Football Results April 9 2026: 69% Prediction Accuracy

84 from 122. Not perfect. But honestly, that's solid.

69%. The kind of score that doesn't make you pump your fist or stare sadly at a cold drink. It's the score of someone who does the work, knows their football — but also knows that Raków Częstochowa can end up 4-4 with GKS Katowice in the Polish Cup (yes, four-four) and that Simba can leave Tabora with a point instead of a win. Thursday, April 9, 2026: 38 leagues, 122 predictions, one lesson. Football doesn't negotiate.

The masterstrokes

Crystal Palace 3-0 Fiorentina in the Europa Conference League. Someone said Palace were too small for this stage? We're waiting for the apology. Meanwhile, SC Freiburg quietly dismantled Celta Vigo 3-0 — two teams that don't make headlines but win cleanly. Both landed in the green column.

Shakhtar Donetsk 3-0 AZ Alkmaar. A 12 prediction that never wavered. Rayo Vallecano 3-0 AEK Athens — same energy: predicted, confirmed, banked. In the Süper Lig, Rizespor hammered Samsunspor 4-1. We said 12, the home side did the talking. Al Quwa Al Jawiya 5-0 in Iraq: five goals, 1X prediction, no cold sweats. Bologna 1-3 to Aston Villa in the Europa League — Villa flipping a match on Italian soil, we had the 12, we take it.

On the African continent (and yes, we see you): MC Alger 3-0 El Bayadh in the Algerian Ligue 1, MC Oran 2-1 MB Rouisset — North African football was generous. El Geish 1-0 National Bank of Egypt, El Mokawloon 1-0 Ismaily SC. Even Pompiers in Mauritania handled Inter Nouakchott 3-1. A decent African day overall.

The painful misses

Saint Eloi Lupopo 0-0 Blessing in the DRC Ligue 1. We said 1 — home win for Lupopo. The 0-0 arrived like an uninvited guest. Our apologies to Lubumbashi.

Simba held 0-0 in Tabora. One of East Africa's finest clubs, predicted to win (2), and Tabora United just shut the door. Tanzanian football has no inferiority complex.

Mainz 2-0 Strasbourg in the Conference League — we had X2. Strasbourg away in Europe, we thought we had a shot. Mainz disagreed. Bani Gansè 2-0 Loto Popo in Benin: we backed Loto Popo (2). Bani Gansè had other ideas. The Beninese Championnat National is resisting us with alarming consistency — Dynamo Abomey, ASVO, Ayema all wrong in one day. Time to go back to the notebooks.

Neftchi 0-1 Pakhtakor: Pakhtakor's dominance in Central Asia is well-documented. We still went 1X for Neftchi. Wrong call.

The takeaway

Statistical observation of the day — and this one deserves attention: Central Asian domestic cups were a predictable bloodbath. Arys 0-4 Aktobe, Ekibastuz 0-4 Kaspiy, Chromtau 1-4 Zhenys, Taraz 0-1 Ulytau — four Kazakh Cup matches, four correct predictions. The gap in class during cup rounds is consistently underestimated by analysts. Here, it paid dividends.

On the other hand, African domestic leagues — the Beninese Championnat National in particular — remain our turbulence zone. Three errors in one day on the same league is a signal. Either we sharpen local data, or we predict less aggressively in leagues where information is scarce. Today's lesson: the deeper your local context, the sharper your prediction. Football in Cotonou doesn't read like football in Madrid.

Tomorrow, the Europa League and Conference League quarterfinals continue. The big fixtures are coming. We showed tonight we can read Crystal Palace and Freiburg. Now we need to prove it again. Because 69% is good. 75% is respect.