Belarus–Bulgaria

0–0

HT 0–0

Kick-off: Thursday, 5 September 2024 at 18:45
Status: Match Finished
Venue: ZTE-Aréna, Zalaegerszeg

What the model said, and what happened

Ended level — we gave the draw 31%

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

Referee

Ovidiu Hategan, Romania→

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 37.4%: “Bulgaria to win”. Second comes “Belarus to win” at 31.5%.
The highest double chance value is 68.9% (12 — any result other than a draw).
These values were computed from 4,355 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.

Belarus to win31.5%

Draw31.1%

Bulgaria to win37.4%

When the model has said 35–40% in the past, 2,123 of 5,759 predictions were correct (36.9%). Accuracy record →

Double chance

1X — Belarus 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.

Belarus

Attack: Belarus score below the league average (39% fewer).

Opponent's defence: Bulgaria's defence is close to the league average (0.95×), so it doesn't move the expectation much.

Bulgaria

Attack: Bulgaria score below the league average (20% fewer).

Opponent's defence: Belarus concede 19% more than the league average, which pushes the expectation up.

Week 1 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 and we're not hiding it: in the opening week of past seasons the model came in 3.3 points below the accuracy it claimed (n=220) — for the rest of the season it beats its own claim. The tendency points this way, though it is not proof on its own: in the opening week it slightly over-calls home wins (said 42.7%, got 39.5%) and slightly under-calls draws (said 26.1%, got 28.2%).

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.