The world’s biggest—or at least most prestigious—club competition is kicking off: the Champions League is back. Gentlemen, and the few ladies who are interested in soccer.
I hope we have a great tournament this year; the Champions League always brings those magical nights when I’ve come to think that soccer is the closest thing to magic—the things you see in sports, especially in soccer, are unique.
For several years now, whenever a tournament kicks off, the internet is flooded with headlines like “Supercomputer Predicts the Champion” or “Mathematician Says the Champion Will Be…”
Personally, I’ve never been interested in a “supercomputer” predicting the champion of any tournament—it’s something I’ve never found to make any sense at all.
I think I found it much more interesting when an octopus “predicted” the World Cup or Euro Cup champion—old-school fans will remember the famous octopus Paul.
But now, with advances in technology, “supercomputers” are trying to predict the champion. I don’t recall if they’ve ever gotten their prediction right. I don’t think so. The truth is, it’s so forgettable that a machine would try to predict something that’s so human and almost impossible to predict.
Will Bayern Munich be the champion?
Now I’m seeing headlines naming Bayern Munich as the favorites to lift the “Big Ears.” Bayern and Arsenal are the top contenders to be crowned the next champions; 20.64% and 20.34%, respectively, are their chances of winning according to the “supercomputer.”
Which makes me doubt this kind of thing even more—who in their right mind would pick Arsenal as the favorite to win anything?
I’ve never been a fan of the “supercomputer” and I never will be—at least not in the near future. As I’ve said before and will say again, I don’t believe there’s anything capable of predicting a tournament’s champion, and if there is, I hope it’s a hungry octopus.
