Philadelphia Union vs Real Salt Lake
Our model puts a Philadelphia Union win at 79.6% in this MLS fixture — the clearest call on this fixture. Expected goals run 3.17 to 0.89.
What this probability has been worth
A number is worth what it has been worth. Across 1,656 predictions published before kick-off and scored against the result afterwards, the calls we priced between 75% and 85% came in 84.9% of the time — 53 fixtures in that band. That is 5.9 points above what the model claimed — it has been too cautious in this range, which is the more comfortable error and still an error.
Where we disagree with the market
Bookmakers price Real Salt Lake at 6.5, which implies about 15.4%. Our model has it at 7.8% — 7.6 points lower. That is a wide gap, and it is worth being plain about what it means: it is not a claim that the price is wrong and we are right. It means two methods that usually agree have landed far apart on this one, and only the result will say which of them read it better.
A high-scoring home side
One model here does nothing but estimate how likely the home side is to score four goals or more, and on this fixture it reads 78.2%. Across our settled fixtures that happens about 8% of the time, so this is well above ordinary. It says nothing about who wins — a side can score four and still be caught — but a match where one team is expected to run up a total is one where the scoreline is much harder to call than the result.