# Touchline

> Touchline (https://touchline.watch) models football and Formula 1. Every fixture it covers gets a seeded Monte Carlo model you can argue with, live market odds, a tactical brief, match-day bingo, and honest, timestamped receipts after full time. Static site, fully sourced, not betting advice.

Touchline turns a fixture into three things: an editorial brief before, a live model and market odds during, and receipts after. Win probabilities come from 100,000 seeded simulations, so the same inputs always produce the same result. Predictions are timestamped and never quietly edited. Every fact links to a source. This is analysis to argue with, not betting advice.

## Matches
- [Newcastle v Liverpool, Premier League 2026/27 opener](https://touchline.watch/premier-league/2026/08/newcastle-united-v-liverpool): Sun 23 Aug, St James' Park. Model makes it Newcastle 32 / draw 24 / Liverpool 44. Isak's return, Iraola's first game. Live odds, brief, XIs, bingo.
- [Spain v Argentina, World Cup 2026 final](https://touchline.watch/world-cup/2026/07/spain-v-argentina): the reference match page. Model, live market odds, tactical brief, bingo, and post-match receipts.
- [England v Argentina, World Cup 2026 semi-final](https://touchline.watch/world-cup/2026/07/england-v-argentina): settled 1-2 to Argentina; the model's verdict was 2-1 Argentina, the exact score.

## Formula 1
- [Belgian Grand Prix 2026](https://touchline.watch/formula-1/2026/07/belgian-grand-prix): race model, grid, circuit read, and live timing.

## Competitions
- [World Cup 2026](https://touchline.watch/world-cup)
- [Formula 1 2026](https://touchline.watch/formula-1)
- [Premier League 2026/27](https://touchline.watch/premier-league)
- [La Liga](https://touchline.watch/la-liga)
- [Serie A](https://touchline.watch/serie-a)
- [Ligue 1](https://touchline.watch/ligue-1)
- [Bundesliga](https://touchline.watch/bundesliga)
- [Euro 2028](https://touchline.watch/euro-2028)
- [Champions League 2026/27](https://touchline.watch/champions-league)
- [NFL 2026](https://touchline.watch/nfl)

## Teams
- [Teams index](https://touchline.watch/teams): hubs for the clubs and nations Touchline covers, with honours, records, key players and modelled fixtures.
- [Argentina](https://touchline.watch/teams/argentina): three World Cups, a record 16 Copa Américas, Messi's records, under Lionel Scaloni.
- [Spain](https://touchline.watch/teams/spain): record four European titles, the 2010 World Cup, under Luis de la Fuente.
- [England](https://touchline.watch/teams/england): champions in 1966, back-to-back Euro finalists in 2020 and 2024, under Thomas Tuchel.
- [France](https://touchline.watch/teams/france): two World Cups (1998, 2018), two Euros, under Didier Deschamps.
- [Liverpool](https://touchline.watch/teams/liverpool): 20 league titles and six European Cups, rebuilding under Andoni Iraola with Alexander Isak.
- [Newcastle United](https://touchline.watch/teams/newcastle-united): 2025 Carabao Cup winners under Eddie Howe, PIF-owned, back in Europe.
- [Arsenal](https://touchline.watch/teams/arsenal): 2025/26 Premier League champions, a record 14 FA Cups, under Mikel Arteta.
- [Manchester City](https://touchline.watch/teams/manchester-city): 10 league titles, the 2023 treble, a 2026 cup double, under Enzo Maresca.
- [Manchester United](https://touchline.watch/teams/manchester-united): 20 league titles and three European Cups, resurgent under Michael Carrick.
- [Chelsea](https://touchline.watch/teams/chelsea): 2025 Club World Cup winners, two Champions Leagues, under Xabi Alonso.
- [Tottenham Hotspur](https://touchline.watch/teams/tottenham-hotspur): 2025 Europa League winners, rebuilding under Roberto De Zerbi.

