Michael Caley

@michaelcaley.bsky.social

16374 Followers 677 Following

I write the Expecting Goals newsletter (expectinggoals.com) and I'm gonna try to bring soccer analytics to bluesky. Let's see if it works. He/him.

Also...this seems quite limiting for the US? Iran has thousands of bridges and dozens of power plants. It only needs to attack a ship every once and a while to keep the strait closed. Trump is trying to escalate BUT is also striving to keep things proportional, at least outwardly so.
But the detente faded quickly. In 2022, the Brooklyn Democratic Party suffered bruising defeats in state elections, ceding ground to Republicans in the state legislature in South Brooklyn. Bichotte Hermelyn narrowly held onto power that year, facing criticism that the county party was asleep at the wheel. But by 2024, even as Republicans gained more ground in Southern Brooklyn, Bichotte Hermelyn widened her support. Her critics said she did so, in part, by using the party’s funds to fend off district leader challengers within the Democratic Party who might have voted against her, Hell Gate reported at the time. She even admitted to the New York Post that she had a hand in getting a Democratic Assembly candidate thrown off the ballot, clearing the way for Republican Lester Chang to run unopposed in the 49th Assembly District.
Now that this coalition controls a majority of the party’s Executive Committee, with this announcement Brooklyn Can’t Wait begins the process of transitioning the party to new leadership and a new vision of its future. All District Leaders in the coalition signed on to the BCW pledge, a vision for reforming the Brooklyn Democratic Party. This pledge includes commitments to end the failed structure of “bossism” in the Party, to bring transparency and oversight to its finances and its political actions, and to build its capacity by reviving the long-dormant committee structure and empowering both District Leaders and the general membership of the County Committee to take on leadership roles. All previous Chairs have effectively selected and anointed their successors, who subsequently ran the party as they saw fit. No more. The Brooklyn Can’t Wait campaign has always been a big tent, and the coalition looks forward to bringing this inclusive vision to the party itself. The new majority of District Leaders includes longstanding reform champions from Central Brooklyn, left-wing organizers from North Brooklyn, and candidates in southern Brooklyn on the front lines of the fight against Republicans in swing districts. Democratic voters have chosen Brooklyn Can’t Wait candidates in elections across the borough because the need for a strong and effective party that acts with integrity goes beyond any factional disputes. They recognized that corruption is not inevitable in Brooklyn, and they voted for a vision that all wings of this party can come together to build a new Brooklyn Democratic Party.
scene from Justified with Raylan Givens quote "You run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. You run into assholes all day, you're the asshole."
If you work in analytics, eventually you will be asked about Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. Who do you think is better? Who is the greatest of all time? And people will often be surprised that analysts don’t hem and haw, don’t talk about all the complex, dynamic, still-unanswered questions about how the game works, but instead respond quickly, “oh, it’s Messi.” In this newsletter I plan to explain why there is an effective consensus within the analytics community on Messi–Ronaldo, but in some ways I think the question of why a consensus exists is the more important one.1
The RBFA said it had learned of the change in Balogun’s circumstances through media reports and written to FIFA to request a full explanation of “the process” and “applicable regulations”. “As its only response, FIFA sent a letter to the RBFA stating that it considered this correspondence to constitute an appeal, that a judge had been appointed, and that the RBFA had only a few hours to complete that appeal. No information whatsoever was provided by FIFA,” the RBFA statement continued. “For an appeal to be admissible, FIFA’s own regulations state that the reasoned decision must first have been communicated to the appellant. While the RBFA was merely seeking legitimate explanations, FIFA itself created an appeal and immediately ensured that it would be declared inadmissible. “All of this occurred while FIFA simultaneously refused to respond to the RBFA’s legitimate requests … To be clear, as of this moment, the RBFA has still not received any decision or any explanation from FIFA regarding this matter. It therefore has no alternative but to challenge the player’s eligibility for the upcoming match.”
The Invisible Goals Let's start with the invisible goals, like the one in Italy's 1-0 victory over Ireland last Saturday in a delightful quarterfinal game. TNT missed the live coverage of the goal because it was in a commercial break. Even though there are no clock stoppages in soccer, TNT breaks five times each half for at least a minute every time. It is irritating enough when TNT shows paid advertising. It is maddening when TNT adds promotions for other shows on this and other Turner stations: old movies, sitcom reruns, wrestling and Atlanta Braves baseball. Even worse was when TNT missed another goal last Tuesday during the Italy-Argentina semifinal. This time, TNT was showing neither an ad nor a promotion for an Elvis movie. It was showing a picture of the World Cup trophy. Watching the World Cup on TNT is like sitting behind a post at a baseball game.
But I think there’s more to the relationship of fans and boredom than just magic moments. I want you to like soccer if you don’t already, so I probably shouldn’t admit this. But the game gets in your head. Following soccer is like being in love with someone who’s (a) gorgeous, (b) fascinating, (c) possibly quite evil, and (d) only occasionally aware of your existence.5 There’s a continuous low-grade suffering that becomes a sort of addiction in its own right.6 You spend all your time hoping they’ll notice you, and they never do, and that unfulfilled hope feels like your only connection to them. And then one day they look your way, and it’s just, pow. And probably they just want help moving, and maybe they call you Josie instead of Julie, but still. It keeps you going. And as irrational as it sounds, you wouldn’t trade this state of being for a life of quiet contentment with someone else. All you could gain would be peace of mind, and you’d lose that moment when the object of your fixation looked at you and you couldn’t feel your face. Soccer is, in other words, both romantic and tragic, and the soft agony of a bad game is an inescapable part of this. You spend all your time hoping something will happen, and it never does. You get a surge of adrenaline every time the ball flies anywhere near the goal,7 and you’re always disappointed. But then, every once in a while, James McFadden will score from 30 yards at the Parc des Princes to give Scotland an impossible 1-0 lead over France, and a ponderous game will go all kinds of nervous-breakdown crazy. And for fans it’s practically an out-of-body experience — not just because it was a great play, but because it was so unlikely that this match could have been graced with a great play to begin with.