I booked a Bangkok holiday, ACLE got disrupted, and I thought: "Eh... what if they move the matches to Bangkok?" 😂
That's how this project started.
Not from work.
Not from school.
I just wanted to watch football.
My plan was simple:
Bangkok: April 26 — May 1.
Football was supposed to be a bonus.
Then ACLE matches in the region got disrupted.
The West Round of 16 was originally two legs:
Home → Away → Best team goes through
After the disruption, AFC changed the remaining West ties to one-leg knockout matches at centralised venues.
Basically:
One match. Win and continue. Lose and go home.
The four West Round of 16 matches were played in Jeddah.
And the ACLE Finals were already going to be there.
My football brain immediately went:
"Wah, everything centralise ah? Then Bangkok can or not?" 😂
Bangkok was never an official plan.
It was just my own football what-if.
What if the matches were played in Bangkok and spread across several stadiums?
Would the fixture list be less packed?
Would the stadiums get more time between matches?
So I made a simple Bangkok model.
Then I compared it with what actually happened.
🇹🇭 Bangkok = My what-if
🇸🇦 Jeddah = Reality
Jeddah hosted:
4 Round of 16 matches
then
4 Quarter-finals
2 Semi-finals
1 Final
That's:
Football fans know what that means.
Fixture congestion.
A lot of football packed into a short period.
So my question became:
If Bangkok had more stadiums to share the matches, would the fixture list be less packed?
That's what I wanted to check.
My first guess wasn't completely right.
Once the real schedule came out, I checked the numbers again.
Some numbers changed.
No problem.
That's part of analysing something properly.
Guess → Check → Compare → Correct
If your first answer is wrong...
change lah. 😂
No point defending it like a bad VAR decision.
After thinking so much about ACLE...
Final: April 25
I arrive Bangkok: April 26
One day late. 😂
Final score:
Holiday: ✅
Watch ACLE: ❌
Data project: ✅
This project started with one football question:
"Bangkok can or not?"
I made a guess.
Then the real fixture list came out.
So I checked my idea against what actually happened.
That's the lesson:
🇹🇭 Bangkok what-if:
View model_bangkok.py
🇸🇦 Jeddah reality:
View model_jeddah.py
The Jeddah side is based on the real ACLE schedule.
Bangkok is my own what-if idea and was never an official AFC plan.
Idea & analysis: Wansaidon
Written with: ChatGPT by OpenAI
The holiday survived. The football plan kena red card. 😂
At least it became a data project.