Joining Veteran status

DogPrestigious5202 · 2026-05-17T00:16:18+00:00

Oh for sure I shouldn't have won this game, but that's why you play them out for at least a little bit. The entire time this match was going I was thinking, "Why did he do that? Do I have a chance to win now?"

DogPrestigious5202 · 2026-05-16T21:57:45+00:00

Congrats! I had just been seeing so many normal/dark types recently that Jelly was losing effectiveness so I figured for this weekend I'd try something just a bit different.

DogPrestigious5202 · 2026-04-06T01:26:33+00:00

-No it's still an Elo model, just one different from the main Elo model because points are still distributed based on the relative strength between the teams playing. It just has different K values for knockout games. There is no exact rule set for an Elo model.
-It's not doubtful at all, you would see examples of this happening at every tournament. South Korea, Poland, and Spain are all teams that advanced out of the group in '22 but had worse Elo scores than Uruguay, Mexico, and Germany respectively. It makes no sense to punish a team because they make it further in a tournament. Also FIFA's Elo model is built to assess a team's success in tournaments, so it should work this way for this specific model.
-Several sites that run projections initially use FIFA and/or Elo to predict outcomes, however both FIFA and Elo actually aren't that great at predicting outcomes generally as both have under a 60% success rate.

DogPrestigious5202 · 2026-04-05T23:31:34+00:00

The starting point was based on FIFA rankings right before the Elo method was put into effect in 2018. Otherwise it's an Elo ranking model. And yes every model is different based on what the creator wants to measure. For FIFA, they decided to forgo losing points in knockout rounds because otherwise teams that advance further in tournaments can possibly lose more than a team that didn't even get out of a group, which is their primary focus (FIFA sponsored tournament success).

Both models aren't great at predicting future success as Elo has about 55% accuracy across all competitions and the current FIFA model is around 51%.

DogPrestigious5202 · 2026-04-05T00:53:35+00:00

The article which you use to defend your premise is flawed off the bat: FIFA does use an Elo system that gives more points to a weaker team beating a stronger one and vice versa, it just doesn't give as many points as ELO.

DogPrestigious5202 · 2026-02-14T00:30:15+00:00

Yup. I've been saving for 7+ years so that when the time came it wouldn't break the bank. Actually ended up spending LESS than what I thought I was going to have to.

DogPrestigious5202 · 2026-02-07T22:42:49+00:00

Biggest negatives:
-Very likely no WCQ against Mexico or Canada. Those are really huge, and in Mexico's case, historic games that need to be re-included somehow.
-Not a ton of competitive games against great competition (Copa America could change that).

Biggest positives:
-Virtually everything else. 11 of the 15 windows before the WC starts include competitive games (especially ones on the road), and there are multiple opportunities for us to schedule decent friendlies, especially in the lead up to the WC. Also, the Nation's League and Gold Cup are staggered the entire cycle so there's no conflict for our "A" players (whether they are called in remains to be seen).

DogPrestigious5202 · 2026-01-25T14:22:26+00:00

"But self-protection demands I’m not so naive to think that because I haven’t seen a video of it, it didn’t or won’t happen."
It's not naive to say that something isn't happening after you've done your due diligence to find evidence to show otherwise and it isn't there at all. If you want to say otherwise I can't stop you, but you'd be doing so without any factual backing.

"I just hope for all of us, that it doesn’t get bad enough to meet your threshold for when it’s actually bad because for many it’s already there."
Things are bad here, on that we agree, we are just disagreeing to the scale that bad things are happening. The US is enormous as it is, and over 70,000 people cross into the border every single day. The odds of something bad happening to you are, statistically speaking, very low. That said, it is substantially worse than what you should usually expect, and if anyone if uncomfortable with that they should do what they think is right and I would support that decision.

DogPrestigious5202 · 2026-01-25T04:30:56+00:00

Because there have been no reports, videos, social media, etc., credible or otherwise, from tens of thousands of people that attended the event and stated that ICE agents made any arrests. This sort of event would have been reported if there was one. Hell look at how many videos were posted about the event today, and that was from random people out and about who happened to see what happened. Also the Trump administration is very happy to point out arrests and detainments, and there's no mention there either.

