We said: Thailand 1-2 China
Both teams will be hugely motivated to begin their qualifying campaigns with a victory, especially with South Korea likely to dominate Group C.
We expect to see a close game play out in Bangkok, but China should just about edge it in the end, in part due to their players competing at a higher level domestically.
Read more.Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Thailand win with a probability of 54.87%. A draw had a probability of 23.3% and a win for China had a probability of 21.86%.
The most likely scoreline for a Thailand win was 1-0 with a probability of 10.65%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 2-1 (9.82%) and 2-0 (9.49%). The likeliest drawn scoreline was 1-1 (11.03%), while for a China win it was 0-1 (6.19%). The actual scoreline of 1-2 was predicted with a 5.7% likelihood. Our team at Sports Mole correctly predicted a 1-2 win for China in this match.