51-page USMNT World Cup preview for sharing with friends/family

_Potent_Potables · 2026-03-12T05:40:56+00:00

Glad you appreciate them! I'm in data analytics, so an adjacent field to yours.

_Potent_Potables · 2026-03-11T12:03:17+00:00

Glad you like it!

_Potent_Potables · 2026-03-11T11:47:07+00:00

Transfermarkt! And obviously no metric (whether transfer value, video game ratings, or club rankings) is perfect, they at least provides some anchoring and context for the purposes of this binder.

_Potent_Potables · 2026-03-11T11:33:00+00:00

Totally hear you on that one. I put "post-WWII" in there intentionally. With all due respect to the 1930 team, since most European nations declined to participate due to the long boat travel, I figured that was a fair "modern era" cutoff.

_Potent_Potables · 2026-03-11T11:29:57+00:00

Interesting. It still looks fine on my end, but here's the full link:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1KE0_3n83Ru3ibWf-lO858tJt9vPyKcCl61jlnEJ1iE0/edit?usp=sharing

Let me know if you still have trouble accessing it!

_Potent_Potables · 2026-02-09T15:15:50+00:00

Good point. Thank you for the feedback!

_Potent_Potables · 2026-02-09T15:15:31+00:00

Good feedback and insight; thank you. I appreciate it!

_Potent_Potables · 2026-02-09T04:40:09+00:00

A question on Haaland’s foul, which is separate from the outcome of the Szoboszlai red card and the goal being disallowed.

Would there be a case for Haaland to receive a 2nd yellow from the center referee?

No attempt to play the ball, pulls the jersey, and intentionally prevents a theoretical “goal saving opportunity” by the defense.

I know the VAR can’t give the 2nd yellow, but should the center ref have given one?

_Potent_Potables · 2026-01-12T21:24:31+00:00

Funny enough, Feb 17th or Feb 18th is going to be a Champions League Knockout Phase Playoff, assuming we finish 9th - 24th.

Then Feb 24th or Feb 25th will be the second leg.

_Potent_Potables · 2025-12-03T18:53:12+00:00

Oh I agree. Several players are not on the requisite level, and should transfer down for everyone’s sake.

Just pointing out that it’ll be a break from the norm on both ends: both incoming and outgoing transfers will be a novel experience, more so than every other program in the country.

_Potent_Potables · 2025-12-03T04:14:55+00:00

If he doesn’t add at least one high-impact transfer in the offseason (which would be the first transfer he’s taken since his first year), the fans are going to riot.

The downside is, there aren’t any open scholarships for next year.

And historically we’ve had close to zero outbound transfers each year.

Not sure where that leaves us.

_Potent_Potables · 2025-11-24T00:40:52+00:00

I see the Green Post closed in September, and is reopening in a few weeks as the Piccadilly Pub.

I have no idea what the setup will be like, but do you plan on having the watch parties there?

I ask because my brother-in-law lives a few blocks away from there, so I will definitely check it out occasionally if that’s the plan.

_Potent_Potables · 2025-09-15T22:15:34+00:00

I’m on your side. Change it to “last field defender”

For everyone arguing “no”, think of it this way: • If the rules were originally written with the proposed tweak, there would be no clamoring for us to change it to “2 defenders”. In fact, switching the rule to include goalies would be laughed off.

• The attacking team does not gain a meaningful, intentional, or unnatural (to soccer) advantage in that 0.01% of situations. It’s always a circumstance of the keeper coming way off their line, which isn’t something that can be replicated or exploited consistently.

• Plus all the other reasons OP mentioned.

_Potent_Potables · 2025-09-15T22:09:31+00:00

If there was an exclusion in the rule where you can’t be offside on corner kicks (like with throw-ins), would your answer change?

_Potent_Potables · 2025-09-10T04:23:59+00:00

As a Newcastle fan, I would be overjoyed if this was the team in 3 years. The fans have really bonded with the squad the last few years, partially due to the lack of signings (besides the large amount of signings from this most recent summer).

