Premier League

A match is played over two halves of 45 minutes between two teams of eleven players, one of whom is the goalkeeper. The team that scores more goals wins. The referee adds stoppage time (also called injury time) at the end of each half to make up for time lost to injuries, substitutions and delays, which is why matches rarely finish exactly on 90 minutes.

The main laws are simple to state. The ball must wholly cross the goal line between the posts to count. A player is offside if, when a team-mate passes the ball forward, they are nearer the opponents' goal line than both the ball and the second-last defender, and they take part in the move. Fouls give the other side a free kick, or a penalty if the foul happens inside the box. A yellow card is a caution, two yellows in one match mean a red card, and a straight red card sends the player off with no replacement.

Most top competitions now allow up to five substitutions per team, made in a limited number of stoppages. Video assistant referees (VAR) review goals, penalties, straight red cards and mistaken identity, but the referee on the pitch still makes the final decision.

In a league every team plays the others, usually twice, once at home and once away. A win earns three points, a draw one and a defeat none. Teams are ranked by points; when teams are level the tie-breaker depends on the competition. Goal difference (goals scored minus goals conceded) is the first tie-breaker in many leagues, while others look at the results between the tied teams first. That is why two tables can rank level teams differently.

Most leagues have promotion and relegation: the bottom clubs drop to the division below and the top clubs of that division move up, which is what keeps the lower half of a table interesting. Domestic cups are usually knockout competitions. If a knockout match is level after 90 minutes it can go to extra time (two extra periods of 15 minutes) and then a penalty shoot-out. Some rounds are played over two legs, with the aggregate score over both matches deciding who goes through. UEFA stopped using the away goals rule in 2021.

European club competitions are organised by UEFA. Since the 2024-25 season the Champions League and Europa League use a single league phase instead of small groups: each club plays a set number of different opponents, all results go into one table, and the top finishers qualify for the knockout rounds, with a play-off round for the teams just below them.

Players are grouped into four broad positions: goalkeepers, defenders, midfielders and forwards. A formation is written as the number of outfield players in each line from defence to attack, so 4-3-3 means four defenders, three midfielders and three forwards (the goalkeeper is not counted). The same formation can look very different depending on whether the full-backs push forward or the wingers drop back.

Positions matter for reading stats. A defender with few goals is not a poor player, and a striker with few tackles is not lazy; each position is judged on different things. That is why N4 compares a player with others in the same position, rather than with everyone, when it works out its skill ratings.

On a player profile, appearances and minutes show how much a player has played, because a total means little without them. Goals and assists (the final pass before a goal) are the headline attacking numbers. Shots and shots on target show how often a player threatens the goal, and key passes count passes that lead directly to a shot by a team-mate.

Pass accuracy is the share of passes that reach a team-mate. Tackles, interceptions and duels won describe defending and winning the ball, dribbles count successful take-ons, and saves matter for goalkeepers. The rating is a single match-performance score supplied by the data provider and averaged over the season, so treat it as a guide rather than a verdict.

N4's skill ratings turn those numbers into a simple 5 to 99 scale. Each skill is the player's rank among players in the same position, in the same league, this season, and the bar shows the rank behind it (for example "#3 of 120"). They are N4's own ratings, not official ones. When you want to compare two specific players, the Compare page puts them side by side using per-90 figures, which removes the advantage of simply having played more minutes.

Fixtures, live scores, line-ups, match events, tables and player statistics come from the connected sports data provider and update as it updates. Live matches refresh automatically, and each match has a match centre with events, team statistics, line-ups and player performances once the provider has them.

Player profiles combine this season's statistics with career history, transfers, injury and absence records and honours when those are available. Photos are supplied by the provider or published under a free licence on Wikimedia Commons, with credit on the profile. Where a badge or portrait is missing, N4 may use artwork from TheSportsDB, a community-built database, and credits it. N4 shows a dash rather than guessing when a provider has no figure.