Brazil has more World Cup titles than anyone, five of them to be precise, but after going through five straight tournaments without adding to that count, the team is leaning hard on data this time. 

Every player wears a sensor-packed “smart vest” tracking field position (via GPS), heart rate, and a stat called “player load,” the same kind of numbers that your Whoop band or Apple Watch brags about, but tuned specifically for the sport.

So what exactly do these smart vests track?

The vests sit under the jersey, and Brazil uses them for its men’s, women’s, and youth teams. Every club sends the match or practice data back to the national team on a daily basis. 

That lets sports science chief Guilherme Passos monitor plenty of metrics including sprint speeds, fatigue, and hamstring rehab, not just for the national team, but for players scattered across continents. 

The smart vests stay on during World Cup matches as well, helping decide which player needs rest between games. Here’s the twist, and an interesting one no less. 

Passos once flagged a player covering only around 3.7 miles a match, which is about half what other teammates ran. By the numbers, he looked like a slacker. 

Why did the data almost get one of Brazil’s players benched?

But when coaches reviewed the video footage, they realized that the player, in Passos’s own words, ȧs always in the right spot, in the perfect tactical position (via BBC).

The player’s identity is a secret, for obvious reasons, but it’s the lesson that’s more important here: playing better doesn’t mean running more on the field, and the smartest player on the field can have the most boring smart vest data. 

This isn’t unique to Brazil, though. FIFA cleared GPS vest systems for official matches back in 2015. Most of the 48 teams at this World Cup are using similar setups from companies like Catapult and STATSports, the same brands behind a lot of consumer fitness gear. 

FIFA has leaned further into the data trend this year with Football AI Pro, an assistant built with Lenovo. It uses machine learning to analyze match data and feed instant insights to coaches and players. 

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Last week, I spent most of my time working on Mario Kart World, explaining to others how to unlock its roster of characters, and costumes for them to wear, among guides for other new mechanics. It was while I looked into Dash Foods – those yellow lunch bags with a tasty treat inside that have the possibility of unlocking a new costume – that I had a particularly damning realisation.

These Dash Foods, which range from bottles of milk to burgers to meals as outlandish as the Prehistoric Feast, can be picked up from various food stalls across the open-world map. Sometimes, you’ll even pick them up from the back of a food truck or van, or may even find them laying on the side of the road. This only raised more questions for me later.

The main question at hand is where exactly do these Dash Foods come from? Now, we know Peach and Daisy seem to have their own bakery – Royal Patisserie Desserts – which produces all kinds of baked goods, but head over to Cheep Cheep Beach, and sushi is on the menu. Immediately, my mind imagined the worst: all those Cheep Cheeps I’ve crashed into and called every name under the sun… they’re meeting a fate much worse than 2nd place.

Head on over to Mario Bros. Circuit and burgers are being served. We all know that your average burger comes from a cow, and guess which track is just a short drive away? Moo Moo Meadows. It’s getting worse.

While I have always had my suspicions that Moo Moo Meadows wasn’t the idyllic petting farm I’d once imagined it to be – after all, it’s clear as day now that Mario Kart World’s characters are not vegetarian – I didn’t quite expect the Meadows’ beloved cows to also be getting turned into burgers once myself and my friends crash into them repeatedly. I mean, there’s still every chance these are Yoshi burgers, and honestly, that might be even harder to come to terms with.

Let’s not forget that the iconic Moo Moo Meadows’ Cow is now among the character roster in Mario Kart World, as well as Cheep Cheep. Does this mean that cannibalism is also widely accepted in the Mario Kart universe? Is the lava moat surrounding Bowser’s Castle part of the Kingdom’s corpse disposal plan? Is Toad’s Factory actually being used for the production of Dash Foods as well as item boxes now? That would definitely explain all of the factory’s contraptions that are intent on squishing you and your fellow racers…

As well as burgers and sushi (and fish and chips!), there’s shish kebabs made of meat, veggies, and mushrooms, suggesting that Toads, Toadettes, and Goombas everywhere may not even be safe. Though, I’ll give the kebab vendors the benefit of the doubt mushroom-wise, as their mushrooms look a lot like they’ve been stolen from an item box rather than plucked from a Toad. Though, Mario Kart World’s crimes against its own characters don’t stop there.

My final concerning observation was the Prehistoric Roast served over at Dino Dino Jungle and Far Away Oasis. Composed of a huge meat joint, vegetables, and an egg, my first thought was that Moo Moo Meadows’ cows are being put through the worst of it. If they’re being shipped off in World’s trucks and vans, then that would explain the rogue lunch bags found around the map or on the back of trucks, but then it hit me.

Yoshi is no stranger to Mario’s antics. He’s been punched and jumped on for as long as most Mario fans can remember. Yoshi has even been thrown to his death – multiple times – by his ‘friend’. Are Yoshis being used for food supplies? Is it these small dinosaurs that are being served in Prehistoric Roasts? Is this how the Mushroom Kingdom is trying to make a stand against Yoshi’s years of tax fraud?

I don’t know. What I do know is that Mario Kart World isn’t as hunkydory as it first seems, that’s for sure. And at least Luigi’s cream isn’t involved.

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