Home › Method and accuracy
How the forecasts are made and how they have done.
The forecast takes each club's results so far and its history, then plays the rest of the season 10,000 times. Every figure on the site is a summary of those simulated seasons: a chance is how often something happened in them, expected points the average final total, the range where 80% of them ended.
Before a season a club's expectation comes from its record the season before, pulled toward the middle because tables always even out, or, for a club new to the division, from what similar clubs did in the past. Match results then move the estimate of each club's strength round by round; home advantage and the draw rate are taken from the division's own history.
The model for each season is chosen in advance. Candidate models are scored on the seasons before it and the best is frozen for the season; nothing is picked with hindsight. Past seasons shown on the full forecast pages are reconstructed under that rule and say so.
What it does not know. Transfers, injuries, managers, cup runs and money. Before a ball is kicked the forecast has no skill for the title in the top tier or for promotion in the third; the summer decides too much. It earns its keep from the first rounds on.
| Division | Season | P | Sims | Updated |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pro League | 2026-27 | 31/182 | 10,000 | 2026-09-10 |
| First Division | 2026-27 | 21/210 | 10,000 | 2026-09-06 |
| Second Division | 2026-27 | 13/210 | 10,000 | 2026-09-06 |
| Third Division | 2026-27 | 5/512 | 10,000 | 2026-09-09 |
Every forecast on the site is rebuilt the morning after each matchday.
Backtest: each past season forecast with only the seasons before it, the results revealed round by round, checked after rounds 2, 5, 10, 15 and 20.
| Title | 0.041 | 0.067 |
| AFC place | 0.082 | 0.206 |
| Goes down | 0.051 | 0.124 |
Pooled over every in-season checkpoint. The backtest scores the top four, which is this season's AFC allocation of 4. In seasons when fewer places were awarded the live forecast counts fewer, so treat this as the top-four record.
Read the 5-15% band with care: the model has said 9% and it has happened 1% of the time over 182 forecasts. In that range it has been too confident.
| Forecast band | Forecasts | Said | Happened |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0–5% | 648 | 1% | 0% |
| 5–15% | 182 | 9% | 1% |
| 15–30% | 140 | 22% | 30% |
| 30–50% | 132 | 40% | 47% |
| 50–70% | 140 | 60% | 59% |
| 70–100% | 278 | 90% | 90% |
| Title | 0.049 | 0.070 |
| Goes up | 0.079 | 0.127 |
| Goes down | 0.064 | 0.127 |
Pooled over every in-season checkpoint. The backtest scores the top two, the same zone the page forecasts.
Read the 70-100% band with care: the model has said 89% and it has happened 73% of the time over 74 forecasts. In that range it has been too confident.
| Forecast band | Forecasts | Said | Happened |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0–5% | 882 | 1% | 1% |
| 5–15% | 164 | 9% | 5% |
| 15–30% | 140 | 23% | 37% |
| 30–50% | 88 | 39% | 39% |
| 50–70% | 112 | 59% | 57% |
| 70–100% | 74 | 89% | 73% |
| Title | 0.049 | 0.068 |
| Top two | 0.063 | 0.125 |
| Goes down | 0.071 | 0.125 |
Pooled over every in-season checkpoint. The backtest scores the top two, the same zone the page forecasts.
Only 3 seasons and 41 club-seasons could be tested here, too few to say much. Treat this division's figures as a rough guide.
| Forecast band | Forecasts | Said | Happened |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0–5% | 232 | 1% | 0% |
| 5–15% | 50 | 9% | 8% |
| 15–30% | 52 | 22% | 27% |
| 30–50% | 42 | 37% | 33% |
| 50–70% | 8 | 56% | 50% |
| 70–100% | 26 | 84% | 92% |
| Title | 0.038 | 0.057 |
| Top two | 0.050 | 0.107 |
| Goes down | 0.062 | 0.107 |
Pooled over every in-season checkpoint. The backtest scores the top two, the same zone the page forecasts.
Only 2 seasons and 33 club-seasons could be tested here, too few to say much. Treat this division's figures as a rough guide.
Read the 5-15% band with care: the model has said 8% and it has happened 0% of the time over 60 forecasts. In that range it has been too confident.
| Forecast band | Forecasts | Said | Happened |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0–5% | 188 | 1% | 1% |
| 5–15% | 60 | 8% | 0% |
| 15–30% | 38 | 23% | 16% |
| 30–50% | 24 | 36% | 58% |
| 50–70% | 8 | 61% | 75% |
| 70–100% | 12 | 93% | 100% |
Independent forecasts with no connection to the UAE Football Association or the UAE Pro League. Club crests are the clubs' own, shown for identification. Built 2026-09-11.
Results and fixtures come from the UAE Football Association feed and the Pro League. The archive is from the UAE FA, RSSSF and Wikipedia; where sources disagree the correction is recorded beside what it changed.