rkomar

Huh! I didn't know we were talking about Kingston, Ontario. I figured we were talking about some Caribbean park when it was described as a shithole. I went to Queen's in the 80's and early 90's, and I wouldn't have described Richardson stadium as a being that bad. But to be fair, I was usually pretty wasted when I was there, so maybe my aesthetic senses weren't at their highest.

I actually was a nuclear physicist in school and afterwards, and spent a lot of time writing and running Monte Carlo simulations. I don't need any lessons in what they are, or what a Poisson distribution is (although I could use an explanation as to why Poisson distributions might be used here when they are only meant to apply to cases where the probability of something happening is very small). The problem isn't that the predictions of these can change with new results, it's that they can change so much. If Jamaica's chance of qualifying can go from 4% to 8% in two games, what did that 4% really mean? Were we really supposed to believe that Jamaica only had a 1 in 25 chance of qualifying, which is pretty hopeless? We as fans know what we want the numbers to mean, I just question whether they are really what we want them to be.

Thanks, that makes me feel a lot better.

They do say that 'team A is in position x, therefore is most likely to finish position x'. The simulations are based on the teams' current record, and it is expected that the teams will perform the same for the rest of the tournament. A week ago, Jamaica had 1 point after four games and had about 4% chance of qualifying based on the simulations. Two games later, they had 5 points and an 8% chance of qualifying. Clearly, the probability distributions changed greatly in those two games. I think that's Unnamed Trialist's point, the probabilities are not static, but change from game to game. The basic idea of the simulation is fairly bogus. Rerunning the simulations after each round of real results is also "wiping the shit off one's face". In Jamaica's case, the 4% prediction is wiped away and replaced with 8%.

That makes sense. The woman at the counter thought it was about shooting the caps onto the field, but maybe the real reason got lost somewhere in the chain of command from FIFA to counter clerk.

When I was at the Women's World Cup matches at BC Place, you had to open any bottle of pop you bought at the counter and leave the bottle top with them. FIFA were afraid that someone would fire a plastic cap onto the pitch. It's amazing to consider the gulf between FIFA and CONCACAF when it comes to rules about fans endangering players.

It still irks me that Ronaldo now usually refers to Cristiano Ronaldo, taking away fame from Ronaldo Nazario de Lima. The older Ronaldo still deserves to be recognized as one of the great strikers, even if Cristiano has surpassed him. Instead, he has become almost nameless and forgotten. Bah!

I don't know how many times I've heard the "Drake is a jock sniffer" thing on TSN's Overdrive program over the last few years (especially after Raptors games). I suspect that Forrest heard it there and thought it was funny (to be fair, the Overdrive guys are good at making stuff sound funny). Anyway, this take on Drake is nothing new, so I think Forrest shouldn't be too badly scalded over it.

I'm guessing that they do consider Brym a future prospect. Herdman probably has 2026 in mind even during this cycle.

I didn't think the ball was even close to being out. It looked to me like the middle of the ball was over the line the whole time, so I think the linesman had no trouble calling it in. For those who are unclear on it, the same rule applies to all lines on the field. The ball has to be entirely beyond the vertical plane on the outside of the line to be out of the area. If that was the goal line instead of the sideline, it would never have been called a goal. So, I don't think that VAR would have screwed us unless the official didn't know the rules. That said, the linesman could have screwed us on the call, so I guess we were lucky that he didn't.

There is only one English player in the midfield, Spence, and I don't remember her getting much playing time. Cuthbert is Scottish and Ingle is Welsh, but they play wide. Fleming is usually playing in the middle of the park, where Leupolz (German), Harder (Danish) and Ji (Korean) play. I don't think Fleming's lack of playing time has anything to do with her not being English.

I don't know about that. It was her stone-cold penalty takes in the Olympics that got her noticed enough for Ballon d'Or votes. When I watch Fleming sub in for Reiten or Leupolz on Chelsea, I don't notice much improvement in team play. I don't like that she mostly gets subbed on for garbage time at the end of blowouts, but I also recognize that she's still not good enough to permanently replace any of the starters yet. There's probably some plan for her to eventually become a starter, but I don't think that time has arrived yet. She's really good, but she's on a stacked team.

Hoilett wasn't vaccinated. I don't know about Wotherspoon.

It's reminding me of the Ren and Stimpy fart scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roanZ32zduM

I don't think most here are giving Jamaica enough credit for that result. They worked hard to shut down space in their half, leaving our players with little time to make a play. Even out wide, our wingers had to make move after move just to get away a crappy cross. I think it was actually easier attacking Mexico than it was Jamaica. Dunfield mentioned in the first half that the Jamaicans were working too hard to keep up that pace for the whole game, but it turned out that he was wrong about that. We may have had more control in the game, but I think the Jamaicans earned that tie rather than it being us pissing away a win.