Folarin Balogun is the striker and one of the best players on the U.S. Men's National Team that until last week, competed in the World Cup Soccer Tournament, the most important sporting event in the world, bar none.
Playing against Bosnia-Herzegovina in a do or die match on July 1, the winner of which would advance to the next round, in the 64th minute of the game, Balogun received a red card for a foul he committed against Bosnian defender Tarik Muharemovic.
In going for the ball deep in Bosnia-Herzegovina territory, Balogun landed on Muharemovic's ankle causing it to turn over awkwardly. There was no initial whistle to stop the play but the VAR, (Video Assisted Referee), an official watching the game in the press box whose job is to look for fouls that the field referee misses, caught the infraction and halted play. In turn, the on-field ref shuffled off to the sideline where he reviewed the play from multiple angles and made the final call pulling the dreaded red card out of his pocket.
In soccer, a red card results in a player being ejected and his spot unfilled, meaning his team plays one man short like a penalty in ice hockey, except that in soccer, the penalty extends for the rest of the game. In addition, the offending player receives a one game suspension for the following match.
Obviously, this is a stiff punishment reserved for actions deemed intentional or bad enough to cause serious injury, as opposed to injuries typical to soccer, that cause a player to roll around in agony until he realizes no one is paying attention, at which time he springs himself back into the game as if nothing ever happened.
Having seen replays of the incident many times, to my untrained eye, as the action may have hurt Muharemovic, (he did manage to stay in the game), Balogun's foul did not appear in any way to be intentional.
But what do I know, the referee disagreed and as red cards are not supposed to be challengeable, his is the only opinion that matters.
Well, up until now.
At this late date, I probably don't need to say what happened in the subsequent days when the president of the United States called his BFF the head of FIFA, the international governing body of the game that most of the world knows as football * and asked (I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and go with asked) him to review the call.
The BFF said: "sure thing boss anything you say boss" and quicker than you can say Pelé, Balogun was reinstated and made eligible to play in the USMNT's next game against Belgium, to complete for a spot in the quarter finals. Did I mention the U.S. held on to defeat Bosnia Herzegovina 2-0 in that game?
The whole world cried foul, saying rightfully that neither the POTUS nor any other politician has any business interfering with the outcome or the regulation of a sporting match.
What hardly anyone mentioned is that in successfully reversing a legitimate, if arguable call on the field, the president didn't do anything to help the U.S. men's soccer team, in fact, his actions very likely contributed to their defeat against Belgium and their exit from the World Cup, and may have caused serious repercussions on the international stage for the game of soccer in the United States for years to come.
That's not to take anything away from the Belgian team who going into the game Monday was ranked eight points higher in the ratings than the U.S. team. But like any other sport, ratings don't mean much when the teams come out onto the field. In this game, without the president's interference, the U.S. should have had several advantages going for them. First, it was played in Seattle and the fans in the stands were overwhelmingly on the Americans' side. Second, the questionable nature of the call against Balogun gave the Americans a chip on their shoulder, which is always helpful in sports. Third, Balogun's absence made the U.S. distinct underdogs in this match, another factor that gives a team a little emotional edge going into a game.
On the flip side, soccer is a game that isn't usually determined by one player. There are exceptions of course, players such as Argentina's Lionel Messi or maybe Norway's Erlig Haaland. But Balogun hasn't the brilliant vision of the entire field like Messi, no one has, nor the awesome physical presence of Haaland.
In the game where Balogun received the red card and was forced to the showers, the U.S. up by the slimmest of margins and down by one man, tightened up and played brilliant soccer, not allowing Bosnia-Herzegovina the chance to score. And the cherry on top was a perfect free kick by Malik Tilman which evaded a Bosnian wall of defenders and curved into the top corner of the net to give the U.S. an insurmountable 2-0 lead.
In a tournament filled with mostly ups for the Americans, the team was riding high, winning their division and looking forward to possibly making it into the elite eight in the World Cup for only the second time in history. That victory against Bosnia-Herzegovina, overcoming the adversity of the devasting loss of arguably their best player and having to play thirty minutes short-handed, was certainly their high point of the tournament, the fulfillment of what became the mantra of the team and its fans: "I believe that we will win."
The momentum from that brilliant win should have carried the team into their match against Belgium.
And it did until the president with his phone call, removed the chip off their shoulder and put it on the shoulder of the Belgian team.
Maybe we shouldn't blame the president. After all, his entire life has been defined by people, mostly his father, bailing him out of adversity such as all those times he went bankrupt or the time daddy called a doctor telling him to find an issue, any issue that would excuse his boy from military service. Perhaps he felt that "helping out" the American team was his way of settling the score in some perverse way, or maybe some kind of easy karma.
But as I said, the president didn't do the national team any favors because in sports, adversity can be a good thing.
Here's something I came across on the internet:
Fútbol is not just another sport. Fútbol exposes who you really are when everything is on the line. When the pressure becomes unbearable. When the game turns against you. When nobody believes you can survive.
Look at Cape Verde.
On paper, Cape Verde had absolutely no business pushing Argentina to the brink. They were the Cinderella story. The little country that was supposed to be happy just to be there. They had nothing to lose and every reason in the world to play scared.
But they didn’t.
They dreamed.
