u/bewaterlife

I may be a minority here, but any fellow American expats that supports the USA soccer team want to watch some wolrd cup games together in HK?

Let's just start with I wish nothing but the best for the USMNT team -- but I am a realistic fan. Soccer was my favorite spectator sports growing up and I even dabbled playing 2 years of high school soccer. I have watched a ton of soccer/football since the 90s and played soccer video games obsessively. I went to the 2014 World Cup to see USMNT games. I have been dreaming about how these home games could the coming out party of US soccer, and with a good result, propelling popularity of soccer as a sports to new heights in U.S. culture and therfore the continued growth of the strength of the U.S. team.

But, things just having been trending the right way, and for a while now:

• Sub-optimal 2025 performances in competitive matches (other than the friendlies at the end of the year).
• Not the most talented pool at GK, possible the most important position to make a cinderella run. The best case would have been Matt Turner acheiving tremedous success in Europe. Intead, he's a shell of what we hope he could become.
• Poor CB selection outside of Chris Richards. Again a solid defense is foundational to a ciderella run. It's so bad that we have to take Tim Ream with his slow place as a potential starter.
• Pulisic, our best player, while a top-tier player, never broke into the highest-tier (best XI) of players in his career. It was great that he was in top form towards the end of 2025, now he's in shit form in 2026.
• Tyler Adams getting hurt and missing the March window. Not sure if he's in best form or will have the top chemistry with team.
• Johhny Cardoso, despite all his talents, never played well for USMNT and now is hurt and out of the WC. It's sad because talent-wise we can definitely use a Aletico Madrid/Champions League semi-final DMF starter (and I held out hope that he'd evetually find his place with and perform well for USMNT).
• Jedi back, but probably still not in the best form he could be in.
• Dest just back from injury, not in top form.
• Gio Reyna, who some of us can tured into Pulisic 1A (in terms of impact) never fulfilled his potential and is often hurt -- never florished and can't get playing time on even a mid-level German team -- to the point it is a controversy as to whether to include him or not.
• Yunnus Musah, who was so promising in 2022, completlely fell off.
• Augmyeung getting hurt -- not super critical, but he'd be a nice chess piece to bring something different off the bench.
• Not promising March friendly window performance.
• FIFA and its stupid money-grabbing tickets scheme.
• Not football related: a new war in Middle East certainly dampens the mood (and increases oil prices for everyone traveling)

Bright Spots:

• McKennie is in the form of his life and is talented.

Mild bright spots:

• Rise of Alex Freeman -- but his is not fully proven yet.
• Balogun/Pepi are in form -- but they are not highest-tier but I hope they can be serviceable.
• Tessman/Weah looks sericeable.

We will do okay, but it does not feel like the dream case where all our pieces are peaking together at the same time and out perform expectation on paper, potentially making the outcome the greater of the sum of its parts. With a relatively thin talent pool compared to that of the big soccer nations, we always needed the stars to align in order to make history happen. Honestly, I have not gotten the feeling that "things are coming together".

Let's hope things turn better.

I have a 2017 APS-C DSLR and am transitioning to mirorless system. After months of research, I finally pulled the trigger on the s9 despite its flaws (no EVF, no hot shoe, plasticy built) because it meets my pain point (compact, LUTs allow SOOC and Full Frame).

This is a dad/EDC cam. I know L10 is M43 but it seems like it does resonably well in low-light. And don't need open gate. I guess I can still have better Bokeh but that's about it. I am experiencing serious Buyers's remorse.

On the other hand, I have to keep telling myself I chose the S9 because I need to find out if Full Frame is really all that cracked out to be myself (it's reason why didn't pick Fujifilm (in addition to mediocre AF performance).

May be some happy s9 users can brighten my mood.

Finally decided to upgrade from my DSLR set up. I just held a s9 in a store. The backwheel was fine but I know i will either set shutter or aperture to it. It seems like a lot of operations depend on the wheel too since there aren't that many buttons.

More than one reviewer has reported this problem. It seems like it could be the single point of failure and it's making me hesitant.

Not sure if the community rule allows this but I don't know where else to post this. Ex-pat working in HK looking for a solid group of American fans to watch the Wolrd Cup USA games together. Message me if you know of a group or are interested in forming one.