u/akos_beres

Forget about the Fitz and Kelvin talk for a second—where in the world is Jordan Adebayo-Smith?

As the weeks roll on, his complete disappearance from the pitch, contrasted with his constant appearance in official records, is turning into a genuinely quirky mystery.

The guy hasn't made a single matchday squad for the first team or the second team. It’s definitely not an injury issue, because he hasn't touched the medical report all year. But the paper trail proves he’s still here. He was right there on the official roster in March, he was smiling in the official jersey stock photos on Instagram back on February 15th, and the new MLSPA salary release confirms he’s still very much on the books.

So he’s healthy, he’s getting paid, and he’s helping market the kits—but he can't even buy a spot on the bench for MNUFC2, let alone the first team.

At this point, you have to wonder: does he know someone's dirty secrets at the club? What's your theory, wrong answers only!

Includes among other things:

Bag Policy

Prohibited items

Flags and musical instruments allowed and process to clear them

Fan conduct

It should be a nice evening!

Harvey, Gressel. Bongi and Stroud are the noteable absentees

That was a massive result. Pulling off a comeback like that on the road, especially after dropping two in a row, shows some serious grit. When you factor in the schedule—eight games in a month—it’s honestly a miracle they had anything left in the tank, mentally or physically.

I’m really hoping Kelvin finds his way into the Team of the Week. He bounced back from a rough outing against LA in the best way possible. Scoring twice is great, but seeing him play the "right" way was even better—tracking back, defending, and picking his spots instead of trying to 1v1 the entire defense alone. We didn't have much of the ball, so that might have forced some discipline, but he’s definitely keeping up his end of the bargain he made with my son back at Coachella.

Ant is just relentless. This dude simply does not quit. Another goal and an assist today to add to the tally. I’ll have to double-check his total mileage, but he’s been playing 80+ minutes in almost every match this past month. To put up three goals and two assists during a stretch that grueling is world-class.

Loons are 6th in the supporters shield standings and 5th in the west (some results went the loons way last night, Lafc, van, Seattle and San Jose all dropped points ahead of the team)

First, a real thank-you. The last post blew up way more than I ever expected, and reading the comments and DMs has been the most fun I've had with code in a long time. Kickoff started as a hobby project to help me figure out my own ticket-buying decisions — I genuinely didn't think anyone outside of a friend or two would care. Watching people actually use the data to plan their World Cup trips, share their own match-by-match portfolios, and ask smart questions about specific games has been wild, and a little surreal. I'm honestly stumped by the response. So thank you, sincerely.

For new readers: I built a browser extension called Kickoff that snapshots every match's seatmap on the official FIFA resale marketplace, once a day. No inside data — just what anyone with the extension installed can see.

Eight days ago FIFA dropped a new wave of tickets on the primary site. We don't track the primary side, but the marketplace lit up almost immediately as buyers piled in to flip. Here's what the past 8 days look like.

TL;DR: Tournament-wide listings up +27%, but the wave landed unevenly. Speculators flooded cheap group games and got stuck holding. Some of the R32 round games down. The Final softened for the first time. M86 Argentina-in-Miami didn't move. And on the same day the Final dipped under $10,000 for the first time, somebody listed a Cat 3 Final ticket for $11.5M.

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What moved (general)

1. FIFA released a lot of tickets, and the marketplace got flooded

Across the tournament, listings jumped from ~169,000 to ~215,000 in 8 days — a 27% increase in supply, and almost every match saw new inventory. Some matches got hit hard, some barely moved. The size of the wave on each match — and how prices reacted to it — tells the rest of the story.

2. Speculators went after the cheap matches; marquee holders didn't budge

The biggest absolute supply gainers weren't the marquee tickets. They were:

• Jordan vs Algeria: +1,155 new listings
• Austria vs Jordan: +1,017
• Australia vs Türkiye: +1,015
• Argentina vs Algeria: +959

Already-deep group-stage markets that nobody was struggling to find tickets for. Meanwhile M86 (Argentina R32 Miami) gained only +144 new listings, and the Final got +94.

The pattern: low-priced matches → low buyer commitment → faster flip-to-resale ratio. Speculators bought cheap and listed within days; the people who paid up for the marquee tickets are holding.

3. The R32 round softened, but unevenly

Across non-Canadian R32 matches the average floor drop was about -12%. The biggest clean drop was M80 Atlanta -29% ($805 → $575). But several R32 matches barely moved (M74 Boston 0%, M77 NJ -6%, M81 San Francisco -7%) and two actually rose — M87 Kansas City +16% and M79 Mexico City +3%.

The two Canadian-hosted R32 matches saw bigger drops on paper (M83 Toronto -27%, M85 Vancouver -21%), but Ontario's recent rule capping resale prices around face value pulled those listings off third-party platforms — the drop there is at least partly a regulatory artifact, not pure demand softening.

So R32 weakened, but it's a "few specific matches plus regulatory noise" story rather than a uniform collapse. Buyers still don't have conviction on most R32 slots until the matchups are known.

4. Floors cracked, but medians didn't follow

Across most matches, the floor moved -10 to -20% while the median moved less than 5%. Below-market sellers got absorbed or undercut by the new supply, but the bulk of asking prices didn't budge. The cheap-vs-mid-market gap is widening — usually a sign the market is mid-reset, not done.

