Get ready to learn Frantzdy Pierrot everyone

You heard it here first, Matt is the naive but kind-hearted GK while Matt is the brooding and douchey GK you can’t help but want to be around.

HBO framing the matt vs. matt goalkeeping battle is fun, i feel like im watching stefan vs. damon in the vampire diaries

🇦🇹 World Cup Preview: Austria

would you believe me if i said last nights "U.S. Against the World" episode features a hole that christian pulisic put into his drywall

Coming to plug this & realizing that via big chances, Norway has converged well to a good record of real wins. I should have spoken to it. But I will stand by my natural caution about the fact that this is the first time any of them have been at a finals tournament. I’m still warier than others:

Don’t really have an interesting comment to add on. It’s France, they are very good & who I would call the most likely to win the 2026 WC:

One fan went to 144 countries to watch soccer. His journey touched all 48 nations who'll be at the 2026 World Cup. This, @theathletic.com, is a story about what he saw and what he learned. "You know what?" he says. "The world’s not as scary as maybe we think it is."

Prepped and ready for Summer Game Fest on Friday.

Livramento landed last year & transformed this team, but I still saw way too many cracks in what I still believe is the worst team at the 2026 tournament:

I probably should have added somewhere into my preview the fact that they’re an insane 29-3-1 on Big Chances. It’s Spain. :

all previews are officially out! They still don't do justice to the amount of time I've watched each team, but they get my main theses across for everybody. I truly love being borderline demented about international soccer, it is the best

pleased to announce my official rooting interests in the 2026 World Cup, as of this timestamp

maybe you’ve heard the rumors, or maybe you noticed the new split layout for chat on desktop. i’ll confirm it: group chats are on the way, and landing pretty soon too. it’s part of our move toward building for communities and closer social connection here.

Roughly 1200 players in the tournament, so around 3.7%. In 2022 MLS had 35 players in a 32 team tournament with only about 830 players, so… 4.2%.

focus, dead mom. ok so i'm dead. but i can still climb that ledge.

Replacing Atreus with a gelatinous cube is the best thing you could have done

It would be no surprise at all to see this year and next breach 1.5C - quite possibly by a significant margin - and never again drop back

See, the difference between men and women is that women can doublejump. That's the power of wife

RuneScape: Dragonwilds launches on PlayStation 5 later in 2026, developer Jagex has announced, marking the first time the RuneScape IP has made the jump from PC to consoles in its 25-year history. https://bit.ly/4u6XjO9

Until Dawn sequel is the first one to get me. LFG

shouldn't it just take, like, one gun to stop wolverine in his tracks

underrated aspect in all this: MLS and USL has contributed to improving other CONCACAF nations with how much young talent is in the pipeline across those teams and that's cool and good imo!

With today's USMNT friendly marking the informal start of Drive-by Media Takes on Soccer from People Who Never Otherwise Think of Soccer season, I urge all of you actual soccer people to really consider whether the take is worth engaging with

For the thousandth time: US National teams should want to be present in CONCACAF to be a part of uplifting the level of all nations here, instead of plotting logistical nightmares to run away from our local countries. The better CONCACAF is, the better the USNTs will be long term

"Much of this comes down to playing in CONCACAF, which by its nature cannot offer the USMNT the biennial participation in meaningful tournaments of their South American and European counterparts." lots of bad in this article but the casual tossing of CONCACAF under the bus is particularly appalling

Look, this pizza is FINE. It's a great pizza for a regional American chain. But this pizza hasn't tested itself against the highest levels of pizza in Europe, so I'm not sure it should represent us in international competition when there are several more qualified pizzas being cooked in Belgium.

44 players in a 48-team tournament from a 30-team league feels kind of low imo. This number genuinely surprised me, I would have guessed 60-70 players

Album cover for a scary seeming band your older sibling listens to and then you finally play the album one day and it’s just ska

The discourse about Pochettino's tactical setup is fascinating to me ("it's a back three!" or "it's a back four!"). Over at @backheeled.com, we had @benwright.bsky.social break down how Poch's USMNT actually sets up. Clarity awaits! ⤵️

Roldan falls into the category of player that you should just not watch at all and evaluate how the team played. If the team was good, he was probably good, if the team was bad, he was probably bad. US absolutely mashed second half.

It's plays like this that have me increasingly eager to see Poch deliver on using Weston McKennie or Malik Tillman "a little deeper" at the World Cup. They'll need more of these combination plays against Paraguay and Australia. The more creative-types on the field, the better.

Nobody’s talking about Belgium because most of The Names have retired, but it’s still a fun side. I don’t think the defense is capable of winning the thing, but they could be a surprise ~semifinalist:

I know that the Spider-Mans and God of Wars take too long to make but they've dismantled a lot of the studios that made the filler games between big hits. Nintendo is like the only place where there's Yoshi and Tomadatchi games between the Marios and Zeldas. I guess Xbox too but they bought all that

How much does it cost to attend the 2026 World Cup? @theathletic.com built an interactive calculator to help you answer. Come explore (for free!): www.nytimes.com/athletic/731...

Tunisia will have 11 players in their own third, basically. The coach left their most technical possessive midfielder at home inexplicably so I’m low on them

Yesterday I saw some online #USMNT squawking about how badly Cristian Roldan played against Senegal. So I did what most any sensible sicko would do, and [re]watched the game. Reports of No. 15's washed-ness have been greatly exaggerated. But there's more to it than that, too

Matthew Lillard criticized the industry for prioritizing celebrities over voice actors in animation: “The ability to carry a film, as the lead of a film with only a voice, is a power very few people have. The idea that they keep hiring crappy celebrities to carry huge films is killing us.”

Some very serious allegations about RSL in this. www.sltrib.com/sports/rsl/2...

Loud and proud 🫶 Wishing you all a happy Pride Month 🏳️‍🌈

It's the end of a (considerably) long era. Go well Premier League legend James Milner, go well. www.fotmob.com/en-GB/news/y...

🇺🇸 World Cup Preview: United States

When it comes to World Cup managers hired in just the past 12 months, I think Graham Potter’s appointment will look the best out of all of them. It’s moving in the right direction & unlike multiple other playoff teams, I’m buying Sweden’s momentum:

Their 2024 AFCON run is up there with Portugal’s 2016 Euro, meaning “how the hell did they stumble into this trophy”. But if that’s what they can do playing poorly, imagine the damage Côte d’Ivoire can do if they’re clicking. And they’re already better than 2 years ago:

Another CONCACAF team padded a bit from Nations League B. They will commit to “good soccer” & try to play with the ball, but that’s likely to their detriment with the talent gap they’re facing:

Nobody is talking about Germany as a serious contender; they are one. My belief in Nagelsmann & the federation’s commitment to letting him see out his vision over many years makes me believe that they are bound for a big summer: