Who has made the best start to the season? The results, chances and opposition explained

Seven wins, 31 goals and three shots for every one conceded: Barcelona have the strongest combined claim to the best start in our five-league review. The results are exceptional, and there is substantial performance evidence behind them. The qualification is the opposition: this has not yet been a run against teams rated close to Barça's level.

That distinction matters elsewhere, too. Borussia Dortmund have more points than Bayern Munich, but Bayern have produced much larger shot advantages. Roma's start becomes more interesting when you consider whom they have faced. Monaco and Cagliari deserve credit for what they have achieved, alongside questions about how often they can repeat it.

This review covers the men's Premier League, LaLiga, Serie A, Bundesliga and Ligue 1, using 2026/27 league fixtures dated 20 September inclusive. It includes 250 completed matches. Cups, European games, internationals and friendlies are excluded. It is an early assessment of those five leagues, not a verdict on every team in Europe.

First, what do the results say?

The leading points totals at the cutoff were:

• Premier League — Manchester City: 15 points from five games; 3.00 points per game, goal difference +8.
• LaLiga — Barcelona: 21 from seven; 3.00 per game, goal difference +24.
• Serie A — Roma, Inter and Lazio: each 13 from five; 2.60 per game. Their goal differences are +11, +7 and +5, respectively.
• Bundesliga — Borussia Dortmund: 12 from four; 3.00 per game, goal difference +7.
• Ligue 1 — Monaco: 13 from five; 2.60 per game, goal difference +5.

Points per game prevents seven fixtures from automatically looking better than four. It does not make the schedules equally difficult. Nor does a perfect record tell us whether a team is regularly creating the better chances or repeatedly surviving close contests.

We therefore read the results alongside shot balance — attempts taken versus allowed — and expected goals, or xG, where available. xG estimates the scoring probability of shots: it helps distinguish a stream of difficult efforts from better chances. It is an estimate, not a second scoreline or a measure of points a team was owed.

Opposition supplies the other check. We use strength ratings saved before each match, rather than judging a September opponent using what happened afterwards.

Barcelona: the clearest combined case, with a schedule caveat

Barcelona's seven league wins have brought 31 goals for and seven against. That is a goal difference of +3.43 per game. Their 150–50 shot balance supports the broader impression: they have repeatedly given themselves many more opportunities than their opponents.

The chance-quality evidence agrees within its limits. Across the five matches with both teams' xG available, Barcelona generated 17.52 xG and allowed 5.10. The Racing Santander and Sevilla games are missing from that calculation. Those five-match numbers cannot be set against all 31 goals to calculate a finishing surplus.

The latest win added a useful test of their response to difficulty. Sevilla scored first on 19 September, before Raphinha scored all three Barcelona goals in a 3–1 victory. The club's report describes Lamine Yamal supplying both second-half goals, first with a cross and then a pass behind the defence. That is a concrete example of creation supporting the scoring, beyond the headline total. FC Barcelona's match report and the Sevilla match highlights let readers revisit it.

There are two reasons to stop short of declaring the argument settled. Every opponent entered its game at least 381 rating points below Barcelona in the saved, rounded ratings. And the 4–2 win at Levante was far less comfortable on chances: 12–13 shots and 2.58–2.42 xG from Barça's perspective. The Levante match is the counterexample to any claim of uninterrupted control.

Watch next: whether Barcelona can keep creating that volume while allowing fewer good chances when the opponent can sustain a threat. The evidence supports a brilliant start; it does not establish the same margin against stronger teams.

Bayern and Dortmund: dominance and maximum points are different achievements

Dortmund's 1–0 win at Stuttgart completed four wins from four. They lead the Bundesliga on merit: those points are already banked.

Bayern, however, have the more emphatic performance totals. Their four league games produced 14 goals for, two against and an 87–23 shot balance. Dortmund's equivalent figures are nine for, two against and 58–47 shots. Bayern have taken 16 more shots than their opponents per game; Dortmund's advantage is 2.75.

