Casual sports observers often wonder why the sport of Soccer has never been successful in the United States. This story is a big picture example of exactly why.
The country of Belgium is filing an appeal with FIFA World Cup organizers to stop the United States from playing the game of soccer with their best players. You just cannot make this stuff up, folks.
Only in the sport of EU soccer can a bureaucratic agency file a parliamentary objection with the intent to force the official bureaucratic agents of the soccer administration, FIFA, to block a team from fielding their best players – because the business of the bureaucracy is more important than sportsmanship.
SEATTLE (AP) — The Belgian soccer federation is demanding explanation from FIFA about a decision to let U.S forward Folarin Balogun play at the World Cup despite getting a red card in his previous game.
Belgium takes on the United States later Monday for a spot in the quarterfinals.
The Belgian federation said it has still not received either “FIFA’s decision or any explanation regarding this matter. In these circumstances, it has no choice but to challenge the player’s eligibility for the upcoming match.” {LINK}
Here comes the really funny part. All the soccer nations continue to be befuddled why soccer has never made progress within the American sport psyche. Think about it.
Soccer is a ‘sport system’ bureaucratically designed to fail when contrast to a brutally honest American perspective on sport.
Soccer succeeding in America is the inverse to Liberty succeeding worldwide.
Soccer is the United Nations of sports.
If soccer ever to succeeds in America, the United States is lost forever!
Love this line. Soccer is boring. If soccer ever to succeeds in America, the United States is lost forever!
“No Scotland, No Party”.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/IttxqFMBa4Q
I am happy that they overturned the suspension, and will root for team USA, but the only reason why soccer is as popular as it is, is because it doesn’t require much to have a game – a ball, a net, and an empty field. It is a poor man’s game, perfectly suited for countries filled with poor men.
But as a spectator sport it leaves much to be desired. 99.9% wasted effort, only 2-3% actual action, hardly any scoring, and a snooze fest as soon as one team gets up a point or two….well at least until the last minute when the goalie leaves the net to up the chance of a score from 0.01% to 0.1%.
Add a shot clock, remove the offside rule and then it might be interesting. Now its a lot like watching golf or (sorry) baseball which I find extremely boring to watch
My recommendation – make the net bigger, or put a size limit on the goalies like they do on jockeys.
Sports successful in the U.S. demands more coordination….we use our hands.
ZZZZZZ
Would like to seecountries have to have players on their teams that are citizens of their country. I want Americans to win for America. I do not consider it a win if not by Proud-to-be-Americans. It is embarrassing and humiliating and demeaning to buy the win.
I think that’s why the winning streak that the Croatians had some years ago was such a sensation: because their team was all Croat players. If memory serves, FIFA responded by rearranging their game schedule to wear them down, resulting in their ultimately losing to France’s team of African mercenaries.
fifa could have just downgraded the red card and said the ref made a mistake..instead they suspended the suspension which only open themselves to more griping from Belgium. The play in question should never have been called a red card. It was a bad VAR.
The foul looked more like getting their feet tangled up and then having gravity and physics take over. Never would’ve been called in real football.
Yes, the BH player attacked from behind and threw his leg around in front of Balogun after he had committed to kick the ball. I think if anyone deserved a penalty it was the BH player for such dangerous play. Thank goodness he was the only one injured.
All the replays deceptively begin only after the leg is already thrown around in front of Balogun. The slow motion replay only shows the point of contact and not which player was being aggressive leading into it.
Like watching paint dry! Wow I am so excited! Is the tournament over yet.? Go Eurowennies!
No worse than baseball. My father used to love it….He could sit in his chair…fall asleep in the second inning, wake up in the 5th, and missed nothing.
Twins fan? lol
What did anyone expect from the European elites. They can’t even beat our Soccer team, so they make up their rules just like they always do in the Goobermint world that predominates in modern Europe. Gutless wonders that rule their fiefdoms like 19th Century plantation owners. When are Europeans going to come in from the fog.
….Or when are the Western European wankers going to just go away….
The officiating of “Soccer” not football is just as corrupt as any sport.
A man receives a red card for accidentally hitting a player on the back of his leg yet players in other games have done the same thing without intervention whatsoever.
Soccer sucks and is boring and should go back to the 3rd world.
There is not a professional team sport one can name where there is not flopping as well as other flagrant “acting” fouls.
Further there is not single sport world wide that does not have its share of bad calls, political calls and political decisions that impact the game.
There is not a single team sport league and association, world wide, that is not; highly political, have its social justice BS and include heaps of corruption. FIFA, NBA, NFL, NCAA all have the same BS on-going.
I have played at the club level, amateur and recreation level.
I have coached amateur Soccer on club and recreational levels. It was rewarding to work with the young people who were part of my teams. I never had a team where all of players and their parents did not return season to season.
I played soccer for over 30 years (yep in the 1960’s and 70’s we actually played soccer for fun before the leagues were even formed), all the way up to hanging on until I was over 50 to enjoy 1-season of recreational (indoor and outdoor) co-ed soccer with my 3 daughters. I even played in the lower division club leagues for the German town teams where i was stationed.
It’s fun, great exercise and worth the experience. Just like any sport you learn to play the sport and ignore the BS.
This article and many of the posters here is spouting BS about a topic which they know nothing about .. and turning a blind eye (as the biblical saying goes) to the same “plank in their own eyes”, which exist in the all the sainted sports inside the US.
