Nations League 2026/27: who exceeded expectations?

In two games against Germany a week apart, Greece scored once and took four points. Germany scored none.

After four rounds of the 2026/27 UEFA Nations League, that was the clearest challenge to our pre-match expectations. Greece collected eight points against a Sirius benchmark of 3.31. No team finished further above the total implied by our forecasts.

Yet Greece did not make the biggest jump in our strength ratings. Northern Ireland did. And while Spain and Portugal both collected the maximum twelve points, their perfect starts moved those ratings by different amounts.

Two measures help. Sirius expected points adds up the points implied by our win, draw and loss probabilities before each game. Elo change shows how Oddsivio’s strength rating moved in response to Nations League results, taking account of opposition, venue and score margin. Neither is a measure of how many points a team deserved on the pitch.

Greece: one goal, four points against Germany

Dimitris Kourbelis’s 74th-minute winner in Germany was the moment that changed the shape of Greece’s window. They had already won in Serbia. Suddenly, two difficult away fixtures had brought six points.

8 points · Sirius expected 3.31 · Elo +48.8

Before Germany–Greece, Sirius gave Greece a 12.8% chance of winning. That means roughly one win in eight comparable forecasts—not that a Greek victory was impossible. This one happened, and the subsequent draws with the Netherlands and Germany left Greece unbeaten.

Across all four fixtures, Greece finished 4.69 points above their rolling pre-match benchmark, the largest positive difference in the competition. Their Elo rose in every game, including both draws.

There is a limit to what that tells us. In its report on the return match, the German federation described a disallowed German goal and chances that went unconverted. Greece’s points haul does not establish that they controlled every contest.

It does establish a much stronger position: eight points to Germany’s five. Their visit to the Netherlands on 13 November will test how well they can protect the advantage they have earned.

Northern Ireland: four clean sheets, one enormous jump

Northern Ireland scored all four goals away from home: one in Georgia, three against Ukraine in Slovakia. At home, they drew twice without scoring. They conceded nothing across the entire window.

8 points · Sirius expected 3.70 · Elo +58.2

The 3–0 win over Ukraine in Trnava supplied the biggest single change. Ciaron Brown scored twice, Isaac Price added the other, and Northern Ireland defended a lead while Ukraine had more of the ball. Sirius had given them an 11.1% chance of winning, irrespective of the eventual score.

That match contributed 42.7 Elo points to their overall gain of 58.2—the largest Nations League increase of any team in our audit.

The last match offers a useful twist. A fourth clean sheet kept Northern Ireland top of their group, but the home draw with Georgia cost them 5.2 Elo points. By then, the rating calculation expected more from them in that fixture. An unbeaten run can contain a result that nudges the rating down.

It could also have contained another victory: Price’s late penalty was saved by Giorgi Mamardashvili. November brings Ukraine at home and Hungary away. Four clean sheets have given those fixtures a very different significance.

Bosnia and Herzegovina: eight points, and a farewell with a future

Edin Džeko’s international farewell came during a window in which Bosnia and Herzegovina gave their supporters plenty to look forward to. The 1–1 draw with Sweden preserved an unbeaten start; three days later, they beat Poland.

8 points · Sirius expected 4.19 · Elo +53.4

Bosnia took four points from Poland and won 4–2 in Romania. Their gain of 53.4 Elo points was second only to Northern Ireland’s. Against Sirius’s expectations, they finished 3.81 points ahead.

Those results had different shapes. In Bucharest, Bosnia were two up after 19 minutes and led 4–1 early in the second half. Against Poland at home, they needed Ivan Bašić’s 84th-minute penalty to settle a narrow contest.

The contrast is part of the achievement: an emphatic away win and a late breakthrough both contributed to eight points. It is also a reason to resist describing the whole run as comfortable. Bosnia visit Sweden on 14 November, two points behind them, before hosting Romania.

Spain and Portugal: twelve points each, different gains

Portugal won twice against Norway and away in Denmark. Spain won in England and twice against Croatia. Both finished the window with four victories and confirmed quarter-final places.

Portugal: 12 points · Sirius expected 7.66 · Elo +45.3

Spain: 12 points · Sirius expected 8.65 · Elo +25.3

Spain’s smaller rating gain is no criticism of their start. They began these games at roughly 2,161 Elo, compared with Portugal’s 1,974 in the current historical series. An already highly rated side has less room to surprise the rating calculation by winning against lower-rated opposition.

