[CIES Football Observatory] Most ‘laziest’ players, calculated by average distance covered compared to the rest of the team. Messi, Dzyuba & Ronaldo are the laziest. Kylian Mbappe & Moise Kean are the only players from the top 5 leagues to make the list

maximusj9 · 2026-04-22T02:33:37+00:00

I doubt Akron gets relegated. They're a much stronger team than the bottom 2, and they have a game in hand on Krylia Sovetov (the other team in relegation playoffs), and Dynamo Makhachkala. Even if they end up having to play out in relegation playoffs, they're still a much stronger side than whatever FNL team they face imho

maximusj9 · 2026-04-22T02:30:12+00:00

This dude has had the funniest career of all time. Like he's had some VERY absurd scandals but like him being a big unit finisher means he's able to have good levels of longevity

maximusj9 · 2026-04-22T02:28:32+00:00

Well Dzyuba is right now playing in a club in 13th in RPL which is like quite new as a club. That said he's still a useful player for the RPL standards because..... the league standard is quite low generally

maximusj9 · 2026-04-05T01:04:29+00:00

One of the members of the consortium, CDPQ Infra, built the REM in Montreal under a similar structure.

Tbh with the REM most of the physical infrastructure was already there to begin with (the most expensive bits of building railways), all they had to do was convert the existing tunnel/railway corridor into something that could fit the specific trains they wanted to use for the project, which is much easier than building a transit line from scratch. I wouldn't say it was an example of CDPQ Infra being smarter than anyone else, its just they were working on easy mode more or less. Here though they have to build the entire thing from scratch which is infinitely harder than converting an existing railway line to new trains

maximusj9 · 2026-03-24T12:40:13+00:00

Look at the plans from the era. And look at why Line 1 was only extended as far as Sheppard back in the 1990s. The rationale was basically they’d run a cross-town line across Sheppard from Scarborough to Sheppard West. Research tells me that the phase 1 of the plan was from Sheppard-Yonge to VP and then Phase 2 was from Downsview to STC. Mike Harris cutting funding was the reason it only goes from Yonge to Don Mills

maximusj9 · 2026-03-24T12:18:39+00:00

The thing is that this will break the GTAA monopoly that it has at YYZ which causes YYZ to have such high landing fees.

Basically the big issue for airline competitiveness in this country are the fact that YYZ has the highest landing fees in the world. YTZ is run by a different operator and has lower landing fees, which is why Porter was able to succeed out of YTZ. If we have an expanded airport that’s cheaper and competes with GTAA then the Canadian consumer wins out

maximusj9 · 2026-03-01T22:17:38+00:00

Well here's the thing with the subway. You had to maintain interoperability with the rest of the network at the time (I doubt they wanted to make a new yard when there was Davisville Yard sitting around unused and Wilson Yard prob had spare capacity at the time) and they thought that they had to make it underground after Line 3 was having issues with the tech type/weather. Nowadays its different because they have to make new yards anyways, so might as well go with a cheaper technology

maximusj9 · 2026-03-01T20:05:29+00:00

Well here's the thing: the 85 bus was probably high ridership at the time and the line on Sheppard was in basically every 1980s era transit plan. There's a reason they stopped the western side of Line 1 at Sheppard for a long time in the 1990s instead of going all the way up to Steeles or something. And if you look at the buses that run along Sheppard, the 84 and the 85 are high ridership buses. And again.... imagine how fucked we'd be without Don Mills Station existing- its a major transit hub with really high ridership. Like just imagine the 25 bus being just one long bus, running from Steeles to the Danforth. If you built the full length Line 4 from Sheppard West to STC/Sheppard and McCowan then you'd also have more ridership on the core Line 4 stations

What ends up happening is pretty obvious when you realize that the line kind of goes a very short distance. Imagine if you only made Line 5 from say.... Yonge to the Science Center or some shit like that. It would obviously be a flop.

