Federico Dimarco was substituted in Saturday’s 3-2 in the 62nd minute. He had already struck the crossbar and also played a key role in assisting Lautaro Martínez. He was diagnosed with a mild sprain of the left knee, and the club will decide his fate on Monday 7 September. Is he travelling for Tuesday’s Champions League debut? After this news, the doubt on one sheet and absences on the other are leisure items adjacent to the opening figure on 1xbet.tz, not the printed eleven. Tuesday still needs to confirm its starting lineup.
Daniel Berrar, Philippe Lopes and Werner Dubitzky (2024) introduced the 2023 Soccer Prediction Challenge. Participants were tasked with predicting 736 league matches scheduled for dates between 14 and 30 April 2023. The deadline was 13 April, before any of these games happened. There were two tasks. Task 1 was the exact score, measured in RMSE. Task 2 was the probability vector over home win, draw and away win, measured in RPS. These contests never mixed these two tasks together. It did not require forecasting a minute-by-minute account of what happened during the match. The division between them is this week’s research frame.
What 2023 and 2017 actually scored
Calvin Yeung, Rory Bunker, Rikuhei Umemoto and Keisuke Fujii (2024) also participated in the same 2023 contest using a CatBoost model based on pi-ratings and five seasons of data. They scored 16th on Task 2 with an RPS of 0.2195. It is not a ranking of this week’s teams. In 2017 Soccer Prediction Challenge, there was a very similar task of the three-way result. Berrar, Lopes and Dubitzky (2019) report that a k-nearest-neighbours model trained on rating features outperformed this previous field. The useful borrow here is this task design itself: three-way result in one column and exact goals in another.
Before the next list, Tuesday’s file and these two contests can share a short filter.
- 2023 challenge: 736 future matches, Task 1 RMSE on exact scores, Task 2 RPS on home-draw-away
- Yeung et al. (2024): CatBoost plus pi-ratings, 16th, RPS 0.2195 in that field
- 2017 challenge: k-NN on ratings led the three-way task in that earlier sample
- This week: Dimarco is a doubt after a 62nd minute substitution. He is not a confirmed absentee until the medical confirmation
After this filter, the live question is what column Tuesday can still complete.
Named statuses, not a full script
Dimarco’s side still has some decision to make. He started the second half with a double bandage and then left the pitch. Carlos Augusto replaced him. Chivu explained after the 3-2 that the club had two days and would determine whether he could recover in time. Sky’s medical note on 6 September diagnosed a mild sprain of the left knee and stated that his participation on Tuesday was doubtful. This is a status.
The other Champions League sheet has already seen several absences. Militão, Rodrygo, Mendy and Asencio are all ruled out of participation. Tchouameni is already back with the squad but is unlikely to be selected as a starter. Camavinga, Bernardo Silva and Arda Güler are suspended. These names affect the three-way read.
| Ask | What Tuesday’s file can support | What the cited contests actually scored |
| Dimarco’s start | Unresolved until the 7 September medical confirmation | Not a challenge task. A doubt is not a printed miss |
| Three-way result | Open, with four absences and three suspensions on one sheet | Task 2, RPS. Yeung et al. 2024: 0.2195, 16th in the 2023 field |
| Exact score | Not supported as the same job as the three-way result | Task 1, RMSE, 736 matches, separate leaderboard |
| A named replacement | Carlos Augusto was already brought on in the 62nd minute on Saturday | Not scored in 2017 or 2023. It is just a fact of substitution |
A knee injury requiring the Monday medical assessment is in neither leaderboard. A preview ruling Dimarco out of participation without consulting the club is ahead of the bulletin. If Dimarco travels but not starts, the three-way column shifts. If Dimarco is not selected, the 62nd minute cameo of Augusto becomes the closest fact, not a promise to play 90 minutes. None of this transforms Yeung’s 0.2195 into Tuesday’s law. The file consists of a 62nd-minute substitution, a mild sprain of the left knee, a Monday medical assessment, four absentees and three suspensions. The number following it is entertainment. Naming the eleven is already ahead of 7 September.
