😱 Top league goes mad: second-worst side wins promotion! | OneFootball

What incredible scenes were those? When Olie McBurnie fired Hull City into the Premier League in the 94th minute of the decisive clash against Middlesbrough, Wembley practically exploded.

Players and fans celebrated together in an unforgettable party, singing cult songs by Adele among others.

The fact that these already legendary moments happened at all, however, is almost like a glitch in the football matrix. Because: Hull City should never have been in the promotion playoffs in the first place — at least if you go by pretty much every advanced stat in the world.

Now, expected points and expected goals are always a tricky subject. They are obviously not the holy grail of football. And yet the discrepancy in the Tigers' stats is simply massive.

If you look, for example, at the figures from top data provider 'Opta', it becomes clear that the team from East Yorkshire has done far more than just historically overperform in recent months.

According to the company's expected points model, Hull should have picked up just 53 points last season. That would have left the traditional club in 23rd place — second from bottom in the Championship.

But things turned out differently. The Tigers collected 20 more points than would actually have been expected and secured sixth place in the table, which earned them a spot in the promotion playoffs. 

The rest is history. In the decisive matches for a place in the Premier League, Hull first beat Millwall and ultimately Middlesbrough. A statistical third-tier side had become a top-flight club. 

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇩🇪 here.

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