Portugal’s two away wins made a substantial contribution: the victories in Norway and Denmark accounted for 33.6 of their 45.3 Elo points. Sirius, meanwhile, had given Portugal a 35.8% chance of winning in Norway. That was a much less certain assignment than their opener at home to Wales, where the win probability was 79.7%.

Spain exceeded their own points benchmark by 3.35; Portugal exceeded theirs by 4.34. The comparison tells us how demanding those results looked from each team’s starting position.

A larger gain does not make Portugal the stronger-rated team. Spain remained ahead. Their meeting with England on 15 November supplies another opportunity to test that standing.

Romania: the red card matters, and so do the other three games

The most alarming scoreline was Poland 6–0 Romania. The essential context arrived before the first goal: Radu Drăgușin was sent off in the 22nd minute, and Robert Lewandowski converted the resulting penalty. Romania spent more than an hour with ten players.

0 points · Sirius expected 4.84 · Elo −72.4

A score-based rating takes the margin into account; it does not remove the effect of the dismissal. That makes the 0–6 a poor standalone description of Romania’s eleven-against-eleven level.

But the wider window was also damaging. Romania lost twice to Sweden and conceded four at home to Bosnia. That Bosnia fixture had been their best chance of a win according to Sirius: 53.0%, compared with Bosnia’s 24.2%.

Four defeats left Romania with the competition’s largest points shortfall against Sirius and its largest Elo loss. The 2–4 against Bosnia actually cost more rating points than the 0–6 in Poland: 28.0 versus 24.4, because opponent strength and venue matter alongside the margin.

The next useful evidence will come from hosting Poland on 14 November and visiting Bosnia three days later. Those games offer a direct comparison with two of the defeats that shaped this window.

Türkiye: a difficult group, but more was within reach

France, Italy and Belgium gave Türkiye a demanding group. Four defeats against strong opponents can sound almost inevitable in retrospect. The pre-match forecasts did not describe them that way.

0 points · Sirius expected 3.99 · Elo −63.2

The clearest example was Italy’s visit. Sirius made Türkiye the likeliest winner, at 43.4%, although that was still below a fifty-fifty chance. Italy were three goals ahead after 27 minutes and won 4–1. That match alone cost Türkiye 30.1 Elo points, almost half their total decline.

There was attacking activity beneath the disappointing results. Türkiye registered 23 shots in the subsequent 3–0 defeat in Belgium, according to our saved match statistics. Shot counts cannot tell us whether those chances were good enough, but they caution against reducing the entire window to an inability to attack.

The outcome remains stark: two goals scored, eleven conceded, no points. Home to Belgium and away to France in November, Türkiye need to turn attacking passages into results before the rating decline can begin to reverse.

What November can tell us

Greece’s visit to the Netherlands, Bosnia’s trip to Sweden and Northern Ireland’s final match in Hungary put the surprise packages back under pressure. They also make the remaining rounds more interesting than a simple check on whether Spain or Portugal can stay perfect.

These results have consequences beyond the group tables. The Nations League’s interim overall ranking after the league phase feeds into EURO 2028 qualifying seeding; Elo does not. Our guide to the Nations League and EURO 2028 explains that connection and the wider stakes.

For now, Greece have done most to exceed Sirius’s expectations, Northern Ireland have made the largest rating gain, and Bosnia have joined them in an unbeaten opening. November gives each a chance to add another kind of evidence: what happens once a promising start has become something to defend.

How we measured the change

We checked all 104 results from 24 September to 6 October against UEFA’s fixture list. Every match had a saved, frozen Sirius forecast generated before kickoff and eligible to appear publicly. Expected points equal three times the win probability, plus the draw probability, summed across each team’s games. These are rolling expectations, not a forecast of the entire window made on its first day.

Elo changes sum the updates from Nations League games only. We used the consistent historical rating series retrieved on 8 October, following its 7 October rebuild. These reconstructed ratings are separate from the original inputs used by the archived Sirius forecasts. Elo also informs Sirius, so agreement between the measures is not independent proof of improvement.

All seven featured teams played four matches. League D teams played two or three. Figures are rounded for reading; a points surplus measures results against a model, not luck or deserved points. Four games cannot establish how much a surprise reflects lasting improvement, ordinary variation or a weakness in the forecast.