The covered chance figures point the same way: 8.83–1.94 xG for Bayern, compared with 5.19–2.35 for Dortmund, each across their first three games. Neither team's fourth match has saved xG in this snapshot. In particular, Bayern's 7–0 against Union Berlin is not included in their xG total. The official Bayern results separate those league games from their other competitions.

Bayern's dropped points came in a 0–0 at Schalke, despite 15–4 shots and 1.94–0.21 xG. That draw illustrates why creating the better chances and winning every match are different things.

The opponent check also tempers the comparison. Bayern's average opponent rating was approximately 1,752, against 1,795 for Dortmund. Those are descriptive schedule figures, not a mathematical adjustment that makes the teams directly interchangeable.

Watch next: whether Bayern sustain their chance advantage as the opposition strengthens, and whether Dortmund can widen the performance margins behind their excellent results.

Roma: a convincing start that has already faced harder questions

Italy's three-way tie shows why the table is the beginning of the discussion. Across five games:

• Roma: 14–3 in goals, 103–46 shots, 12.93–5.02 xG.
• Inter: 15–8 in goals, 116–57 shots, 14.00–6.75 xG.
• Lazio: 8–3 in goals, 64–65 shots, 7.69–6.19 xG.

xG coverage is complete for all three. Roma and Inter have much stronger overall chance balances than Lazio, although their own difference is small: Roma's xG advantage averages 1.58 per match, Inter's 1.45. Five games do not make that narrow gap a decisive ranking.

Roma also offer a useful example of performance relative to expectations. They beat Atalanta and drew with Inter, both higher-rated at kickoff. Against Atalanta, a 2–1 win came with 39–6 shots and 2.97–0.70 xG. The close score concealed a much larger advantage in the recorded chances.

Yet their 2–2 with Inter supplies the warning. Manu Koné scored twice before half-time; Lautaro Martínez replied twice afterwards. Inter finished with the higher xG, 2.37 to Roma's 1.69. The official Inter highlights and match statistics show why a good point against strong opposition can also contain a missed opportunity.

Roma's average pre-match rating advantage over their opponents was about 80 points, compared with 352 for Inter. That strengthens the case for taking Roma seriously relative to their starting level, without pretending the ratings explain every detail of the fixtures.

Watch next: whether Roma can preserve their attacking threat and restrict the reply when strong opponents change the direction of a match.

Manchester City: full marks for results, room for greater control

City have won five from five, with 13 goals for and five against. Their 68–59 shot balance is positive, but considerably less one-sided than the perfect record might suggest. Across four covered matches, their xG balance is a healthy 7.79–3.66; the Sunderland game is missing.

Context prevents an unfair reading of the derby. City were outshot 16–6 at Manchester United, but Phil Foden was sent off in the 23rd minute. Winning 1–0 after playing so long with ten men is a different achievement from controlling a normal eleven-against-eleven match. City's report confirms the dismissal and Erling Haaland's winner.

The 5–3 against Sunderland offers a separate concern. City took 16 shots and allowed 17. Brian Brobbey twice equalised in the first half and later reduced the deficit to one goal again, as the club's report records. The match was an attacking success with a defensive warning attached.

Watch next: whether City can turn leads into quieter matches. Their results deserve celebration; five wins do not mean every part of the performance is already secure.

Monaco: give the opposition its due, then examine the chances

Monaco's 13 points from five games include a 2–1 win away to Paris Saint-Germain. Their average pre-match rating advantage over opponents was only about 22 points. This has been a substantially more even set of pairings than those faced by the strongest-rated favourites in this review.

The performance caveat is sizeable: 51 shots taken, 75 allowed, with 4.67–5.34 xG across four covered games. At PSG, Monaco won while being outshot 23–4; the saved xG was 0.51–2.32 from Monaco's perspective. That victory is a valuable result against strong opposition, but limited evidence of sustained chance superiority.

The 2–1 win over Lens adds another narrow finish. Monaco's own report describes an important Lukáš Hradecký save before a Jonathan Gradit own goal delivered the winner. Readers can check the club report and official highlights. That match's xG is unavailable here.

