, though the club expects players back and added Aznou, Cajuste and Berrocal after the transfer window shut. Levante, by contrast, have just put five past Real Betis. The contrast is why the market gives the hosts only 38.5% despite home advantage, against 32.4% for the visitors. It is the sort of fixture where the draw at 29.1% is nobody's favourite and nobody's disaster.

Position 1: Athletic Club vs Atlético Madrid, the one the market flips

San Mamés, Saturday teatime, and a market willing to say something unusual: 33.6% / 27.6% / 38.8%. Atlético are favourites away from home, which in this particular fixture almost never happens. The reason is the start of the season: Simeone's side have won all three of their opening games, the last of them in Seville, while Athletic lost their first two and only woke up at Balaídos, where they won 2-0 through Berenguer and Robert Navarro. Two caveats are already in the price and worth knowing: Sørloth is unavailable with a physical problem, and Atlético host Liverpool in the Champions League the following Wednesday, which raises the odds of rotation. Even so, a spread of 11.1 points says this is still a football match rather than a formality.

Position 11: Sevilla Women vs Barcelona Women, the padlock of the round

At the other end of the slip sits the tightest-shut game of all: 2.0% / 15.5% / 82.5%, a spread of 80.5 points. Barcelona are the reigning Liga F champions, opened the season with a 5-0 and travel on Saturday night to the Estadio Jesús Navas, where Sevilla make their home debut after winning 1-0 away at Deportivo. The market gives Sevilla 1.98%, the lowest figure anywhere on the fourteen. Worth saying slowly: 82.5% is not a certainty. It is roughly one time in six that something else happens. And as we will see, this position also hides the second-largest disagreement of the round between the public and the money.

Where the public and the market disagree

The two series do not measure the same thing. The market is money at risk — the closest thing available to a real probability. The public percentages are a count of what people actually wrote on their slips, which is something else entirely: a crowd, not a forecast. When the two figures pull apart, it does not mean one is right and the other wrong. It means the crowd is loading weight where the money is not. These are the three biggest gaps of matchday 4.

**Position 2, Rayo Vallecano vs Racing Santander.** The public put 54% on the home win where the market has 42.5% — a gap of 11.4 points, the largest of the round. In the same game the public trim the away win to 19% where the market prices it at 29.9%. One detail may explain it: Rayo are not playing at Vallecas. The regional government of Madrid revoked the stadium's concession over serious safety failings, and days before kick-off the venue was still being argued over, with Butarque in Leganés the most-cited option; their previous relocated home game drew 4,280 spectators. Racing, meanwhile, arrive off their first win of the season, 3-2 against Elche at El Sardinero with a Zabiri hat-trick before half-time, while Rayo lost 5-2 at Barcelona and ended the round in the relegation zone. The public look to be paying for the home badge; the market looks to be charging for the missing home ground.

**Position 9, Sporting Gijón vs Girona.** Here the public put 42% on the home win against the market's 32.9% (9.1 points higher) and cut the away win to 28% where the market has 38.7% (10.7 points lower). In short, the market makes the visitors favourites at El Molinón. The crowd has its reasons: Sporting finished the third matchday joint-top of the second tier on 7 points. The money has its own: Girona have just beaten Las Palmas 5-2 with two goals from Asprilla. And the head-to-head record, as we will see, is firmly on the public's side.

**Position 11, Sevilla Women vs Barcelona Women.** The public give the home win 13% where the market gives 1.98% — a gap of 11.0 points, the second largest on the slip. This is probably not a reading of the game so much as a habit: plenty of players sprinkle a home sign around as a matter of course, even where the price says there is nothing there. A useful reminder that the public numbers describe behaviour, not football.

All fourteen positions, one by one

Market probability for each sign, position by position. These are percentages that add to 100 per fixture, not recommendations — the list is here so you can see at a glance which games are live and which are not.

