How it works

Ratings built on evidence,
not reputation.

The football industry has always known that league position doesn't tell the whole story. A manager at a club with a £200m squad finishing fourth is not doing the same job as a manager with £20m who finishes seventh. TouchlineAlpha exists to make that difference visible, objective, and comparable across every league and every era.

The core idea

Results relative to expectation

Every match has a predicted outcome — shaped by the quality of the two squads, the venue, and what the markets collectively believe will happen. Our rating system measures how actual results compare to those predictions, match after match.

When a manager consistently beats expectations, their ELO rises. When they consistently fall short, it falls. Over time, the rating converges on something close to the truth: a manager's genuine contribution, stripped of the noise created by spending power and league context.

1500 is the baseline. A score above 1500 means the manager or club is outperforming expectations on average. A score below 1500 means they are underperforming. The further from 1500, the more pronounced the trend.

What we measure

Two independent evidence signals

A single measure of performance is fragile — it can be gamed, skewed by luck, or distorted by unusual circumstances. Our ratings combine two distinct and independent signals that each capture a different dimension of managerial quality.

Market Edge

Each result is compared against what the pre-match betting market implied was likely to happen. Beating the odds consistently is the clearest independent signal that something real is happening at that club — and it shows up immediately in the rating.

Budget Efficiency

Points won are measured against what a squad of that financial value should typically achieve in that league and season. This removes the confounding effect of spending power so that smaller clubs managed brilliantly are rated alongside elite clubs managed well.

Why it matters

What traditional metrics miss

League position, win percentage, and points tallies all reflect the quality of the squad as much as the manager. A high-spending club finishing third might represent a failure; a low-budget club finishing eleventh might represent an exceptional achievement. Traditional metrics cannot distinguish between the two.

Our ratings adjust for both market expectations and financial context, making it possible to compare managers across clubs of vastly different sizes, and across leagues on different continents. A manager who built a reputation at a mid-table Championship club and then moved to a Premier League role carries a continuous, unbroken rating — no resets, no compartmentalisation.

This is why our ratings can identify a manager who is overperforming at a club before the market catches up — and equally, why they can flag underperformance before it becomes apparent in the table.

Coverage

25+ years, 38 leagues, updated weekly

The model covers 38 professional leagues across Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Oceania, with historical depth back to 2000 for the major competitions. Every rating is produced by the same engine, with the same methodology, applied consistently across every era.

Ratings update automatically each week as new results come in. A manager appointed on a Monday will have their first rating adjustment by the end of the following gameweek. There is no lag, no manual override, and no editorial judgement involved in the update process.

5,573

Managers rated

Every manager with a meaningful tenure in a covered league, from the top flight to the second division.

1,197

Clubs tracked

Full club-level timeseries showing how each organisation has evolved across managerial regimes.

Leagues covered

Including all Big Five European leagues, South America, MLS, J-League, Saudi Pro League, and more.

25+

Years of history

Back to 2000 for the major leagues — deep enough to rate managers consistently across the modern era.

Data quality

Built on verified, cross-referenced data

The ratings are only as good as the underlying data. We source match results, manager tenure records, and squad valuation data from established football data providers, cross-referencing across multiple sources to resolve discrepancies. Squad valuations are normalised within each league-season to account for market inflation over time.

Manager tenure boundaries are verified against official records. A manager's rating at a club starts only when they take formal charge, and ends when they officially leave — not when a substitute appointment is made. This precision matters: it ensures each result is attributed to the correct decision-maker.