The PSG game also drives much of the caution: Monaco's other three covered matches have a positive 4.16–3.02 xG balance. This has not been an identical pattern every week.

Watch next: whether Monaco create a larger share of the chances. The goalkeeper and decisive moments count; the question is how often the same balance of opportunities will produce the same return.

Paris FC and Cagliari: two kinds of pleasant surprise

Paris FC have 11 points from five games, an 8–3 goal record and a 64–47 shot advantage. They collected ten points from four matches against teams rated higher before kickoff, although two of those rating gaps were small. That is a specific reason to describe their start as exceeding expectations, rather than simply attaching the label to an unfamiliar name near the top.

Their 2–1 win over Strasbourg was supported by 17–5 shots. The official report records goals by Ilan Kebbal and Pablo Pagis before a late Moustapha Mbow own goal made the finish closer. It is an encouraging example of the performance supporting the result.

Paris FC's 3.48–1.66 xG covers only three games, excluding both the Marseille and Strasbourg wins. The positive shot balance is therefore the broader evidence; the incomplete xG cannot confirm the whole five-game run.

Cagliari have gone one point better: 12 from five games, with all four victories by one goal. They have beaten higher-rated Atalanta and Udinese, yet taken 54 shots and allowed 102. Complete five-match xG stands at 5.47–8.79, against a real goal record of 5–2.

Their 1–0 win at Udinese is the clearest example. Daniel Maldini supplied the goal, confirmed by the club report, while the saved match figures show 5–26 shots and 1.12–2.13 xG from Cagliari's side. That does not invalidate a hard-earned win or prove the next one will go differently. It does make repeated narrow escapes a less convincing basis for a long-term judgement than regularly creating more than the opposition.

Here, too, one fixture matters to the total. The defeat by Inter accounts for most of Cagliari's negative xG balance. Across their four wins, it is almost level: 4.99 created and 5.12 allowed. The caution concerns the size of the points return, not a claim that every performance has been poor.

Watch next: whether Paris FC maintain their positive shot balance, and whether Cagliari can reduce the pressure on their own goal. Both starts are achievements; the evidence supporting their continuation is different.

What this opening phase tells us

Barcelona are the clearest all-round choice from the evidence available. Bayern's dominance deserves attention beyond their place in the table, and Roma's combination of strong performance and tougher tests relative to their own rating makes them particularly interesting.

Those are provisional judgements, not a new league table with hidden weights. Four to seven games leave plenty unsettled. When club football resumes, look for the same three things: are the points arriving, are the chances supporting them, and who is making the task difficult? A start becomes more convincing when the answers continue to agree.

How we checked it

This is a fixed snapshot of 250 completed 2026/27 league matches, extracted from Oddsivio's saved data on 21 September at 13:59:58 UTC (16:59:58 Europe/Bucharest). The cutoff uses the league's local kickoff date through 20 September, including settled results if a game finished after midnight. The postponed Levante–Athletic Club fixture is excluded. No match still in progress was included.

Results and shot figures cover all 250 games. Paired xG is available for 38/50 Premier League, 53/69 LaLiga, 50/50 Serie A, 27/36 Bundesliga and 34/45 Ligue 1 matches. Missing values remain missing. The xG is supplied through API-Football; its underlying model is not identified in our saved data. Other match statistics can come from API-Football or SportMonks. We have not mixed in a second xG model or assumed that different providers define every event identically.

Historical strength figures come from records saved before kickoff. They summarise earlier results and provide opponent context; they do not turn this into a fully adjusted cross-league ranking. One match, Rennes–PSG, lacks a safely matched historical rating record and is excluded from rating comparisons only. All teams discussed in detail have complete rating coverage. Averages of displayed ratings are approximate because those ratings are rounded.

The calculations include penalties, own goals and changing match situations; they are not adjusted to eleven-against-eleven play. Club and competition sources corroborate the selected results and match sequences. Official highlights are linked for readers, without a claim that this article is a frame-by-frame video analysis. Linked team and player pages may now show newer totals; the figures above retain this article's cutoff.

Next in Opening phase, explained: the players setting the pace, using the same league-only evidence window.