## Players
- [Players index](https://touchline.watch/players): profiles for the players Touchline covers, with stats, honours, records and career.
- [Lionel Messi](https://touchline.watch/players/lionel-messi): a record eight Ballon d'Ors, the 2022 World Cup, Barcelona's all-time top scorer, now at Inter Miami.
- [Cristiano Ronaldo](https://touchline.watch/players/cristiano-ronaldo): men's international goals record, first man to 900 career goals, five Ballon d'Ors, at Al-Nassr.
- [Kylian Mbappé](https://touchline.watch/players/kylian-mbappe): 2018 World Cup winner, PSG's all-time top scorer, France captain, now at Real Madrid.
- [Neymar](https://touchline.watch/players/neymar): Brazil's all-time top scorer past Pelé, a Barcelona treble, the world-record €222m transfer, back at Santos.
- [Lamine Yamal](https://touchline.watch/players/lamine-yamal): Euro 2024 winner and Barcelona's teenage record-breaker, the youngest scorer in Euros history.
- [Harry Kane](https://touchline.watch/players/harry-kane): England's all-time top scorer, Tottenham's record scorer, now winning at Bayern Munich.
- [Jude Bellingham](https://touchline.watch/players/jude-bellingham): a debut-season La Liga and Champions League double at Real Madrid, England midfielder.
- [Erling Haaland](https://touchline.watch/players/erling-haaland): a record 36-goal Premier League season, the fastest century in league history, Norway's record scorer, at Manchester City.
- [Mohamed Salah](https://touchline.watch/players/mohamed-salah): four Premier League Golden Boots and the 2019 Champions League at Liverpool; released as a free agent in summer 2026.
- [Bukayo Saka](https://touchline.watch/players/bukayo-saka): Arsenal's homegrown winger, an FA Cup at 18, back-to-back England Player of the Year awards.
- [Cole Palmer](https://touchline.watch/players/cole-palmer): 22 goals in his debut Chelsea season, four in one first half, the 2025 Club World Cup Golden Ball.
- [Alexander Isak](https://touchline.watch/players/alexander-isak): 62 Newcastle goals and the 2025 Carabao Cup, then a British-record £125m move to Liverpool.
- [Florian Wirtz](https://touchline.watch/players/florian-wirtz): Leverkusen's unbeaten double, the fastest goal in Germany's history, now at Liverpool.

## Membership
- [Membership](https://touchline.watch/membership): £9 a year for founding members, £12 after the founding period. The model, the simulations and the receipts stay free; membership is a short username, a member badge, a member number, the members' room, and a way to back the work. Not betting advice.

## About
- [How it works](https://touchline.watch/how-it-works): the full pipeline, research to receipts, with an interactive simulation you can run.
- [Receipts](https://touchline.watch/receipts): the model's track record, every call graded against the result (exact score, right winner, wrong), with a Brier score once five calls settle.
- [Journal](https://touchline.watch/blog): essays on modelling and prediction.
- [The World Cup final, read two ways](https://touchline.watch/blog/world-cup-final-preview): a pre-match essay on Spain v Argentina; the model at 55.6, under the market, and why.
- [The semi we called](https://touchline.watch/blog/the-semi-we-called): a post-match breakdown of England 1-2 Argentina, where the model's verdict was the exact score.
- [Why the draw is the hardest bet in football](https://touchline.watch/blog/why-the-draw-is-underpriced): why close, low-scoring games point at the draw, with a live probability curve.
- [Bivariate Poisson, explained without the maths](https://touchline.watch/blog/bivariate-poisson-explained): how the model works, in plain English, with a playable score builder.
- [What a £125m striker is actually worth](https://touchline.watch/blog/what-a-125m-striker-is-worth): a model pays for goals, not fees, with a live cost-per-goal dial.
- [Extra time is a coin flip we pretend to understand](https://touchline.watch/blog/extra-time-coin-flip): why knockouts become noise, with a shootout simulator.
- [Home advantage, measured](https://touchline.watch/blog/home-advantage-measured): what a full house is worth in goals, with a home-nudge slider.
- [Why your team's supercomputer odds keep changing](https://touchline.watch/blog/why-the-odds-keep-changing): market drift versus model drift before kick-off.
- [The manager bounce is mostly noise](https://touchline.watch/blog/manager-bounce-noise): why the new-manager lift is mean reversion, not magic.
- [The prediction scam, and the opposite of it](https://touchline.watch/blog/world-cup-prediction-scam): why most public predictions are unfalsifiable, and what an honest one looks like.

- [Sitemap](https://touchline.watch/sitemap): every page on the site, grouped and nested, with the machine-readable twin at https://touchline.watch/sitemap.xml.

## Method
- Football: a bivariate Poisson goal model with a shared covariance term, extra time and shootouts modelled for knockouts, a seeded mulberry32 RNG, 100,000 simulations per match, calibrated to market prices and published models such as Opta.
- Formula 1: a Plackett-Luce race model over de-vigged market win probabilities with a temperature and a DNF layer, seeded and deterministic.
- Live data: the ESPN summary API and Polymarket, fetched client-side (the site is a static export with no server).
- Not betting advice, and never a guarantee. AI helps with research and writing and can make mistakes, so check anything that matters.