A 0–0 draw — the model had that at 23%. Tempers frayed — 1 red card shown.
Expected goals race
BelgiumIran● goal
Cumulative expected goals, minute by minute. ESPN's free feed has no xG, so each shot's xG is estimated with a naive distance-and-angle logistic model fitted on shot coordinates from the play-by-play.
Pre-match Elo: Belgium 1939, Iran 1810. The model priced this Belgium 56% / draw 23% / Iran 21%, most likely score 1–1. Reality had other plans. The result moves 9 Elo points from Belgium to Iran — that flows straight into the next round of tournament simulations.
Timeline
3'YELLOWRomelu Lukaku (Belgium) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
33'YELLOWSaeid Ezatolahi (IR Iran) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
45'SUBSubstitution, IR Iran. Alireza Jahanbakhsh replaces Saleh Hardani.
58'SUBSubstitution, Belgium. Timothy Castagne replaces Thomas Meunier.