2022/2023 - Halfway Through - What Are We Even Doing Here?
What are any of us doing here?
Deep. Too deep. This is just a look back on how I’m doing with the predictions I made at the beginning of the season. And also the predictions I make every matchday.
We’re now halfway through the 2022-2023 Cyta Championship. I made some bold decisions in my predictions at the beginning of the season. It’s… not going well.
I hate AEL almost as much as Shpilevsky loves guys
We… Do we need the recap? Fine:...
AEL
Omonia
APOEL
Apollon
AEK
Pafos
Anorthosis
Aris
Olympiakos
Nea Salamina
Doxa
ENP
Karmiotissa
Akritas
What do things look like at the midpoint? A bit like this:
T - R - A - NSFERMARKT!!!
So there are two teams on 12 matches instead of 13. What’s up with that? Well I’ll tell you what’s up with that. The two teams were supposed to play each other on Matchday 13, as a celebration before leaving the Tsirion forever and never cooking back, as they look forward to the move to the alfamega Stadium. Except that’s not how it went. The police, a couple of days prior to the game, received a handwritten letter, stating that some fans were looking forward to helping to demolish the stadium. And they proceeded to do that, breaking chunks of concrete off the steps and throwing them onto the pitch. The teams left the pitch during the warm-up and never came back out. The Cyprus FA have let everyone know that their disciplinary people will be looking at what went on and will make a decision in due course.
IMAGINE IF AEL GET A POINTS DEDUCTION.
I said Pafos would sneak into the top 6. They’ve covered the top six in petrol, and Aris are running through them with a lit match. So we know what I did badly at (so far).
But what’s gone to (my) plan? Well, APOEL and AEK are one place off where I said they would finish, and Anorthosis, Doxa, Paralimni and Akritas being exactly where I said they would finish. I suspect this will even out further with the second half of the regular season. Not AEL though. AEL are demons.
But look at that table again.
Don’t make me scroll up…
The top 4 are separated by 3 points! We’re in for a great second phase. OOOOOH…
Since the last article on my predictions, we’ve had a new manager to throw on the pile. Badia has been sacked by Akritas. Neil Lennon has got his best tracksuit on for the introductory press conference. In the meantime, he’s also in that pile. Looking at what’s going on, if your name begins with a “D”, probably best you don’t start a job in Cyprus:
David Badia (Akritas)
David Catala (Apollon)
Alexandr Khastkevich (Karmiotissa)
Neil Lennon (Omonia)
Silas (AEL)
Darko Milanic (Anorthosis)
Sofronis Avgousti (APOEL)
Dusan Uhrin Jr (Karmiotissa)
Alexander Zorniger (Apollon)
7 out of 14 teams, with two teams changing manager twice already. Halfway through the season, half the teams have changed their top mans.
And what of the matchday predictions? Well, if I had predicted every score 100% correct, the table would like this instead:
I think I need to provide some schpiel here to accurately present what’s going on and what should be going on. The darker the colours in the second column for numbers the further away my predictions are from real life. In essence, the more white there is on that board, the more right I am. In a perfect world FOR MY PREDICTIONS ONLY the whole thing should be white FOR MY PREDICTIONS ONLY.
For the positions, I have assumed that anything more than 2 places lower or higher is too far out. For the points, goals for and goals against I have assumed being lower or higher by more than 5 is too far out.
So I’m doing really well with APOEL, doing alright with Aris and Paralimni and the rest, not so much. Although I have Apollon and Paralimni’s current places spot on and can tell exactly how many goals Paralimni, Nea Salamina and AEK are going to score. You can see how much I thought and still think of AEL’s attackers, even if they’re not putting the ball in the net. To the same extent, Apollon and Anorthosis. I can only apologise to Pafos and Nea Salamina’s defenders. Also interesting to see, I’m not that far away with Doxa’s goals for or goals against, but the amount of points I’ve given them is a travesty.
If you want an apology, take it up with management
