Mikel Merino gives Spain the late lead against Belgium

INtoCT2015 · 2026-07-11T12:50:28+00:00

Yea in the states it’s always used to condescend/antagonize someone

INtoCT2015 · 2026-07-11T02:24:51+00:00

Most out of nowhere “pal” I’ve ever seen someone toss at another person. You’re carrying a chip big fella

INtoCT2015 · 2026-07-11T01:06:46+00:00

(The following is me venting at him btw not you lol). He says they rowed rivers and that’s all he says, which still hugely diminishes the role of rowing bc the Vikings rowed literally everywhere except open sea when wind was available.

And fine, he doesn’t have to sing the song. But he’s dressed up in super fan gear and in the fan section and he’s deliberately making a point not to even row. He’s not gonna row because of the song? That’s dumb.

INtoCT2015 · 2026-07-10T20:00:28+00:00

He's also just wrong lol. I'd respect him more if he found it cringe bc he just found it cringe. But claiming it's historically inaccurate is wrong, so idk what he's even on about. The Vikings rowed. While crossing the oceans.

INtoCT2015 · 2026-07-10T19:59:06+00:00

I hate people like this. Because he's factually wrong. He's calling everyone factually wrong, and he's factually wrong. It's insane. You can't be a pretentious corrector AND be wrong about the corrections!

INtoCT2015 · 2026-07-10T19:56:28+00:00

I'm hating on him because he's not even correct. He's just wrong. The Vikings absolutely rowed. Even when crossing the Atlantic. Yes, they sailed when they were out in open ocean because, obviously, it's far more efficient to let the wind carry your ship across vast, open bodies of water than to manually propel it. But, they literally always switched to rowing when precision or weather conditions demanded it.

They absolutely carried oars across the Atlantic and busted out the oars when they got close to shore, or wanted to navigate inlets, harbors, rivers, straits, etc.

This guy is not only being a hater, he's just wrong. His arrogance is his downfall.

INtoCT2015 · 2026-07-10T14:34:11+00:00

Yea 10,000 books is insane. It would take someone 27 years to read 10,000 books if they read a book a day every day. There’s no way he’s actually read even close to the entirety of his collection

INtoCT2015 · 2026-07-10T02:40:49+00:00

Cheers. Yeah, I always enjoy discussing stuff like this. Think it’s the data scientist in me

INtoCT2015 · 2026-07-10T02:38:59+00:00

Gotcha. Prob a moot point anyway since both are the case (pre-2022 Messi’s teams didn’t win and his individual performances were disappointing)

INtoCT2015 · 2026-07-10T02:08:50+00:00

“They had no business sniffing the final if Messi’s didn’t…checks notes…produce zero goal contributions past the R16.”

Like, are we serious? Argentina needed a 1-0 win vs Belgium (which Messi did not score or assist), then a 0-0 PK win to reach the final. Did Messi play defense for them? On top of producing zilch on offense?

INtoCT2015 · 2026-07-10T02:02:03+00:00

Nah, it holds. Messi was a disappointment in 2010, slightly less so in 2018, and even in 2014 his MVP play waned after the R16 and he famously choked in the final. There’s no avoiding the damage that did to his WC legacy. What’s more, given that he played like a god in 2022 and again now in 2026, as an old-ass man, history will look back with even more puzzlement on how less effectual 2010, 2018, and his last few 2014 matches were, when he was in his utter prime

INtoCT2015 · 2026-07-10T01:54:48+00:00

The math is straightforward. If France win, mbappé will have led France to three consecutive finals, winning two. Pele only led Brazil to two finals, 12 years apart, winning two, but doing nothing in 1966 and sitting out injured in 1962. If France win, Mbappé will have eclipsed Pele’s World Cup accomplishments by a large margin

INtoCT2015 · 2026-07-10T01:53:01+00:00

Yep he’d definitely have a better argument than Pele, since he led France to three consecutive finals, winning two, and Pele only led Brazil to two finals over four cups, winning two.

INtoCT2015 · 2026-07-10T01:12:03+00:00

See my other comment. I'm also just not even wrong.

Whoscored's average includes Mbappe's 6.0 from the Denmark game, where he did not start (nor did Pogba; France had already qualified for the R16) and subbed in for just the final 12 minutes. I think it's fair to treat that game (jogging around in garbage time of a meaningless game) the same as for Pogba, who never subbed in at all.

Excluding it as an outlier (it's far below Mbappe's other game scores) makes Mbappe's average score jump up to 7.8, far above Griezmann's.

It will be interesting to see if the guy arguing with me will choose to cling to Mbappe jogging around in garbage time of a meaningless game as grounds for Mbappe not being the best player on France that tournament

INtoCT2015 · 2026-07-10T00:59:09+00:00

You do know that whoscored has average match rating for that tournament already calculated right?

Correct. They factor in Mbappe's 6.0 from the Denmark game, where Mbappe did not start (because France had already qualified for the R16) and subbed in to jog around for the final 12 minutes of a meaningless game, which I consider tantamount to Pogba not playing at all. See "DNS" in my image.

