Joseph Paintsil and Malte Meineche Amundsen turned MLS Round 31 into a lesson in missed assumptions

Portland was the one call that landed exactly where it should

The round’s only STAR belonged to Portland Timbers against Charlotte, and it was not hard to see why the model liked it. The scoreline was right, the home win was right, and the player read held up as well: Ariel Lassiter Acuña scored twice after being left out of the pre-match call, while Fipster had already pointed to a tight home win rather than a wild one. That is the useful sort of hit. Not glamorous, just properly aligned with how the game actually unfolded.

The miss that mattered most was Orlando City SC against New York City FC

This was the clearest place where the model leaned too hard on familiar attacking names and not hard enough on how stubborn the match could become. Fipster backed Martín Ojeda and Antoine Griezmann to do the damage, and both did score, so the player logic was not absurd. The problem was structural: Orlando were expected to turn that into a comfortable home win, but New York City FC kept it alive through Adrián Martínez Batista and then survived long enough for Talles Magno’s late penalty miss to leave it level. The model saw firepower; it did not price in how much resistance there would be once Orlando stopped getting clean separation.

The round belonged to players who were called — and a few who were not

There were proper vindications in among the wreckage. S. Solans scored twice for Real Salt Lake after Fipster had flagged him pre-match, which is exactly what you want from a forward call: not just presence, but payoff. Myrto Uzuni did the same for Austin, scoring both goals in Sporting Kansas City’s defeat after being named before kick-off. Antoine Griezmann also justified his billing by scoring for Orlando City SC, even if his side still failed to turn that into three points.

The more awkward part of the week was how often someone else took over once Fipster had settled on its shortlist. Joseph Paintsil scored twice for Los Angeles Galaxy without being called at all. Malte Meineche Amundsen did something similar for Columbus Crew with two goals from defence, which is a fine reminder that centre-backs are allowed opinions too. Evander also slipped through uncalled in FC Cincinnati’s win at DC United, while Anton Jönsson Salétros and Anzor Mekvabishvili made Atlanta United FC pay for trusting the wrong end of its own attacking map.

One good hit is useful; next week needs fewer polite guesses

That is probably the cleanest summary of this round. When Fipster stayed close to a narrow game state, as in Portland, it looked sharp. When it assumed its preferred scorers would also control the result, several matches drifted away from it. The next round does not need more bravado; it needs better suspicion of games that look straightforward on paper and then spend 90 minutes being awkward about it.