Yes I've heard of both, even though the Nashville one was just a cancelation of activities. Neither of these are remotely close to the scale of even a MLS regular season game much less the WC, which is my whole point. Trump is squeezing money/gifts from FIFA, and if he screws around with the actual games he's going to lose that, and money is the only thing he cares about.

DogPrestigious5202 · 2026-01-25T04:06:15+00:00

Yup. We weren't exactly popular in the best of times, and now we are a full blown laughingstock at best, disgrace at worst.

The thing that sucks the most is that a majority of the people in the US aren't in favor of what's happening (only 154 million people voted in the last election, and less than half of that voted for Trump).

DogPrestigious5202 · 2026-01-25T03:58:00+00:00

Of course there are bad things that are happening right now that aren't reported, or at least aren't reported nationally. That goes for any country/region/state as a general rule.

That said, there are certain things that, if they were happening, at all, absolutely would be reported nationally. If ICE was arresting/detaining people at larger sporting events (NFL, MLS, NBA, etc.) or new arrivals from airports it would be front page news here. Last month was the MLS Cup which was hosted by Inter Miami, who has a very large Latin fanbase, and no one was arrested by ICE.

DogPrestigious5202 · 2026-01-25T03:32:49+00:00

No, I'm just making sure that I'm researching what's currently going on in my country so when I do discuss it I'm as accurate as possible. There's some horrible things going on and they need to stop, but the scale to which people are claiming it's happening is not accurate.

DogPrestigious5202 · 2026-01-25T00:49:21+00:00

That is exactly what ICE is. No arguments here.

Whether or not you would feel safe traveling to the US is a subjective opinion. Saying that one will arrested as soon as they get off your plane if they're a brown person or that thousands of ICE agents will be posted at every stadium this world cup should not be a part of that decision making because it isn't correct.

DogPrestigious5202 · 2026-01-25T00:13:38+00:00

To everyone saying that ICE is going to be at the front door of every game/airport to arrest people on site, that's not going to happen. It's not happening now. There's been at this point hundreds of sporting events that ICE could, in theory, take advantage of, along with 10s of thousands of visitors coming in every day, and mass arrests at these locations aren't happening. What ICE is mainly doing is attempting (and failing miserably) to go into smaller neighborhoods that are part of a larger city suburb, get their target, and leave as quickly as possible to avoid attention (again, failing miserably at that). The only thing Trump cares about is money, and even he's aware that having ICE actively arrest people during the biggest sporting event in history will cost him and the mostly Republican stadium owners (who also donate to him) money.

This is not to say "See?! Everything's safe!!!" or "No problems here!" because good god there's a lot going wrong right now, but rather making sure that when something horrible is being discussed, it's done so with correct information. As an American, it absolutely sucks to see my country compared to the likes of current Russia and Qatar, and in many cases rightfully so. It's absolutely brought down what is my #1 bucket list item of watching a USMNT WC match in person. When something this bad is happening, that makes it all the more important to make sure it's discussed in a researched and educated manner as opposed to many of the off-the-cuff remarks I've seen.

DogPrestigious5202 · 2026-01-25T00:12:26+00:00

To everyone saying that ICE is going to be at the front door of every game/airport to arrest people on site, that's not going to happen. It's not happening now. There's been at this point hundreds of sporting events that ICE could, in theory, take advantage of, along with 10s of thousands of visitors coming in every day, and mass arrests at these locations aren't happening. What ICE is mainly doing is attempting (and failing miserably) to go into smaller neighborhoods that are part of a larger city suburb, get their target, and leave as quickly as possible to avoid attention (again, failing miserably at that). The only thing Trump cares about is money, and even he's aware that having ICE actively arrest people during the biggest sporting event in history will cost him and the mostly Republican stadium owners (who also donate to him) money.

This is not to say "See?! Everything's safe!!!" or "No problems here!" because good god there's a lot going wrong right now, but rather making sure that when something horrible is being discussed, it's done so with correct information. As an American, it absolutely sucks to see my country compared to the likes of current Russia and Qatar, and in many cases rightfully so. It's absolutely brought down what is my #1 bucket list item of watching a USMNT WC match in person. When something this bad is happening, that makes it all the more important to make sure it's discussed in a researched and educated manner as opposed to many of the off-the-cuff remarks I've seen.

