If they should have never given him a red card in the first place, I don’t see the issue. Perhaps it’s having more of basketball and American football brain but officials’ rulings get overturned in sports all the time when they fuck up and make errors. I hate it’s becoming a politicized thing where the fucking president of all people can spin this into being a victory for him but ultimately, as dorf said above, balogun being able to play is the “correct” result so I’m not going to split hairs over it.
Also words have meaning lol, I don’t think the governing body (corrupt yes but still the governing body) ruling him as eligible before the game and him playing after that is “cheating.” Cheating would be the usmnt saying fuck your ruling and trying to play him come game time if the red card didn’t get overturned. That isn’t what is happening.
I feel you. But there is so much room for interpretation in football, this opens just the door for endless discussions, and if the rule is “I don’t think the red card is correct”, it’s a never ending story and just hypocritical to use it now, on your own World Cup, with your best player. It’s ridiculous, still. But agree to disagree, I feel your point too, that’s just not how it works.
I love when people who admit they barely watch the sport try and tell people who watch it lots that actually, they’re wrong.
Forgive me for being a dumb American but it’s just silly you can miss a single elimination game for a borderline call in the previous game without there being any kind of appeal process. I’d feel soo different if it were a no doubter and/or if there were a process for reviewing it.
Balogun probably shouldn't have gotten a red, but he WAS given a red, and there's no appeals process in the World Cup as of right now, so you get what you get, but it just so happens that the starting striker and one of the best players of one of the host nations gets his red card suspended (not revoked!) in time to let him finish out the rest of the World Cup? It stinks something nasty I'm afraid. Sometimes the refs are just ass and you have to deal with it. It sucks, but that's how the World Cup CURRENTLY is. You shouldn't be changing the rules mid-tournament. What's the point of a rule if it doesn't matter? I think the US probably would have beaten Belgium without Balogun anyway, so if he plays tonight it just sticks a big nasty asterisk on the rest of what was otherwise a pretty great US run, which I think is a massive shame. The best outcome here is the US don't play Balogun at all, but I think we all know that won't happen, so it's just really unfortunate. For what it's worth, I think there SHOULD be an appeals process, because this is the kind of card where it's like, it didn't have to be given, right? But there ISN'T an appeals process now. That's the key part. It's unfair that a team benefits from something that no one else seems to have access to just because (it seems) they're the host nation, and said host nations government (seems to have) put pressure on them.
There absolutely should be some form of appeals process. Everyone is agreed on that. Your president phoning FIFA to complain isn’t how it should work lol.
I love how other countries think Americans just can’t comprehend a sport lol it’s not rocket science and this isn’t breaking down tactics or anything complicated
I'm still not convinced Balogun objectively shouldn't have been sent off. I mean: It might be an accident and I feel for the guy but its not crazy that tackles like this do usually end in reds lol.
Hi! It’s me, American fan who would definitely not like anyone on the American side pulling a favor with a corrupt multi-billion dollar non profit organization to overturn the call. Sometimes, bad calls happen and ya have to deal with it and over come. Not leverage your contacts to get preferential treatment.
There are plenty of Americans who frequent these threads. It’s not nationality based, it’s knowledge. I watch like three NFL games a year, I don’t go around acting like I know the rules better then people who watch like 100+ games a year.
Yeah, for sure. But what is being debated isn’t even the actual foul. From what I’ve seen, almost everyone agrees it wasn’t worthy of a red. What’s being debated doesn’t really require ball knowledge imo.
No disagreement. And that’s why arguing this is a dead end for the most part. The vast majority of US fans don’t like it taking a government thumb on the scale to get this outcome let alone it being Trump who did it. And a good number of the non US people deriding the pause agree that it probably shouldn’t have been a red in the first place. So we’re really arguing over whether bad outcome is worse than bad process which is boring and obviously the US fans are going to be biased. (That said I stand by the idea that I’d be fine w this outcome if we were talking Kane or Dembele or some other player of importance to a team I don’t have rooting interest in.) I have more energy for the “actually it was a pretty legit red” argument, that at least feels like a bigger difference of opinion.
Hi! It’s me, the person who didn’t realize the morally correct response to a bullshit decision was to quietly accept it because “sometimes bad calls happen.” Very brave. Very principled. FIFA thanks you for your service.
One thing we can all agree on, is thank fuck there’s a game and we don’t have to speak about this anymore
Fingers crossed Your example isn't cheating either, it's playing an ineligible player and is punishable by loss in the rules. It would be absolute stupidity to do that.