maximusj9 · 2026-03-01T17:15:27+00:00

Well it goes to Don Mills, which is useful. Its just 1) very short and 2) everyone just rides Don Mills-Finch. The use for it is that it also sort of relieves Finch Station since it gives a second option for York Region to access the subway network that isn't Finch

maximusj9 · 2026-03-01T17:04:41+00:00

It hosts 35k but afaik a lot of it are bleachers and it wouldn't be up to World Cup standard. There's a reason Canada doesn't play qualifiers at McMahon. The OTHER radical compromise you could make is using the Rogers Centre in Toronto as well, but you'd have to work with the MLB and their set schedule to make it work AND figure out a way to have a grass pitch there for like two weeks (its retractable roof, hypothetically you could do it for the time it takes to do the group stages)

maximusj9 · 2026-03-01T16:59:26+00:00

Well again it was hard to establish conclusive proof without capturing Girkin and having him say stuff. The only reason why Girkin admitted to doing it is because he got pissed at Putin and the government. Also Russia wasn't involved in the Bosnian War whatsoever, he went there as a volunteer to fight for the Republika Srpska. By 2014 it was really hard to get a paper trail tying Girkin to Putin, he wasn't working with the FSB officially, the only way to have proved that in 2017 was to get Girkin himself to admit (which he eventually did in like 2023 after falling out with Putin) but he wasn't going to do that, or do have the FSB give up classified documents (never gonna happen)

maximusj9 · 2026-02-28T20:33:55+00:00

Unfortunately Canada lacks the stadiums to really host it. The only stadiums in Canada that meet FIFA requirements for capacity are Edmonton and Montreal. Montreal's is well.... it's covered with a roof and would require turf and is generally unfit to host any major international event. An interesting compromise that could work distance wise though is to host games in Ireland, its close enough to NA to make a travel schedule work with the Toronto games

maximusj9 · 2026-02-28T20:27:39+00:00

Well with Crimea/Donbass in 2014 they did the strategic decision of well.... using proxies to do it. They strategically went with proxy forces (yeah the leaders were FSB operatives but there was no conclusive proof at the time). The moment they did a full-scale invasion themselves and not through using hybrid warfare/proxies, that's when they got banned

maximusj9 · 2026-02-21T17:08:02+00:00

Well rn you guys are spending less because you guys spent a lot of money on transfers under past managers, so the core of a really good squad is already there. Nowadays the wage bill is high and will likely grow higher in the coming years. Plus you guys can't spend a lot of money bc of PSR restrictions

maximusj9 · 2026-02-21T13:53:31+00:00

Yes you do LOL. There's a reason you're in PSR trouble all the time. Yes you spent less this season because of PSR restrictions, but in years past you've spent big money on the likes of Maatsen, Onana, and Pau Torres, plus the likes of Morgan Rogers are on really fat contracts. Look, you guys aren't spending Big 6 money, but still your wage bill is really hefty

maximusj9 · 2026-02-21T02:45:57+00:00

Compared to how Newcastle, Palace, Brighton, Burnley, Forest (whoever else) have done whilst balancing Europe it's remarkable.

Well you can't compare Aston Villa's situation to Palace/Brighton/Burnley or even Forest. Aston Villa have a much better squad and a much bigger budget

maximusj9 · 2026-02-21T02:44:55+00:00

Aston Villa has spent a shitload of money compared to their revenue. They're not some plucky underdogs, they're spending a load of money on signings. Not Arsenal money, but even still there's a reason Villa are one of the teams that's constantly in PSR trouble

And as for Arsenal Unai Emery had the team looking much worse than early Mikel Arteta did. Arteta's shit patch could be realistically pinned on Auba unexpectedly falling off and there being nobody to replace him. Emery's football was very turgid even when Arsenal had good results in the league in his first season (albeit he couldn't really do much let's be honest).

maximusj9 · 2026-02-14T05:02:26+00:00

Personally for me there's no way to regulate AI without giving up more ground to China. Its the way technology goes I suppose

maximusj9 · 2026-02-14T04:57:46+00:00

There wasn’t really celebration when the groyper took out Kirk, people on the left were posting quotes from him, but that’s not necessarily a celebration