Yes, the call made vs the Us was harsh but technically NOT WRONG, if the referee saw the foul he assessed was due to WRECKLESS and DANGEROUS Play … there does not have to be any intent to injure or even commit the foul on the part of the player carded. The analogy would be “stick fouls” called in Hockey … a player is responsible for the motion of his stick no matter if intent to foul or injure existed. In looking at the replays, the referee’s call would be based on that referee’s own interpenetration of the actions he saw, even the replay referee did not see enough evidence to overturn the call.
As for the actions of FIFA in overturning the card …. it happens allot in foreign leagues and even the US Leagues … and there are appeals built into the system for both sides of the issue. Geee just like appeals are made to the NFL, NHL and NBA disciplinary boardso ver referees calls.
AGREE 100% totally against the American ethos.
I’m not a fan of the game, but if the rules (yellow/red card) are part of the fouling process of soccer, then it should apply to everyone. I must admit, I did not personally read about the incident, but it was explained to me by someone who grew up in a country where the game is a religion, and based on the schooling of the game and the yellow/red card policy, I don’t think it is fair that, even a president, should have the ability to interfere with the game rules, even if it wasn’t a fair call. We have unfair calls in every sports game all of the time here in the states. I can understand the anger by other teams where their players received a red card and were forced to sit the next game out. FIFA is a very corrupt organization, but rules are the rules. I am enjoying the YouTube videos of the foreigners enjoying themselves here in the states and discovering how wonderful and patriotic our citizens are. Most of them have mentioned that they were warned against coming here, how dirty, dangerous, and mean Americans are, and they’ve discovered none of that is true. The British, Irish, and Scottish fans are crying out for freedom and it has not gone un-noticed on them how wonderful our patriots are here in America.
I don’t have any context as to how this all started.
It seems an important detail to the story…
Here you go:
https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/49243703/usa-folarin-balogun-red-card-bosnia-herzegovina-world-cup-2026
He get entangled with a player from the other team and the ref decided it was intentional (it didn’t seem to be from video I saw) so issued the red card.
Also, another story I read the other day said this ref is from Brazil and has previously been accused of being a fixer (for betting purposes)… in other words he is a dirty ref.
Yes the players were tangled but the US Player ended up following through to stomp on the ankle of the other player with his cleats …. which can be seen as the outcome of a wreckless and dangerous challenge by the US Player, in the eye of the Referee issuing the card and the replay referees, who did NOT overturn his call, are correct. No nefarious intent on the part of the US player is required to issue the Red Card.
To be fair … the appeal by the US hopefully includes the mitigating factors of the US Player touching the ball first and the Bosnian Player initiating contact after the US Player touched the ball. These factors are often enough to reduce the card to a yellow, if not remove the card completely.
These types of situations are common in every Team Sport one can name that has an appeals process, including US Sports Leagues.
I can understand kicking a player out for the rest of the game because of a serious foul. But banning him from playing in his next game, against a different team?
There is something petty, vindictive and bureaucratic about this. The same mindset as “You vill eat ze bugs.”
All things considered, the presence of the tournament here was the best thing that could have happened for our reputation….European elites hate us and the rank and file public discovered that their media has been lying to them for decades.
I suspect that Trump’s reputation over there has been burnished as well….the Orange Man’s pride for the USA is justified.
(Is the Bosnian player going to have to return his Oscar for his pearl clutching agony performance?)
If you do not like soccer for all of the various reasons stated here, do yourself a favor and watch an NCAA lacrosse game. Don’t watch the pro leagues. In the spring check out Virginia against Notre Dame or Maryland against John’s Hopkins. The game is everything soccer is not.
None of our 9 grandkids play soccer or even like it. Now that was not a choice or even soemthing I thought about until now. It is because, well, their parents are red, white and blue.
Belgium, aren’t they only good for waffles?
Great Waffles.
I tried to watch some of one game. That’s 20 minutes of my life wasted. The most boring thing ever. The crowd gets so bored they make up chants.
When I was in junior high, (before they started calling it middle school), our PE teacher introduced soccer to the class one day. After about 20 minutes, everybody started complaining that it was boring, and the PE teacher mercifully let us do something else, but with the qualification that if we didn’t shape up with taking care of our PE shirts and shorts, he would make us play soccer for the rest of the year.
Initially… I thought I had found something to replace the pompous-assed NFL. I enjoy watching the game though I absolutely do not understand what the “rules” are. I thought maybe they made them, the rules, up as they go. One guy gets knocked down – FOUL. Another guy gets knocked down in the same manner – crickets.
I can’t seem to figure out if they’re running a play. Have a plan to score or they just get lucky someone was there at the right time to kick the ball in the net. It appears to be more of the latter than the former.
Then – guy doesn’t even get touched and he falls down writhing in pain… He briefly opens one eye to see if anyone noticed – nope no one did. He gets up and continues play like absolutely nothing happened. There should, at a minimum, be a flagrant fake foul. Go to the video and if no one even touches you and you fall down cryin’ and screamin’. Get a pink(sissy) card and you have to remove both of your shin pads. Get two pink cards and you have to remove your jockey strap/cup! Yeah… that’d work.
Watching these guy grab their – whatever. Grab their head…. I’m thinkin’ they need to put more pads on and a helmet. Then I think… wait a minute… we already have that.
Never mind… guess I’ll keep searching for an NFL or pro football replacement.