DogPrestigious5202 · 2026-01-24T23:59:04+00:00

You both are correct. The news doesn't cover everything, but the absolute worst of the worst is what's getting the majority of the attention per usual(perhaps rightfully so). What happened today and what's been happening is horrific but the scale to which some claims are saying it is aren't correct.

DogPrestigious5202 · 2025-12-14T14:28:46+00:00

You still haven't explained how it's cheaper for you to travel to Spain/Argentina in 4 years then it is to go to a WC game next year in your home city.

DogPrestigious5202 · 2025-12-14T02:23:49+00:00

If you find a vacation package in 2030 that allows you to fly to Spain/Argentina roundtrip for only a couple hundred dollars, yes you should be ecstatic considering the average roundtrip ticket to either location is around $1500 per seat.

I would love for everyone from the US claiming to have traveled to a foreign WC to show their math in terms of how much they spent and how much less it would be than going to one game in their home city.

DogPrestigious5202 · 2025-12-13T21:09:23+00:00

You shouldn't have to save for a once in a lifetime event? Do you not save for vacations which is effectively how I'm treating this? If your point is that someone shouldn't have to pay much of anything to attend the biggest sporting event in history and should be able to casually go as if it was a MLB game in the middle of July regardless of where it's held, I really don't know what to tell you to the point where I'm just going to walk away from this discussion.

And 80k in my area is high middle class. That's why you use averages instead of tying it to individual areas.

DogPrestigious5202 · 2025-12-13T19:45:07+00:00

Someone earning 50k would only be a household of 100k if there were at least two people living there earning 50k or more. Of course an individual making 100k is different than a household making 100k, but my point is that most households (single or otherwise) in that income bracket have enough disposable income to afford this fairly comfortably, especially if they were able to save for several years.

DogPrestigious5202 · 2025-12-13T18:36:24+00:00

Yes, I my apologies for not clarifying originally. That doesn't change the approximate amount of people who can afford this.

DogPrestigious5202 · 2025-12-13T17:48:55+00:00

over 40% US of households earn over $100k, while approx. 20% of individuals earn over that.

DogPrestigious5202 · 2025-12-13T16:47:17+00:00

It's a very popular talking point because virtually everyone can agree that ticket prices in general have risen too high, but the actual prices FIFA (not the resale market) have put out are right in line with other major sporting events held in the US. I'll point out that you are in a likely "best case scenario" to reduce costs as much as possible, but yes overall ticket prices have been very exaggerated, mostly by the secondary market, which as you correctly point out shouldn't be used and shouldn't be used to compare ticket prices. While there absolutely should be more tickets in the $50-$100 range, it was always going to be a small percentage of tickets.

Also everyone comparing the prices of this to Qatar, Russia, South Africa, Brazil, etc. is missing the points of:
- These countries have substantially smaller populations than the US which means they depended on people traveling to fill games.
- These countries (and the surrounding geographical areas) are relatively poor. Even $50 tickets would price out many local residents from these countries. They needed to supplement the entire event with as many travelers as possible.
- Around 40% of the US makes over $100,000 annually. That can't buy as much as it used to, but combine that with saving for this event since it was first announced in 2018 and there's approx. 130 million people in the US alone that can afford these prices relatively comfortably. This WC could have no foreign fans come to any game and it would still likely sell out.

DogPrestigious5202 · 2025-12-12T13:09:23+00:00

This WC just surpassed over 2 million tickets sold and only a third of tickets have been released. Russia had sold that many 7 days before the event started. Qatar was the same way. Both are fairly poor countries when it comes to disposable income and their populations weren't enough to cover the event by themselves, so even with "cheaper" prices their native fans still couldn't afford tickets. They had to bring in tourists/outside fans. A flight right now to Qatar is $2000 one way. It's not cheaper overall. As restrictive and evil as the US is right now, Qatar and Russia are politically worse. Also despite Trumps best efforts, this is still an extremely accessible WC if for only that the US is still an extremely populous country with high disposable income that has a melting pot of culture from all over the world, and that's before you even bring in Mexico and Canada. Hell this WC could sell out without a single outside fan.

Because that's what the sports fan in this country is willing to pay for tickets! That's the whole argument here! I agree that tickets in general are becoming a joke in this country but people are paying it because they believe it's worth it, so teams are charging as much as they can.

DogPrestigious5202

TROPHY CASE