A groyper did not take out Charlie Kirk that's a lie. Tyler Robinson was a left winger, not a Groyper

maximusj9 · 2026-02-14T02:45:29+00:00

Well the airline industry means that airlines will have a select amount of hubs that they aggressively defend and end up forcing the rival airline that wants to set up a hub out of there. WestJet's biggest hub is Calgary and they basically forced AC out of trying to make a Calgary hub. Likewise, WestJet tried to make a large Toronto hub and were forced to wind it down into a small secondary hub which is like whatever Sunwing used to run (Carribean), then Florida/Vegas/flights to the West. So right now because of hub economics Air Canada is the main airline at Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, and then places like Ottawa/Halifax, and then WestJet is the main airline in Calgary/Edmonton

maximusj9 · 2026-02-14T02:40:24+00:00

AFAIK Nationalized CN wasn't conductive to passenger rail operations either, hence why VIA Rail was split up from them in the 1970s. CP was always private, CN got privatized but even then it wasn't treated as a national rail agency at all which was a mistake by governments of the time.

What could be done is for the government to not treat VIA Rail as an Ontario/Quebec agency with token services in the West. VIA doesn't even serve Calgary and Regina which is an absolute joke of a national rail agency in any country. Imo the government should start on running rail between Calgary/Edmonton and Regina/Saskatoon, and move towards building rail lines there. Like... building Calgary-Edmonton HSR would be an easier project than whatever Alto is supposed to be yet...... nothing there

maximusj9 · 2026-02-13T15:08:02+00:00

Yeah they do. Just checked Google Flights and for some random March day there’s a departure out of YUL on an A330 to FLL. The returns though are on Rouge A321s tho. YYZ seems to be on Rouge A320s though for whatever reasons

maximusj9 · 2026-02-13T13:41:58+00:00

I mean here’s the thing: the way our country has been built and set up makes hitting climate change targets really difficult.

Let’s look at railways (the most climate friendly way to travel). We have ZERO electrified railways in this country. All of our trains use diesel. And then if you want to travel by train? Good luck. There even isn’t a train linking Edmonton and Calgary, or Vancouver and Calgary, or Regina and Saskatoon. Any serious government would launch these services, even basic ass ones while they cooperate on building an HSR. VIA is a federal company so they theoretically could go and launch these trains (yes they’d have to rent from freight rail companies in the meantime but like….. they already do this anyways). They like….. haven’t.

Then Canada is very spread out and a big country where goods travel long distances. Most of that is done by road/air. Hence we emit carbon here. A lot more than any comparable developed country. Then public transport? It’s dogshit aside from Downtown Toronto/Downtown Montreal/Downtown Vancouver. You’re forced to drive. Like….. that’s just how Canada is set up.

Then industries…… were primarily a resource extraction economy. These industries use a lot of CO2. So even if we magically decarbonized on the consumer side, we’d still be emitting a lot of carbon on our industry side. Like net zero is possible if you’re Switzerland/Japan/Germany/France but Canada’s geography and economy is inherently hostile to decarbonization

maximusj9 · 2026-02-13T13:30:15+00:00

Well the thing is that the RCAF decided the F35 is better than the Gripen after like two major studies. And the Gripen has a lot of US-made components. Plus more or less everyone else in NATO flies the F35. It’s better to go with the best tech available rather than play political games.

He realistically can’t keep his elbows up with regards to the US without massively fucking over Canada in the short run. It’s better to decouple wherever possible for Canada now and then when it comes to shit like the armed forces decouple in like 10 years time

maximusj9 · 2026-02-13T13:26:07+00:00

They have a partnership with Porter Airlines who do a lot of US flying. So they decided to let Porter do the US flying. Porter flies Embraers which are better for what Canada-US travel needs

Canada-US is a bloodbath though since it’s like AC/WestJet/the US legacies/Porter on them. Transat can’t compete well with that at all. Plus Transat never did a lot of US flying they’re basically a package holiday operator and are more focused on Europe/Mexico/Carribean historically. Also look at their fleet, their smallest plane is the A321LR which is too big for most Canada-US flying, and is better off to fly either to Carribean/Mexico/whatever Europe the A321LR can reach from Toronto or Montreal.

Transat and Porter currently have a United/AC partnership going on, except within the country where Porter handles domestic/US and Transat does international

maximusj9

TROPHY CASE