Creator, Traveller, and occasional Scrivener
I m on my knees begging, here, FIFA. To recap the first three in this series, the way the 2026 tournament was structured made the third round of the group stage mostly unwatchable, or at least mostly dull. If they structure the next one the same way – or if they follow through on the threat The post World Cup 2026: A Plea to FIFA appeared first on Donald Erik Schneider .
In my last post, I discussed the game play in the recent tournament. It was a lot better than I had expected! As I mentioned there, many commentators have taken the position that this was a great tournament, possibly the greatest ever. This post attempts to establish how wrong those commentators are. The tournament had The post World Cup 2026: Tournament Structure appeared first on Donald Erik…
I ve posted in the past about my World Cup Crew and our travels starting in 2006 somebody has watched every match played, and a handful of individuals have seen almost all of them personally I ve missed a total of maybe a dozen or two over the last quarter century. We re, you know, into The post World Cup 2026: Performance appeared first on Donald Erik Schneider .
I retired recently, so I suddenly have a lot of spare time. It s neat! I like it! And I spent a lot of that spare time during the tournament developing (vibe-coding) a data visualization app to explore some of the hidden dynamics of the cup. It s been a lot of fun. Feel free to go The post World Cup 2026 Methodology appeared first on Donald Erik Schneider .
I attended the US vs. Belgium game in person. The performance was so incredibly bad it s hard to think about calmly, but I d like to offer one observation I haven t seen anywhere else. Starting in September last year, Poch has been using a 4-2-3-1 (on defense, shifting to a back three on attack). Before then, The post The USMNT Catastrophe appeared first on Donald Erik Schneider .
This is about the distribution of talent in the world. It s mostly a story in pictures. The data and images all come from the toy app that I vibe-coded it s pretty fun to click around, feel free to go try it and see what interesting stories you can unearth. Note that I cite all The post Distribution of Talent at the World Cup appeared first on Donald Erik Schneider .
So I had a pretty simple question: how many MLS players are participating in the World Cup? Surely, I muttered to myself, this data must be really easy to find. Nope. So I decided to play with Claude (the Anthropic AI though I still hate using the term intelligence for these Stochastic Plagiarism Engines) The post Where do World Cup Players Play Their Club Soccer? appeared first on Donald Erik…
This weekend the Seattle Sounders will host Sporting Kansas City in the MLS regular season. Most Seattle Sounders fans agree that Andrew Thomas, Jesus Ferreira, Jordan Morris, and eight water bottles could probably beat SKC this year. SKC is really, truly, monumentally bad at the moment. Which is weird. Historically the MLS has enjoyed significant The post The MLS, GAM, and Pro/Rel appeared first…
"Let me explain! No, there is too much. Let me sum up." The post A Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy: The Miami Goon Squad appeared first on Donald Erik Schneider .
yesterday there was joy in the world, but I did not see it clearly yesterday what I saw as fear I recognize today as hope lost replaced today by a fear that is real not for myself though perhaps somewhat for myself I see the tsunami of suffering massing on the horizon and I fear The post November 6, 2024 appeared first on Donald Erik Schneider .