La Liga · Spain · Regular Season - 2

Real Sociedad–Espanyol

2–2

HT 0–2

Kick-off: Sunday, 24 August 2025 at 17:30
Status: Match Finished

What the model said, and what happened

Ended level — we gave the draw 27%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

Goals and red cards

10'EspanyolPere Milla (assist: Roberto Fernández)
45'EspanyolJ. Puado (penalty)
61'Real SociedadBarrenetxea
69'Real SociedadO. Óskarsson (assist: Mikel Oyarzabal)

Match statistics

Match statistics
Real Sociedad		Espanyol
15	Shots	14
7	Shots on target	3
11	Shots inside the box	5
1	Goalkeeper saves	5
5	Corners	2
1	Offsides	1
62%	Possession	38%
498	Passes	305
433	Accurate passes

What we expected, and what happened

Expected goals before kick-off: Real Sociedad 1.34 · Espanyol 0.96. On the pitch: 2-2.
Shots Real Sociedad 15 · Espanyol 14; on target 7 and 3.
Real Sociedad kept the ball more (62%).

Referee

Alejandro Quintero Gonzalez, Spain→

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 51.8%: “Real Sociedad to win”. Second comes “a draw” at 26.7%.
Behind that distribution are the expected goals: 1.60 for Real Sociedad, 0.97 for Espanyol.
The highest double chance value is 78.5% (1X — Real Sociedad win or draw).
These values were computed from 1,155 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.

Real Sociedad to win51.8%

Draw26.7%

Espanyol to win21.5%

When the model has said 50–55% in the past, 1,337 of 2,542 predictions were correct (52.6%). Accuracy record →

16	Fouls	18

2	Yellow cards	2

0	Red cards	0

First half

Actual: 0–2

Real Sociedad lead at half-time35.1%

Level at half-time46.1%

Espanyol lead at half-time18.8%

First-half double chance

1X — Real Sociedad ahead or level81.2%

12 — not level at half-time53.9%

X2 — level or Espanyol ahead64.9%

These values are not a fraction of the full-match prediction; they come from a separate model trained on the first-half scores of 1155 matches. Its edge over the base rate is markedly smaller than the full-match model's — the measured figure is on the accuracy record. Read them more cautiously. First-half goal markets are not published because they failed to beat the base rate.

Expected fouls and corners

Fouls

Real Sociedad: at least 12Actual: 16
Espanyol: at least 11Actual: 18

Corners

Real Sociedad: at least 6Actual: 5
Espanyol: at least 3Actual: 2

These figures are set to hold in at least 60% of matches; in the rest the count comes in below them. No upper bound is stated — we make no "at most" claim. Yellow cards were measured and are not published: there our model did not beat the historical average.

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.

How many goals Real Sociedad score1.34

Attack: Real Sociedad score close to the league average.

Opponent's defence: Espanyol's defence is close to the league average (1.00×), so it doesn't move the expectation much.

Result: These two effects give an expectation of 1.34 goals (including home advantage).

How many goals Espanyol score0.96

Attack: Espanyol score below the league average (18% fewer).

Opponent's defence: Real Sociedad's defence is close to the league average (0.90×), so it doesn't move the expectation much.

Result: These two effects give an expectation of 0.96 goals (including the away penalty).

Most likely scorelines

1–113.6%1–011.4%2–110.5%

A single scoreline is always less likely than an outcome: “home win” is the sum of 1-0, 2-0, 2-1 and dozens more. So the most likely single score can be a draw while the most likely outcome is a home win; the two do not contradict each other.

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.