Scoreline picks that maximise contest points — not headlines. [ market 60% · form 25% · xG 15% · ranking 15% · last-match v2 ]
FIFA № 3 (~1871 pts) — vs — FIFA № 2 (~1875 pts)
The heavyweight semifinal: six wins from six for France, one goal conceded in six for Spain, and the two best players of the tournament — Mbappé (8 goals, the Golden Boot leader) against Yamal. The market makes France narrow favourites (2.41); the blend calls it 40/30/31 with a 30% draw hump, the fattest of the knockouts. Both quarter-finals here were settled by fine margins; this one profiles at 2.6 goals with 1–1 nearly twice as dense as any win scoreline (14.2%). Tchouaméni’s thigh is the team-news swing. The audit-validated coin-flip rule applies: 1–1 is the play. FT 0–2 — no coin-flip in the event: Oyarzabal converted an early penalty (22′), Porro doubled it (58′), and Spain’s seventh shutout in seven carried them to a first final since 2010 — in ninety minutes, no ET needed. Mbappé ends on 8; our 1–1 gets 0. Spain await the England–Argentina winner.
Grid covers 97.7% of outcomes · over 2.5 goals: 49.3% · 90-minute scoreline
| Score | P(exact) | E[points] |
|---|---|---|
| 1–1◂ PLAY | 14.2% | 7.22 |
| 2–1 | 8.8% | 6.60 |
| 1–0 | 8.2% | 6.44 |
| 2–0 | 7.2% | 6.12 |
| 0–0 | 8.9% | 5.65 |
| 1–2 | 7.6% | 5.33 |
Start from the de-vigged closing market (60%), then blend twelve-month form & style (25%), an in-tournament xG model (15%) rating each team on the expected goals it created & conceded across its four games so far, and the FIFA ranking's Elo expectancy (15%). The xG signal is shrunk to the league mean so it nudges rather than dictates.
Each team's xG is nudged by how its most recent game beat/missed expectation; the attack term (finishing) is halved because it regresses. The read uses each side's final group game — now a week old for today's slate, so treat it as a light thumb on the scale.
A Poisson model with the Dixon-Coles low-score correction ρ gives a probability for every scoreline. Each is ranked by 30·P(exact) + 10·P(1X2) — the contest's scoring, which stack (an exact hit is worth 40). Knockouts are scored on the 90-minute result, so the model still picks within 90 minutes.
Semifinals, Day 1 — graded: 0. France 0–2 Spain (Oyarzabal pen 22′, Porro 58′) — the fattest draw hump of the knockouts never materialised: Spain controlled from the penalty on and kept a seventh clean sheet in seven, reaching a first final since 2010 in regulation. The fourth deliberate draw pick lands 0; the draw-pick ledger reads one +10, three 0s — still within its priced probabilities, but the coin-flips keep landing on the rim. Tournament 930/4000. Tonight: England–Argentina in Atlanta for the other final spot. Scoring: 30 exact · 10 winner (max 40).
Across 24 graded knockout picks: the model said 25% of games end level after ninety — 25% did (6 of 24). It projected 2.62 goals a game — 2.65 arrived. It claimed ~12.9% on its exact picks and landed 8.3% (2 of 24) — inside one standard error at this sample size. Nothing in the data says the probabilities are wrong.
Knockout haul: 210 of 960 (21.9% of max) against the model's own pre-match expectation of ~21%. Results hit 15/24 (win-picks 14/20 = 70%); two exacts ★ (Canada 0–1, Colombia 1–0). The actual scoreline landed in our published top-three 55% of the time against a modelled 33% — the grid's shape has been better than advertised; the top line has been unlucky within it.
Variance dominates at n=24. Two behavioural rules survive the audit: coin-flip draw picks stay (the draw share was priced exactly right), and no exact-chasing — the second-ranked scoreline has cashed five times to the top line's one, a gap comfortably inside luck; abandoning the E[pts] argmax would trade points for stories. Eight picks remain (four quarter-finals, two semis, the bronze final and the final): expected haul ≈ +70, projected finish ≈ 950/4120.