CLOUT explained: which clubs punch above their weight
Raw totals reward size: a club with fifteen players at the World Cup will usually out-score a club with three, whatever the quality. CLOUT (Club Leverage Over Unit-Time) is our answer to that bias. It measures how much a club produces relative to the minutes its players actually spend on the pitch, expressed as a multiple of the field average.
Reading the number
A CLOUT of 1.00× means a club is producing exactly its fair share for the minutes it logs. Above 1.00× means it is punching above its weight, and below means the opposite. Because it is minutes-adjusted, a club with a single, red-hot player can top clubs that sent an entire starting XI.
It's a fan metric, on purpose
CLOUT is deliberately a conversation stat, not a rigorous predictor. It uses empirical-Bayes shrinkage so that one lucky cameo doesn't crown a club on a technicality, but it is meant to spark "wait, them?" reactions, not settle arguments. You can see the full methodology on the CLOUT leaderboard, and the concept behind the whole site in What is My Club's World Cup?.