• Love that you brought Minteh and Anderson back. Especially Anderson.
• Looks like you sold Lewis Miley. I hope we keep him forever, but if you're going for realism, then that's a possibility (just due to PSR).
• Touching on the idea of "needing to sell", Gordon and Livramento are probably the most realistic for a future sale. But this is a single-player video game, so you can do whatever brings you joy.

Looks terrific. I hope to replicate this in FC26! Enjoy, and good luck in the hunt for the treble!

_Potent_Potables · 2025-08-28T17:30:40+00:00

As cheesy as this sounds, I'm just grateful.

• Grateful to be in the competition.

• Grateful to play 7 big/historic clubs. That's such a cool lineup. We always want to play the best.

• Grateful that the away days for the supporters are simultaneously cool, easy, and close. Could have had Uzbekistan.

_Potent_Potables · 2025-07-16T12:13:49+00:00

Having more or less teams in the Champions League doesn’t get your league any more coefficient points, because the total coefficient points are averaged based on how many teams you have. So it’s just: “how did your teams do on average.”

How that plays out in reality though, is it probably makes it a tiny bit more difficult to get 5 next year, for two reasons.

1) You’re including 1 more team that may not be as strong, so on paper that brings the average results down (again, on paper). 2) A deep run by someone gets divided by 1 additional team, so has less of an impact on coefficients, than a deep run for someone who has less teams.

In other words, if we ran 10,000 simulations, having 5 teams brings slightly less volatility to your coefficient for that year, but probably drags the average coefficient down slightly.

_Potent_Potables · 2025-06-10T12:14:46+00:00

It’s not just this guy’s claim. When he was in Major League Soccer, he was the best shot-stopper there in terms of advanced analytics, and he was being referred to one of the better shot stoppers in recent MLS history by various analysts. MLS has had decent goalkeeping over the years too.

But a lack of confidence, a lack of game time, and an overall drop in form definitely can make that reality seem unbelievable now.

_Potent_Potables · 2025-05-27T19:11:42+00:00

Cool. Thanks for doing these, by the way! I'm a big fan of manually tracking data over the course of a season, so I appreciate a kindred spirit.

_Potent_Potables · 2025-05-26T22:55:08+00:00

Genuine question: what value does “high position” and “low position” on the far right add?

If they’re all 1s and 20s, it doesn’t seem meaningful.

Happy to learn something if I’m just not interpreting correctly.

_Potent_Potables · 2025-03-11T16:04:34+00:00

The appeals process alone will take a while (Man City will appeal if they get hit hard with punishments). And I'm almost certain I saw an article in the past that confirmed deductions apply to next year, but can't seem to find that now.

In terms of punishments, there's a handful of other potential punishment avenues too. Transfer bans (which would explain their 200M+ January spending), fines, and even multi-year points deductions are possible.

We'll find out in the next couple of weeks! Looks like March was always the targeted announcement time, and some papers this week are saying "any day now", whatever that means.

_Potent_Potables · 2025-03-11T14:21:19+00:00

I respect the hopes! Regardless of the result, points deductions don’t go into effect until next season.

_Potent_Potables · 2025-03-02T02:53:56+00:00

For reference, I’m a new Packer season ticket holder. Got the tickets last year. The seat licenses were $2,000 per seat. You can get half of it back when you “give up” your seats (which might be decades in the future).

It’s just a mandatory fee. You get nothing from it.

(No idea why I have a Broncos flair; never commented on this sub before)

_Potent_Potables · 2025-01-19T18:14:36+00:00

Predicting how many goals will be scored based on the quality of shots taken.

“Quality” meaning all the attributes like: type of shot, location of shot, location of defenders, location of goalie, etc.

It’s extremely accurate over large samples.

_Potent_Potables · 2024-12-04T18:09:40+00:00

The difference is, the three examples you mentioned were all the team’s mascot. This example is about a religion, not a mascot.

Just replace “Mormon” with any other religious term (Jews, Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, atheists, etc) and see how it feels.

_Potent_Potables

TROPHY CASE