Why Early-Season Soccer Predictions Make Poor Betting Guides

A Reliance on Old Data

As the season gets underway, you’ll still find predictions and odds for soccer games available even before a single goal has been scored. The reason these exist at all is that analysts and bookmakers can use data from last season to inform their forecasts for the new one.

So, predictions at this point aren’t completely guesswork, but are similarly hamstrung by the fact that the information isn’t up to date, and won’t necessarily account for any of the major changes that have taken place in the off-season. New managers, new players, a rejigged coaching setup, and all sorts of other variables might render the old data inaccurate at best, and irrelevant at worst.

The Impact of Luck

When you’re working with a small sample size of one or two matches, the temptation to take lucky victories as a sign of a surge in performance for a previously lower-tier team is great. Unfortunately, over the course of a season, you’ll see the impact of luck eroded to the point that it’s not as obvious in the data.

That luck works in both directions, so a team that has a series of mishaps in the first few games might look like it’s on unsteady ground, and cause predictions of disaster to crop up without much basis in fact. The answer is to scrutinize the exact circumstances of a victory or loss, and not get bogged down in top-level scorelines.

How Players Gel & Train

Soccer has become an incredibly technical and scientifically managed sport over the past couple of decades, to a degree that most fans don’t even appreciate. The week-to-week fitness of players is managed minutely, and the trainers and nutritionists employed by top teams work to ensure their stars get better and better over time.

In other words, when the season begins, players aren’t performing optimally. Add to that the fact that they’re having to learn to gel with their teammates after the off-season and the international commitments they might have had during it, and there’s so much more variance to outcomes in the early season.

The main thing fans and bettors alike need to appreciate is that early-season soccer predictions are not a solid indicator of how a team will perform over the course of the entire season. And of course, this can apply in either direction; a team that’s triumphant in the first few weeks might suffer a severe fall from grace, just as one that takes time to find its feet might end up taking the title.