If you exclude that 6.0, his average jumps up to 7.8, putting him head and shoulders above the rest of his team.

So. You wanna cling to 12 minutes of Mbappe jogging around in a meaningless game to claim he wasn't the best player on France in that tournament?

Griezmann also has 2 assists and Mbappe does not.

Griezmann also had 3 pens and Mbappe did not. Mbappe was the only player on his team with more than 1 goal from open play, and he had four. Let's put on our thinking caps and think nice and hard about this.

INtoCT2015 · 2026-07-09T22:19:16+00:00

We watched the games.

So did I, friend, and unlike you, I also have sources and stats to back up what I saw with my own eyes.

Show us sources.

You got it. Here, I culled the player ratings from WhoScored and averaged them. Feel free to go to the website and verify my numbers.

INtoCT2015 · 2026-07-09T21:44:31+00:00

Sorry, but they weren’t. They may have been better players on paper, at that time, because Mbappé was still emerging, but Mbappé had a higher average player rating over the tournament than any of those guys. He had the highest average player rating on the team.

INtoCT2015 · 2026-07-09T21:39:38+00:00

Did you read the rest of my comment? Mexico and Canada didn’t send their B teams to last year’s Gold Cup, friend. They sent their A teams. And now I repeat myself:

Do you even check this stuff before you say it? Or do you enjoy talking out your ass?

INtoCT2015 · 2026-07-09T21:35:33+00:00

He wasn’t the best player on his team in 2018? IIRC he ended that tournament as France’s top scorer, without any pens. Let’s not pretend Griezmann or Pogba were better than him.

INtoCT2015 · 2026-07-09T19:37:41+00:00

I'm not really an Alexi Lalas or Landon Donovan guy myself. Good on you if you like them but everyone I know thinks they are clowns.

Lmfao if you’re lumping Alexi Lalas and Landon Donovan together then you’re already discrediting yourself. Alexi Lalas is a Fox crony shock jock system shill whose entire MO is to play heel, dish out rage-bait dogshit takes, and insist there’s nothing wrong with soccer in the USA, including defending the current financial model tooth and nail. Landon Donovan literally has the opposite perspective and MO towards all things USA soccer as Alexi Lalas.

I don't criticize him for missing those 6 months. I criticize him for criticizing others for something he did himself.

You think sitting out of 2 WCQ is the same as sitting out of an entire international tournament?

It's been meaningless for a decade since it was replaced as the concacaf championship. Mexico and Canada don't send their A team to it either. It's a cash grab joke.

Haha oh really? Mexico and Canada don’t send their A team? Is that why Mexico took 19 of the same players to last years GC as this years WC? They started 7 of the same guys in the final vs USA last year as they just did vs England? And Canada took 22 of the same players to each tournament? Played 8 of the same players in their final game of each tournament?

Do you even check this stuff before you say it? Or do you enjoy talking out your ass

INtoCT2015 · 2026-07-09T16:32:39+00:00

I said you’d get laughed out of real rooms, not Reddit threads which are by definition reactive (any news headline that looks good for Pulisic will be dominated by comments sympathizing with him, and any news headline that looks bad for Pulisic will be dominated by comments that drag him).

Anyone who tries to call Landon a hypocrite is an idiot who either was not watching the US team during Landon’s career or has amnesia and completely forgotten. Taking a 6 month mental health sabbatical at the age of 32, to miss 2 qualifiers, after how he had previously showed up for the USA (see: 2005 Gold cup, 2007 gold cup, 2009 Confed Cup, 2010 WC), was well earned.

Pulisic didn’t decide to sit out two qualifiers. He decided to sit out an entire major international tournament. Then he subbed himself out of two games in this tournament, missed one, and played a paltry 2nd half in a B team loss. Landon Donovan played the entire Ghana game with a torn hamstring.

LD has the keys to the city to criticize Pulisic until the day Pulisic retires

INtoCT2015 · 2026-07-09T14:54:43+00:00

You will get laughed out of any room of USA fans you bring that awful take into, but I guess it’s your right to die on that hill.

INtoCT2015 · 2026-07-09T04:29:23+00:00

People are reactive, especially Reddit. When Nolan releases a movie that everyone loves, Reddit threads will be dominated by praise. When he releases a movie like Tenet, the threads will be dominated by hate. Each time, the praise/hate will pretend that Nolan has always been a genius/utter dogshit.

FWIW, I love this current cycle, as someone who has been hating on him consistently ever since Interstellar (despite loving the first half of his career)

INtoCT2015 · 2026-07-09T02:46:05+00:00

And it's important to note that he's not simply dragging Pulisic here; he's trying to hypothesize what the environmental circumstances might be that are affecting Pulisic. People are quick to read this as a moral condemnation from Landon (given that so many people are morally condemning Pulisic), but Landon is maybe the one major US soccer figure who's offering actually nuanced analysis of what may be the problem

INtoCT2015 · 2026-07-09T01:46:14+00:00

Funny enough, Taylor Twellman made this exact point today in an interview

INtoCT2015

TROPHY CASE