We're all loving the return of the UCL but in terms of football folklore, a fixture going down in Chile tonight may just be the most important match of the week.

It's a relegation playoff between CD Universidad & Colo Colo it has all of Chile holding it's breath. (THREAD)

It's all because the away side is Colo Colo, the country's biggest, most successful club, with 32 titles & the only Chilean Copa Libertadores trophy.

They have never even come close to relegation & the sheer thought of going down is causing all kinds of scenes across the country
From the ritualistic Grandma's doing their bit to convince the football sprits to keep them in the top tier.

https://t.co/k84a2lgLhN
To the 5,000 fans outside who awaited the team bus outside the training ground for one last motivational encouragement

https://t.co/yiCFCmUrse
And of course the club's Barra Bravas with their own take on motivation

https://t.co/PMvXV4e9le
But the incredible support for this club wasn't just on show outside the training ground.

The team bus's entire 3 hour, 250 kilometre journey to the match has seen fans from all over the country gathering on the highway to try to motivate the players.

https://t.co/tGZEL6h9AN
But sympathy amongst other Chilean fans is in short supply as Colo Colo are a club that have never really been the most humble of winners.

https://t.co/Zd7g114V7K
And there's one fanbase hoping to see Colo Colo go down more than any other.

Supporters of Club Universidad de Chile, Colo Colo's arch rivals, who spent one year in the the 2nd (B) tier back in 1989 & have been tormented by Colo Colo supporters with ghost of the 'B' for decades
Whatever happens tonight, one side of Chilean football is going to be celebrating wildly and one side is going to be absolutely devastated. We're not making predictions but in a country where club football means so much, we can't wait to see how it all unfolds.

More from Sport

#swfc are finally back in league action tonight 8pm GMT away to Coventry #pusb

A relegation six pointer to kick off our second half of the season with 7 points separating us in 23rd and them in 16th.

A look of our numbers and theirs below and what they can tell us.

[thread]

I looked at the survival prognosis for teams in our position yesterday (
https://t.co/rmVT8b5sFl).

Thankfully a prognosis is not a prediction, but it does bear out just how important tonight's game is.


Can we quantify match importance then?

Well, @FiveThirtyEight have given it a right good go and how they've done it is explained here: https://t.co/ObjB079Fjw

Their match importance rating ranges from 0 to 100 for a team.

In a game with a high match importance vs. a team with low match importance, a team's likelihood of winning increases: All else being equal, if match importance is 100 for the home team and 0 for the away team, the home team's odds of winning drop from Evens (50%) to 8/11 (58%).

If we look at the combined match importance ratings for both teams, tonight's game ranks 14th of the 317 matches with match importance ratings. Pretty important then!

Of our matches only the win against Bournemouth had a higher combined match importance than tonight's match:

You May Also Like