So near on my first go. Downhill from now.

marclamberts.medium.com/data-is-alwa... Great article by Marc. Outputs in models depend on inputs.

Data is always biased: Creating metrics from event data

In sports media, and football in particular, statistics and data are often represented as fact. As undeniable facts which we can’t argue…

marclamberts.medium.com

I am too cowardly to talk about it in anything but vague terms but a football club doing so much business with a single advisor is surely not healthy

Every day in football I am astounded by wage demands. I think wage caps are required, not because I believe that players should not earn to their full potential, but because the current system puts clubs at existential risk. Most clubs are losing €3-30m before player trading.

Working in football clubs is generally just waiting for a WhatsApp message that ruins your working day. Could be a collapsed deal, an injury, a massive unexpected expense, or an unwelcome transfer offer. It normally happens whenever you think preparations for the season are going pretty well.

I was delighted Argentina won last time. And happy they didn't win this time. Well done Spain, just a very, very good team. Not memorable but exceptional at preventing opponents from creating anything.

Lol wut

Gooooooollllll

Being "passionate" seems to give you the freedom to act like a complete twat

Merino would have scored that

Not sure what was wrong with that goal?

Popular red card

We were spoiled in 2022. The World Cup finals since the first I saw (1990) have mostly been this bad.

They should put on a 30 minute football match in the middle of every participating musician's next concert as a punishment.

This puts everything in perspective. Maybe the first half wasn't so bad

Who enjoys this sort of thing at any sporting event? People who don’t like sport.

What this finely poised football game needs is a 30 minute musical interlude.

This year's scapegoat will be.....Tuchel's substitutions.

That's on Tuchel (maybe kneejerk but I genuinely don't understand the subs)

Just keep adding defenders until the opposition score

Dirty. Not a great advertisement for football.

Well done Spain. Effective as anything.

I don't think commentators should be saying "their first final since 2010" or "their first semi final since 2018"

I absolutely love seeing a crying child at a football match.

A goalkeeper is the position where the default pundit opinion is you should save every shot cleanly, claim every cross and pass through a press without error. If every top keeper in the world is said to frequently be making errors maybe we just need to recognise that we assess it too harshly.

Literally none of the post game chatter here on ITV has mentioned the game being played in a furnace - which may have affected a lot of what happened - at direct odds with all the altitude chat from the Mexico game

Again, the exact wording is: "Any player covering their mouth in a ***confrontational situation*** with an opponent may be sanctioned with a red card" I truly do not understand why this is so hard for people.

David Gass@empiregass.bsky.social · 4w ago

Pickford covered his mouth?

You tell him Tuchel.

That Walker's advert is by far the most annoying .

Regular reminder that all games should go straight to penalties without extra time