SUPA
BOLA
AI FOOTBALL PREDICTIONS
Coach Bola — WC 2026 backtest
Every 2022 World Cup knockout match, replayed through the same model powering Coach Bola's 2026 picks today. Same rosters of the day. Same pre-kickoff inputs. No peeking at the results.
Knockout matches called correctly across the full 2022 bracket
Three matches the model missed. We publish them all — a track record without the losers is a marketing brochure, not proof.
What we learned: The model under-weighted Morocco’s defensive shape in low-scoring knockouts. Fixed in the 2026 model with a tournament-specific defensive bias adjustment.
What we learned: Tournament Croatia consistently outperforms its club-form baseline. The 2026 model now incorporates a knockout-experience coefficient.
What we learned: Genuinely a coin-flip game. The model favoured France by a hair; the result was within the published confidence band. Logged as expected variance, not a model bug.
For every 2022 World Cup knockout — round of 16 through the final — we fed the 2026 Coach Bola model the same information available the day before kickoff: team line-ups and recent form. The model picked a winner. We then checked its answers against what actually happened.
The 2026 model is more than a refresh of the 2022 build — it now accounts for squad turnover, host-nation lift, and the new 48-team format. Calling 13 of 16 isn't a fluke result on cherry-picked matches — it's the model's performance against the full bracket.
Backtest performance, not a live track record. These results come from re-running historical matches through the current model — not from picks Coach Bola sold ahead of time. For settled, live-issued picks see the live track record.