How club matching works

What we score

Every club is rated from 0 to 100 on the attributes below. Your answers say which of these you care about and in which direction, and each club is scored on how well it lines up. Nothing about a club's popularity is added to its score.

Competitive tier

From “Lower-table or promotion-chasing side” to “Perennial title challenger”.

Historic success

From “Few or no major honours” to “Heavily decorated across decades”.

Current trajectory

From “Declining or rebuilding” to “Rising and improving season over season”.

Underdog level

From “Expected to win, rarely an outsider” to “Routinely overachieves against bigger budgets”.

City size

From “Small town or modest city” to “Major global metropolis”.

Regional identity

From “Cosmopolitan, loosely tied to its region” to “Deeply rooted in local and regional identity”.

Community and supporter identity

From “Corporate or commercially-driven matchday culture” to “Fiercely community-owned supporter culture”.

Ownership profile

From “Member- or fan-owned” to “Investor, state, or multi-club ownership”.

Youth-development emphasis

From “Squad built through transfers” to “Academy graduates are central to the first team”.

Star-player concentration

From “Collective side without marquee names” to “Built around globally famous individuals”.

American-player connections

From “No current American connection” to “Multiple prominent Americans in the squad or recent history”.

U.S. supporter presence

From “Little organized U.S. following” to “Large, active U.S. supporters-club network”.

Rivalry intensity

From “Low-heat rivalries” to “Defined by fierce, historic rivalries”.

Cultural and political context

From “Limited explicit political or cultural association” to “Strong, openly-held cultural or political identity”.

Women's team presence and prominence

From “No senior women’s side, or a marginal one” to “Leading women's team with major honours and investment”.

Accessibility of U.S. viewing

From “Hard to watch from the U.S. without extra cost or odd hours” to “Widely and cheaply available on mainstream U.S. platforms”.

How we stop it recommending the same famous clubs

Well-known clubs tend to score highly on many attributes at once, so a pure ranking would hand almost everyone the same handful of names. Two rules prevent that: no more than 2 of your results may be clubs we classify as obvious picks, and no more than 3 may come from the same league. When your answers point clearly enough, we also swap in one less obvious club that still scored close to the cut-off.

What we rule out, and when

We only remove a club from consideration when you have told us something specific, for example, that a club has to be straightforward to watch from the United States. When that happens we say which clubs were set aside and why, rather than quietly dropping them. Every other answer nudges the scoring rather than eliminating anything.

Why your results might change

The questionnaire and the scoring rules are versioned. Every result records which versions produced it, so a shortlist you saved stays explainable even after we revise the questions. Before any change is published, it is tested against a set of sample personas to check it has not started giving people the wrong kind of club.

Current questionnaire: fyc-2026-07-b. Current scoring: engine-1.0.0.

What we do with your answers

Nothing. The questions run in your browser, your answers are kept only for the length of your visit so you can go back a step, and we do not build a profile from them. When you share a result, the link contains the club names and nothing else.