In the end, I guess I didn't overreact enough? At this point last year, following the first handful of matches in the new 2022-23 European soccer season, I shared what I felt were reasonably bold predictions and overreactions based on what we had just seen.
I got four or five of them right. Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich didn't end up the best teams in Europe, but Erling Haaland did score 50 goals, Newcastle United did finish top-six, Union Berlin did reach the Champions League, Fulham did stay up, and AS Monaco nearly won the watchability race.
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Making solid predictions is generally a good thing, but that's not really the point of this exercise, is it? If they're actually bold predictions, I shouldn't hit on more than 50%. So let's get bolder.
Based on what we've seen through the first two weekends of the season, here are some (hopefully less accurate) new predictions.
Brighton will finish top-two in the Premier League
In just over two years, Brighton have shipped seven players to England's richest clubs -- midfielders Moisés Caicedo (Chelsea), Alexis Mac Allister (Liverpool) and Yves Bissouma (Tottenham Hotspur), fullbacks Marc Cucurella (Chelsea) and Ben White (Arsenal), attacker Leandro Trossard (Arsenal) and goalkeeper Robert Sánchez (Chelsea) -- for a combined €358 million ($389 million). They also lost manager Graham Potter to Chelsea about a year ago.
And yet, they finished ahead of Spurs and Chelsea and nearly toppled Liverpool while finishing sixth. And two matches into 2023-24, they have quite possibly been the best team in the Premier League.