Rafael Navarro and Nikolas Tsakiris made Round 24 harder work than Fipster expected

The round started neatly enough, then spent most of its time arguing with itself

Fipster had a decent read on where goals would come from, but not always on who would actually take the credit. The clean hits were there — Atlanta United FC against Orlando City SC, Toronto FC against Nashville SC, and Los Angeles FC against New York Red Bulls all landed exactly as called — yet the round as a whole leaned more towards late irritation than tidy confirmation. A few scorelines were close enough to flatter the process; several others were close enough to expose how much the model still likes a known finisher when a less fashionable one is waiting in the queue.

The best call was Charlotte’s away win in Montreal

This was one of the sharper reads because it did not just land on the result; it landed on the right sort of game. Fipster expected Charlotte to score through Daniel Ríos Calderón, Idan Toklomati Giorno and Liel Abada, and all three did exactly that. That matters. It means the model was not merely lucky on the outcome, but sound on where Charlotte’s threat would come from. The post-match data backed that up neatly: Daniel Ríos Calderón opened it, Liel Abada levelled quickly, and Idan Toklomati Giorno settled it late. No drama for drama’s sake. Just a forecast that understood Charlotte’s attacking spread better than Montreal’s resistance.

San Diego was where the model got too fond of its own favourites

The miss in San Diego was the ugliest kind: not wildly off in spirit, but badly wrong in detail. Fipster leaned hard on Marcus Højriis Ingvartsen and Amahl D'Vaz Pellegrino, with Anders Laustrup Dreyer and Preston Judd also in view. In practice, San Jose Earthquakes turned up with Nikolas Tsakiris running the show and Preston Judd scoring anyway, while Ousseni Bouda added another goal and Cédric Bakambu finished things off from the spot for San Diego. The model had some of the right names in sight, but it over-weighted San Diego’s usual attacking shape and under-priced how much damage Nikolas Tsakiris could do between lines. That is a useful miss, if an irritating one: not a collapse of logic, just a reminder that football does not always hand you your preferred cast list.

The round belonged to players Fipster half-saw — and one it missed entirely

Kristoffer Velde was one of the round’s clearest vindications. He scored twice for Portland Timbers after being named pre-match, so that was a proper hit rather than a lucky nod in his direction. Robert Lewandowski also justified his place in Chicago Fire’s forecast by scoring there, even if Inter Miami’s Casemiro spoiled the bigger home-win idea. Kelvin Kwarteng Yeboah at least gave Minnesota United FC something back after being called before kick-off; he scored once even though FC Dallas still walked away with it thanks to Kaick and Santiago Moreno.

But the round’s loudest names were Rafael Navarro and Nikolas Tsakiris, both unforeseen by Fipster and both decisive in different ways. Rafael Navarro scored twice for St. Louis City against Portland; Nikolas Tsakiris scored once and assisted twice for San Jose Earthquakes at San Diego, which is an efficient afternoon by any standard except perhaps those used by exhausted defenders. Add Dániel Gazdag’s late winner for New England Revolution at New York City FC — another scorer Fipster had not called — and you get the pattern plainly enough: this round punished overconfidence in familiar scorers and rewarded anyone willing to look beyond them.

There is still something useful here if it stays curious

Three STARs out of fifteen fixtures is fine work without being flattering work. The next round will ask for more precision around secondary scorers and late-game swings, because this one showed how quickly a decent read can be undone when an overlooked player starts collecting goals or assists like loose change. Keep trusting the obvious threats when they are obvious; just leave room for someone less convenient to spoil dinner.