They believed.
And most importantly, they went onto that pitch and PLAYED like they believed.
That is how the U.S. National team approached the games they played through the Bosnia-Herzegovina match. They were in fact, albeit to a much lesser extent than Cape Verde, also a Cinderella team in this tournament
But when adversity came, I did not see a team whose belief became stronger. I saw a team that looked defeated. I saw players pouting. I saw frustration. I saw a team acting like the game was already over before the final whistle.
I don't blame the American players one iota for that. Going into Monday's game against Belgium, they knew if by chance they won that game with their star player back in the lineup (which he was), that victory would be tarnished, as would any possible subsequent victory.
And unlikely as it may have been, had they gone on to win the whole enchilada, there would have been in the history books, an asterisk forever placed beside their name.
Perhaps it's a blessing none of that happened. In my comment following the game against Belgium, on Facebook I said simply: "the soccer gods are pleased tonight".
I can't say for sure but I think with the loss of respect that went along with the unfortunate action of the president and the FIFA goon, the American team lost their motivation to win.
I wouldn't say that if the team had played their hearts out as Mexico did in their one goal loss to England last week, by far the best game I've seen in this tournament so far.
The U.S./Belgium game could not have been more different.
Despite another brilliant free kick from Malik Tilman to score the only U.S. goal, the U.S. team's offense was insipid and they made several key defensive blunders throughout the game that would have made the coach of an 8U AYSO ** team cringe. The final score was 4-1, in international soccer terms, a devastating blowout.
Did the American players play to lose that game? No, I don't think so. But sports, especially played at its highest level is a extremely psychological enterprise, and any advantage in that regard, can be the difference between winning and losing.
Or the difference between losing by one goal, and by three as we saw.
Had there been no interference and the U.S. team played like Mexico in their farewell game, leaving both their hearts and their souls on the pitch after a hard played loss, it would have been a fitting end to a magnificent tournament for the Yanks. Granted there would always be people who would claim that the game was "rigged" against them because of a questionable call. But people who truly understand the game, and the nature of all sports that are on the up and up for that matter, know that bad calls are part of the game, some go your way and some don't. And when they don't, you have to play on.
As England did after that game against Mexico when one of their players, defender Jarrell Quansah was sent off with a red card after a hard tackle banning him from the team's next game which was played against Norway yesterday.
Without Quansah, England beat Norway in extra time 2-1 last night. In their infinite wisdom, FIFA has determined that Quansah's foul was serious enough to warrant a two game suspension which means the player won't be available Wednesday either when the Brits have the unenviable task of facing defending champions Argentina and their estimable captain Lionel Messi (who some claim to be the greatest footballer of all time), in the semi final match.
I could be wrong but I didn't hear any stories of King Charles dialing up FIFA and asking that their player be reinstated.
In the spirit of fairness, maybe the POTUS should try his magic again with FIFA to help our old pals the Brits.
I'm sure Argentina would be just fine with that.
*One of the glories of the World Cup is the quadrennial appearance of this John Cleese bit on what else, the glories of the game. In the bit he questions the logic of why we Yanks insist on calling it "soccer" and not "football", which given the way the game is played, would seem to make more sense.
As this is a comedy bit, not intended to be a Ken Burns screed, I assume that Cleese, quite the smart guy in his own right knows the answer. But some internet folks have got their panties (or as the English would say, their knickers) all in a bunch over the fact that Cleese doesn't seem know what he's talking about as "soccer" is actually a British term.
Soccer, or Football (not the American variety) came into being in England in the 1860s. In that era, two games evolved simultaneously, Rugby and Soccer, both of which were generally referred to as Football. To make the distinction between the two, the former was referred to officially as Rugby Football, while the latter was called Association Football.
Those two mouthfuls were eventually shortened to Rugby and Association, and then further given slang terms at the universities where the games were almost exclusively played. In England at the time this meant shortening the word to its root then adding the suffix "er". Hence Rugby became "rugger". For obvious reasons, no, Association did not become "asser" but rather "soccer", using the second syllable of the word rather than the first.
In the twentieth century, rugby remained a game mostly played at university (hence the description "a brutish game played by gentlemen"), while soccer became largely the game of the working class (hence "a gentleman's game played by brutes" by comparison). The terms soccer and football were used pretty much interchangeably in England to describe the same game until the mid twentieth century when the general term "football" began to replace the more preppie term "soccer".
American football was developed in the same decade as the other two sports and since it had nothing to complete with at the outset, the name football stuck, as did the names rugby and soccer to distinguish them from the other sports when they made their way to these shores.
It should be noted that countries with their own version of football such as Australia, South Africa, Ireland and others, also use the term soccer.
Most other countries have stuck with some form of the word football borrowed directly from the English word so for example, in the countries where Spanish is spoken, you have fútbol, not the Spanish translation pelota de pie.
Italy would be a major exception as there, soccer is called calcio, which comes from a much older Florentine game Calcio Fiorentino. Incidentally calcio comes from the verb calcare which means "to kick."
In Germany it's Fußball which conveniently enough is the literal translation of the word while surprisingly in France, there is no attempt to translate or francophone the word, there they call it simply football or on the streets, le foot.
**Eight years and under American Youth Soccer Organization
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