Ivory Coast vs Norway

Norway held off a comeback attempt from Ivory Coast to win 2-1 in a match that unfolded pretty much as our model had sketched it out beforehand. Nusa opened the scoring for Norway in the 39th minute with an assist from Odegaard, giving the visitors an early foothold. Ivory Coast pulled level through Diallo in the 74th minute—Pepe with the assist—to set up a tense finale, but Haaland settled it for Norway with a late goal in the 86th, Berg providing the assist for a one-goal margin that held.

Our prediction of a 1-2 Norway win landed spot-on with the exact scoreline. Before kickoff, the model had leaned toward a Norway victory at 55% probability, reflecting their higher scoring output and slight ELO edge despite mixed away form. The match played out consistently with that expectation: Norway's attacking threat came through, Ivory Coast showed fight from their strong home position, and the total of three goals tracked with what we'd flagged. Getting both the result direction and the exact score right is the kind of outcome that keeps the model honest, though it's worth remembering that 55% was a lean, not a certainty—two other outcomes were entirely plausible going in, and this just happened to be the one that landed.