What "realistic supply" actually looks like

A reader (thx u/Crottles !) asked a great question on the last post: of all those listings, how many are realistic? I added a filter for it. Turns out only about 24% of the marketplace is "realistic" — within 2× of the match floor (i.e., not someone parking 10× above the cheapest comparable seat). The other 76% are aspirational asks.

Even more interesting: the Apr 22 wave of new listings was overwhelmingly aspirational. Pre-drop, the marketplace had ~44,000 realistic Cat 1-4 listings. After the drop, ~50,000. So while total supply grew about 35% in raw count, realistic supply only grew about 14%. Most of the new sellers showed up not at the floor, but at prices that aren't likely to clear. It's part of why prices haven't fallen further — the part of the market that actually competes for buyers grew only modestly.

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Specific matches

The Final softened — and got more delusional at the same time

M104 floor went $11,500 → $10,349, median $23,000 → $20,519 (-11%) — first real movement on the tournament's most expensive ticket since tracking began. On April 28 the floor briefly dipped to $9,889 — the only sub-$10k moment we've seen.

On the exact same day, a new $11,499,999 listing appeared on a Cat 3 Final ticket (Block 307 Row 22 Seat 12) — the first time that apparent platform-cap price has shown up on the Final itself. Both extremes, same match, same day. Whoever listed at the cap is going to be holding through the actual match.

The two semis diverged sharply

Same round, opposite signals:

• M101 Dallas SF: floor -14% ($3,335 → $2,870) with supply +49% — sellers undercutting
• M102 Atlanta SF: floor rose +17% ($2,300 → $2,697) with supply +50% — buyers absorbing

Atlanta is the only major knockout where the new supply made the floor firmer. Hard to pin down why — maybe Atlanta's potential matchups are more attractive, maybe Dallas oversupplied — but it's a real divergence.

M86 Argentina-in-Miami didn't move

Floor -3%, median completely flat at $4,600 across 8 days of supply pressure. The most resilient marquee slot in the tournament. People holding M86 tickets are clearly betting on the Argentina-in-Miami scenario and refusing to capitulate.

Argentina's group games split three ways

Same superstar, three completely different markets:

• M43 Argentina vs Austria: floor +13% (firming through the drop)
• M19 Argentina vs Algeria: supply +54% with floor cracking
• M70 Jordan vs Argentina: floor -22%

Hidden floor risers that deserve attention

Not everything softened. A handful of matches actually saw floors rise despite supply growing 15-50%:

• Match 22 England-Croatia: floor +9% with +15% supply
• Match 43 Argentina-Austria: +13% with +21% supply
• Match 102 Atlanta SF: +17% with +50% supply

These are the matches buyers are quietly absorbing faster than sellers can list. The opposite of the bearish headline.

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The weird stuff

Someone at M86 has 11 different opinions on what their seats are worth

Two adjacent seats at Argentina-Miami (Block 349, Row 30, seats 8 and 9) have been listed at 11 different prices ranging from $8,375 to $83,824 over the past 10 days — a 10x range. While the rest of M86 has been the most stable marquee match in the tournament (median pinned at $4,600), this single pair has flapped between "reasonable Cat 1" and "completely delusional" almost daily. The seller is throwing darts.

The new cheapest ticket in the entire World Cup is $139

Two adjacent Cat 3 seats at Austria vs Jordan in San Francisco, Block 418 Row 7 — $139 each. Currently the lowest entry point in the tournament, beating the previous low of $144 at Jordan vs Algeria. Both holders almost certainly speculated and want out. If your goal is "I went to a 2026 World Cup match," this is now the cheapest way in.

Deep discounts keep appearing and vanishing within hours

The new supply wave is also generating ghost listings — tickets briefly mis-priced at face value or fire-sale prices, bought instantly before anyone else sees them:

• France vs Senegal (MetLife): three adjacent Cat 3 seats at $53 each appeared on April 28, gone the same day
• Match 91 (Brazil R16 NJ): four adjacent Cat 3 seats at $1,093 each appeared on April 28, gone the same day. A Brazil R16 knockout for under $1,100 a seat

Same pattern as the famous Brazil-Morocco $305 ghost from the last post: a federation-allocated supporter ticket gets mis-listed at face value, and someone paying close attention buys it before anyone else notices.

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A reality check before anyone gets too excited

It's tempting to read "supply up 27%, floors down 15%" and think the market is about to crash. It isn't. Even with this drop, prices are still very high:

• Group-stage floors: $300-$1,500 per seat
• R16 floors: $1,000-$2,500
• QF floors: $1,700-$3,500
• SF floors: $2,700-$3,300
• Final floor: $10,349 (down 10% from peak, still extraordinarily high)

If you're holding out hoping for a 50-60% crash, that's almost certainly not coming. The structural floor is real — fans genuinely want to go, federation allocations are absorbed by real demand, and tournament tickets historically firm up as the event approaches once matchups crystallize. What we're seeing is a reset, not a collapse. Cheap tickets at certain matches are getting cheaper, but the tournament as a whole is still expensive and will probably remain so.

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Data collected with Kickoff, a browser extension that snapshots the FIFA resale marketplace once a day. Happy to dig into specific matches in the comments if I'll find the time.