Ligue 1 magic number 2026-27: Monaco are the only club with a title number, and it reads 86

Monaco are the only club in Ligue 1 with a title number. Theirs reads 86, meaning 86 more points from the 87 still on their schedule makes them champions no matter what anyone else does. Every other column in that row is empty across the division. At the other end, Marseille and Le Havre are the only two clubs with no survival number at all, because neither can still reach the total that guarantees staying up.

Every figure here is as of the September 21 update. Ligue 1 has played 45 of its 306 matches, all 18 clubs have five behind them and 29 still to come, and the fixture list does not resume until October 10.

The format is the simplest part of it. Eighteen clubs play 34 matches each, home and away against every other club, which is 306 matches in a season. The table is ranked on points. The top three places are the qualification block the engine solves for, and the bottom two go down. With 29 matches left, every club's ceiling is its current points plus 87. Monaco lead on 13 and can reach 100. Le Havre are last on two and can reach 89. Those are the highest and lowest ceilings in the division.

Three worst-case lines carry every number this site publishes for 2026-27, and once you have them any club's figure is a subtraction. The title is guaranteed at 99 points. A top-three place is guaranteed at 98. Safety is guaranteed at 91. A clinch number is the line minus the points a club already holds, nothing more. Monaco hold 13, so their three numbers read 86 for the title, 85 for a top-three place and 78 for safety, the lowest survival figure in the division. Lyon and Paris FC on 11 are the only other clubs with a top-three number, 87 each. Lens and Troyes on four have a survival number of 87, which is every point left on their schedule and leaves them no margin at all. Marseille on three and Le Havre on two, the two clubs in the relegation places, have no survival number, because their ceilings of 90 and 89 both fall under the line of 91.

Level is never counted in a club's favour, and Monaco's own line shows what that costs them. Their top-three number is 85, which takes them to 98. At 97 the arithmetic would not settle it, because Lyon and Paris FC can both reach 98 while Lille and Rennes can both finish on exactly 97. That is four clubs able to draw level with a Monaco total of 97 or go past it, which leaves fifth place open. At 98 only two clubs can match them, and two is fewer than the three places on offer. The title line works the same way. Monaco need 99 rather than 98, because 98 is the ceiling Lyon and Paris FC share, and finishing level with a rival is not treated as winning the league. This is the single reason a clinch mark on this site can arrive a day later than the official announcement.

The elimination side is deliberately the mirror image. A club is counted out only when enough rivals are already strictly above the best total it can still reach, so being matched kills nobody. Paris Saint-Germain have eight points and a top-three tragic number of 29, meaning they would have to lose all 29 of their remaining matches before a top-three finish became impossible. Lille and Rennes carry 29 as well. The eight clubs from Angers down to Nice carry 28, and Lens, Troyes, Marseille and Le Havre carry 27. Only Marseille and Le Havre have a relegation tragic number, 29 each, which again is every match they have left. The reachable range still reads first to 18th for all 18 clubs, so that column separates nobody either.

Five rounds in, a club's engine row is still just a function of its points, and Ligue 1 is full of clubs sharing one. Fourteen of the 18 are level with at least one rival, in six groups: Lyon and Paris FC on 11, Lille and Rennes on 10, Angers and Strasbourg on seven, Le Mans and Auxerre on six, Brest, Lorient, Toulouse and Nice on five, Lens and Troyes on four. Only Monaco on 13, Paris Saint-Germain on eight, Marseille on three and Le Havre on two stand alone. Everybody inside a group comes back identical, because with the same points and the same 29 matches left there is nothing for the arithmetic to separate. The four clubs on five points all read 86 for safety, 28 for the top-three tragic number, 27 for the title tragic number and no clinch figure at all. Lens and Troyes both read 87, 27 and 27. What the engine leaves out is goals, and some of these pairs are close there too. Angers and Strasbourg have both won two, drawn one and lost two, six scored and five conceded against 10 and 10. Lens and Troyes have both won one, drawn one and lost three, nine scored and nine conceded against four and 11, and our table puts Lens above Troyes on goal difference alone.

The fixture list resumes on October 10, when Lens host Lyon, one half of the level pair on four points against one half of the level pair on 11. All four clubs on five points play the next day: Monaco host Toulouse, Brest host Angers, Lorient host Paris FC and Nice host Strasbourg. Brest against Angers puts two of the six level groups in the same match. Lille host Le Havre and Paris Saint-Germain host Le Mans on the same day. On October 12 Rennes host Auxerre, one half of the level pair on ten points against one half of the pair on six, and Troyes, whose survival number of 87 is the highest in the division alongside Lens, host Marseille, who have none. The dates are Korean time; in France the nine matches run from Friday 9 to Sunday 11 October, with both October 12 matches on the Sunday.

Correction, October 6: An earlier version listed eight of the nine fixtures between October 10 and 12 and left out Rennes against Auxerre, on October 12 Korean time (Sunday 11 October in France), a match between the level pair on ten points and the level pair on six. The paragraph above now includes it. None of the clinch or tragic numbers changed.

How to read these numbers. A clinch number, also called a magic number, is the minimum number of further points that guarantees an outcome even if every rival takes every point still on its schedule. A tragic number is the number of further defeats after which an outcome becomes impossible even if the club wins everything else. A blank clinch column means the club's ceiling has fallen below the relevant line, so arithmetic alone can no longer get there. A blank tragic column means the opposite, that the outcome cannot yet be taken away. The reachable range is the highest and lowest finish still available. Ties are always counted against the club being measured, so a clinch here can trail an official announcement by a day, and goal difference, head to head records and the official tiebreak rules are not part of this calculation. The live table with every club's figures is at, the qualification and relegation rules at, the fixtures at, the clinch and tragic columns on their own at, the method in full at, and lets you play the rest of the season out result by result. Start with, the only row in the division with a title number, then compare and, identical in the engine on five points and two apart on goal difference, Brest at minus one and Nice at minus three.