Football ratings

Thursday 27 August 2026 · times UK

The model's strongest calls

73%Barcelona — home winBarcelona v Athletic Club · 20:00 · market 75% · this strong, 78% land (4,355 cases)

£10 on all 1 as one multiple returns about £13 if every one lands. The model puts that at 73%, the market at 75%, and the price needs 77% just to break even.Bookmaker margin compounds with every leg, which is why the break-even sits above the market's own view. A same-match bet builder pays less than this — the bookmaker prices in that the legs move together. Our chance is a straight multiplication and is if anything a little low: where two legs of one match both cleared, they landed together 55.5% of the time against a multiplied 53.4%.

Every fixture

La Liga

Celta Vigo v Osasuna19:30

	Home	Draw	Away
Model	39	29	31
Market	49	28	23

	Over 2.5	Under 2.5
Model	46	54
Market	42	58

Under 4.5 goals: 89% · happens 86% of the time anyway

Model is 9 points below the market on home win (pinnacle). Worth a look at why.

Barcelona v Athletic Club20:00

	Home	Draw	Away
Model	73	19	8
Market	75	15	10

	Over 2.5	Under 2.5
Model	54	46
Market	68	32

Under 4.5 goals: 83% · happens 86% of the time anyway

How the calls did

No calls have been settled since yesterday.

0 of 0 settled since yesterday · 70 of 108 since the model went live.

Every match, for the record

The model rates the whole card, not just the calls, and learns from all of it. Judged as probabilities rather than picks — a 38% favourite losing is the model working, not failing.

·Resulttop pick right 1/1, we claimed 68% · 86/182 all-time

what actually happenedwe gave it 68% on average

·Over/under 2.5top pick right 1/1, we claimed 56% · 114/182 all-time

what actually happenedwe gave it 56% on average

A well-calibrated model's average claim matches how often it happens. That is the number Rule 9 gates on, and it is tracked for results and goals alike whether or not a fixture ever produced a call.

What these numbers are. The model's own estimate of how likely each result is, from form, Elo, rest, shots and xG as they stood at 06:00 UK on match day. One bivariate Poisson produces all of them, so the result and the goals figures share one underlying view of the match. Each published figure is then calibrated against what actually happened in past matches, one market at a time — so they agree closely but are not forced to agree exactly. Market figures are the bookmaker's prices with their margin removed, so the two are comparable.

What they are not. Across 57,633 out-of-sample fixtures the market separated matches better than the model in every league, every season, every outcome and every confidence band — 24 slices, no exceptions, re-tested in August 2026 on the current model. This is a second opinion, not an edge. Where it earns its keep is honesty about its own confidence: when it says 74%, that happens about 74% of the time.

Why a call appears. Thresholds — home 70% · away 60% · over 60% · under 55% — sit where the model has historically been as good as its claim. Raising them would surface fewer calls and be less accurate about them, because its confidence above those levels is inflated everywhere except home wins. Draws are never flagged: the highest one ever rated was 62%.

2 rated · 0 not rated · model goals_v7_cal · built 2026-08-27 07:02 UK