• 1. Athletic Club - Atlético Madrid — 1: 33.6% · X: 27.6% · 2: 38.8%
• 2. Rayo Vallecano - Racing Santander — 1: 42.5% · X: 27.5% · 2: 29.9%
• 3. Villarreal - Deportivo La Coruña — 1: 62.6% · X: 21.9% · 2: 15.5%
• 4. Valencia - Barcelona — 1: 10.7% · X: 16.3% · 2: 73.0%
• 5. Alavés - Osasuna — 1: 41.8% · X: 30.5% · 2: 27.7%
• 6. Málaga - Levante — 1: 38.5% · X: 29.1% · 2: 32.4%
• 7. Espanyol - Sevilla — 1: 41.0% · X: 29.9% · 2: 29.1%
• 8. Real Sociedad B - Tenerife — 1: 35.8% · X: 29.6% · 2: 34.6%
• 9. Sporting Gijón - Girona — 1: 32.9% · X: 28.4% · 2: 38.7%
• 10. Almería - Cádiz — 1: 62.0% · X: 22.3% · 2: 15.7%
• 11. Sevilla Women - Barcelona Women — 1: 2.0% · X: 15.5% · 2: 82.5%
• 12. Logroño Women - Athletic Club Women — 1: 21.6% · X: 26.1% · 2: 52.2%
• 13. Atlético Madrid Women - Alavés Women — 1: 69.6% · X: 18.3% · 2: 12.1%
• 14. Real Madrid Women - Eibar Women — 1: 78.5% · X: 15.5% · 2: 6.0%

The fifteenth position, the Pleno al 15, is a separate bonus fixture where you predict each team's goals instead of a sign, and Getafe vs Celta closes the round on Monday at 19:00. The disagreement there is even louder. For the home team's goals, the market has 26.8% on 0, 35.3% on 1, 23.2% on 2 and 14.7% on M (three or more); the public leave 0 on just 10% and push 1 up to 53%. For the visitors the market reads 30.6% on 0, 36.2% on 1, 21.5% on 2 and 11.7% on M, while the public drop 0 to 18% and put 1 at 52%. Translated: hardly anyone is allowing for a blank in a game where the money rates it the second most likely outcome for each side.

What the head-to-head record says

The Quiniela's own history predicts nothing, but it says something no other series does: how this exact fixture has resolved every time it has appeared on a slip. This round has three cases where the past and the present price barely recognise each other.

• Position 1, Athletic Club vs Atlético Madrid: 46 home wins, 16 draws and 27 away wins across the full record, and 5-2-3 in the last ten. The market, by contrast, favours Atlético. The last five seasons alternated with almost comic regularity: 1, 2, 1, 2, 1 — the most recent a 1-0 to the hosts.
• Position 7, Espanyol vs Sevilla: 40 home wins to 22 away in the all-time record, but five away wins to two home in the last ten meetings. The market lands in between at 41.0% / 29.9% / 29.1%.
• Position 5, Alavés vs Osasuna: the only top-flight fixture whose slip history leans to the visitors (9-5-13), with five away wins in the last ten. Even so, the two most recent meetings finished level (2-2 and 1-1) and the market makes Alavés favourites at 41.8%.
• Position 10, Almería vs Cádiz: 5-5-4 all time and four draws in the last ten, the most evenly balanced record on the slip. Yet the market prices it as the second most one-sided game of the round, 62.0% to the hosts.
• Position 9, Sporting Gijón vs Girona: 8 home wins, 2 draws and no away wins at all. The visitors have never won this fixture on a Quiniela slip. That number, more than any other, is probably what the public is looking at.
• Position 8, Real Sociedad B vs Tenerife: a single previous meeting on a slip, resolved as an away win (1-2). One data point, not a trend.
• Positions 11 to 14 (Liga F): 0-0-0. No precedent on the Quiniela at all, because the women's league only joined the slip very recently. Here the history simply has nothing to say yet.

With two positions under ten points of spread and three disagreements of more than nine points between the public and the market, matchday 4 is exactly the kind of slip on which two reasonable fans end up with different answers. Which is, in the end, what makes a pool fun: if you are following the round, set one up with friends on quiniPrats and compare at the end who read the numbers better. No pressure, and nothing at stake but pride.