“It Could Have Been 4–0”: Why Football Fans Say It—and Why It’s Technically Wrong

Football supporters frequently claim that a match “could have been” decided by a higher scoreline if a missed chance—most commonly a penalty—had been converted. This article examines that claim through two competing frameworks: strict causal determinism and probabilistic performance evaluation. While the statement is defensible as informal shorthand within football discourse, it is factually incorrect under any precise, scientific, or causal interpretation. The tension arises from a category mismatch rather than from faulty reasoning on either side.

1. The Claim Under Scrutiny

A common post-match remark is:

“We won 3–0, but it could have been 4–0 if we’d scored that penalty.”

At face value, this appears to assert that the same match, with one altered event, would have produced a different final score. Taken literally, the statement invites a causal interpretation—and that is where the problem begins.

2. The Deterministic Objection

From a strict causal perspective, the objection is straightforward and correct.

Football matches are continuous, dynamic systems. Every action—kick, run, rebound, positioning choice—affects the subsequent state of play. If a penalty is scored rather than missed:

• The ball restarts from kickoff instead of open play.

• Player positioning, momentum, and psychological states change.

• Tactical decisions immediately diverge.

• Later goals may never occur, or new ones may arise.

In other words, the rest of the match would not be the same match.

Therefore, it is not logically valid to say that:

• the penalty would be added to the existing goals, or

• the match would necessarily end 4–0.

Under a single-history, real-world interpretation, the statement is false.

3. Why the Objection Feels So Strong

The objection relies on principles that are foundational in:

• physics,

• systems theory,

• causal inference,

• and philosophy of time.

Once an event changes, all downstream outcomes are altered. This is not pedantry; it is a correct application of causality. There is no mechanism by which one can “insert” a goal into a finished match while keeping everything else unchanged.

If the claim were made in a scientific, legal, or historical context, it would be rejected outright.

4. Why Fans Still Say It

Despite being technically incorrect, the statement persists because football fans are not operating within a deterministic framework. They are using counterfactual shorthand.

What fans actually mean is closer to the following:

• The team dominated the match.

• A penalty represents a high-probability scoring opportunity.

• The final score understates the level of superiority shown.

In this context, “it could have been 4–0” does not describe an alternative history, but a plausible outcome within a distribution of possible outcomes.

The language is informal, compressed, and metaphorical—but widely understood within the sport.

5. The Implicit Probabilistic Model

Unconsciously, fans reason in probabilistic terms:

• A penalty has a high expected conversion rate.

• Matches are noisy realizations of underlying performance.

• Final scores are samples, not complete descriptions.

From this viewpoint, the missed penalty is treated as a “near-goal,” and the phrase “could have been” means:

“On another reasonable run of this match, given similar chances, a higher score is likely.”

This is closer to statistical simulation than to causal replay.

6. The Category Error

The disagreement is not about football—it is about standards of truth.

The problem arises when:

• a probabilistic, evaluative statement is interpreted as

• a literal, causal claim.

Once that distinction is made, the confusion dissolves.

Fans are not wrong about performance.
Critics are not wrong about causality.
They are answering different questions.

That depends entirely on the criterion applied.

• Factual, historical truth:
  The statement is incorrect. The match did not and could not be known to end 4–0.

• Scientific or philosophical rigor:
  The objection stands. You cannot modify one event without altering the entire sequence.

• Everyday football discourse:
  The statement is acceptable shorthand for dominance and missed efficiency.

Only one of these standards can be used at a time.

8. Conclusion

The sentence “it could have been 4–0” is technically false but communicatively effective.

It fails as a causal claim but succeeds as a probabilistic evaluation. The discomfort it causes stems from applying scientific truth conditions to informal narrative language.

When precision matters, the correct formulation would be:

“The team’s performance and chances were consistent with a higher expected score than the final result.”

Anything stronger than that is rhetoric—not fact.

From a strict logical and scientific standpoint, the objection is correct.
From a cultural and communicative standpoint, the fans’ language is understandable—but imprecise.