Spain are in the World Cup final. Mikel Oyarzabal from the penalty spot on 22 minutes, Pedro Porro on 58, and a 2-0 win over France in Dallas that stretches Spain’s unbeaten run to 37 competitive matches — level with Italy’s all-time record.
For the model, this was the strangest kind of test. Pre-match it produced the closest call of the entire tournament: Spain 35.6%, France 35.4%, draw 29.0%. A 0.2-point lean — the statistical equivalent of a shrug — and it landed on the right side. The pick is graded, and the tournament record moves to 70 of 101 winners called.
Be honest about what that means: nobody “predicts” a coin flip. If this match were played a hundred times, the model expects France to win around 35 of them. What a record like 70/101 measures isn’t clairvoyance — it’s calibration: when we say 60%, it should happen about 60% of the time, and the public ledger is how you check we’re not grading ourselves on a curve.
Spain now wait for tonight’s second semifinal — England against Argentina in Atlanta, where the model leans England 52.6–47.4, a meaningfully clearer edge than the French coin flip. Whoever emerges, Sunday’s final gives Spain a shot at a second star, and gives Italy’s 37-match record one more game in the crosshairs.