Sweden–Portugal

0–2

HT 0–1

Kick-off: Tuesday, 8 September 2020 at 18:45
Status: Match Finished
Venue: Friends Arena, Solna

What the model said, and what happened

Incorrect — we gave this result 30%double chance: correct

This verdict goes into the public record unchanged; we do not filter out the ones we get wrong. The model's track record

Referee

Danny Desmond Makkelie, Netherlands→

There's no card data for this referee from before this match yet. We don't invent an average; it will appear here once the data exists.

Model prediction

Why this prediction?

The model puts the most likely outcome at 42.1%: “Sweden to win”. Second comes “Portugal to win” at 29.9%.
The highest double chance value is 72.1% (12 — any result other than a draw).
These values were computed from 1,507 past matches.

This is a prediction, not a guarantee; a probability is not a certainty.

These sentences are built by a fixed template; every number in them comes straight from the model's computation, none invented while the text was written.

Sweden to win42.1%

Draw27.9%

Portugal to win29.9%

When the model has said 40–45% in the past, 2,399 of 5,395 predictions were correct (44.5%). Accuracy record →

Double chance

1X — Sweden win or draw

What these probabilities rest on

Expected goals comes out of a team's attack weighed against its opponent's defence. A strong attack is damped when it meets a strong defence — which is why comparing the ratings on their own is misleading.

Sweden

Attack: Sweden score above the league average (47% more).

Opponent's defence: Portugal concede 42% below the league average — a defence that seriously brakes even a strong attack.

Portugal

Attack: Portugal score 75% more than the league's average team — one of the sharpest attacks in the league.

Opponent's defence: Sweden concede 44% below the league average — a defence that seriously brakes even a strong attack.

Week 2 of the season. This prediction was computed from previous seasons. Summer transfers, budget changes and squad rebuilds aren't in the ratings yet — the model can only see that a team has been rebuilt once new results come in.

We measured this: the bias is only pronounced in the opening week. In this week the model's overall accuracy does not separate from the rest of the season — that is, we found no measurable flaw. The one tendency across all opening weeks is that home wins are called slightly too often (said 43.0%, got 41.9%; n=583).

This sample is small and not statistically established, which is why we do not correct the model for it. The correction we tried (pulling probabilities toward the league average) didn't win on holdout, so it wasn't added. Read opening-week predictions with a little more caution.