World Cup 2026

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

Of course a Patriots fan would propose a schedule change that mandates both games against Miami fall within the last six weeks of the year meaning no games in theat. 

That was not part of the thought process. 

[Phishfan]

Maybe not consciously but it immediately came to my mind. LWill give you the benefit o doubt.

[Phishfan]

Let's go England.  I'm rooting for anyone against Mexico.

[Downunder Dolphan]

Egypt scores for a second time!  To tie the score 1-1.

Too good for us.

Again we went in way too defensive again... I really don't know why we went away from what worked against Türkiye in the first game.

There has been such great attacking football in many games in this tournament, particularly from France, Spain, Morocco, Columbia, England and the USA. It seems bizarre that we go in with such a young team, and don't back their skills after winning the first game.

Anyway, as I mentioned, this is a stepping stone for this team who will hopefully be much better in four years with this experience, and with some luck, the core winding up in much better international teams in the interval. Plus a better Coaching team. 

[Pappy13]

Was shocked to see that FIFA decided to suspend the implementation of the 1 game ban for a red card. Even though I think most agree that the red card wasn't deserved, it's still pretty ballsy for FIFA to suspend the implementation of the 1 game ban. It's still possible for FIFA to reverse the decision as Belgium has been given the right to appeal the decision, but I think it would look even worse for FIFA to reverse themselves.

Belgium set to apppeal as FIFA reverses Balogun's World Cup Suspension

This decision could impact further rules changes. For those of you not familiar with the incident, Balogun was given a red card after a VAR review in which they slowed down the video. VAR was not initially designed to be used to determine red cards and slowing down the video to review it was not supposed to happen either. I imagine those 2 things helped with suspending the 1 game ban and I think there very well could be some changes to the use of VAR and handing out red cards. VAR and slow-motion is great for determining things like offsides, touchlines and goal/no goal etc, but we don't need it to try to prove intent for red cards. Just like the NFL, video review has started to become a bit abused in my opinion, I think FIFA would like to limit how/when it's used.

Below is a different point of view, but I think he's missing the fact there were questions surrounding how VAR was used and he's basically saying that the US was "gifted" this decision maybe being a host country, which I'm not entirely sure that's accurate. In my humble opinion the VAR review was flawed and led to a flawed red card being given which FIFA has now tried to correct. It's messy, but it might lead to better governance around the use of VAR which I feel would be an improvement to the sport.

Nobody benefits from FIFA letting Balogun off the hook

[Sibster]

Was shocked to see that FIFA decided to suspend the implementation of the 1 game ban for a red card. Even though I think most agree that the red card wasn't deserved, it's still pretty ballsy for FIFA to suspend the implementation of the 1 game ban. It's still possible for FIFA to reverse the decision as Belgium has been given the right to appeal the decision, but I think it would look even worse for FIFA to reverse themselves.

Belgium set to apppeal as FIFA reverses Balogun's World Cup Suspension

This decision could impact further rules changes. For those of you not familiar with the incident, Balogun was given a red card after a VAR review in which they slowed down the video. VAR was not initially designed to be used to determine red cards and slowing down the video to review it was not supposed to happen either. I imagine those 2 things helped with suspending the 1 game ban and I think there very well could be some changes to the use of VAR and handing out red cards. VAR and slow-motion is great for determining things like offsides, touchlines and goal/no goal etc, we don't need it to determine cards. Just like the NFL, video review has started to become a bit overused in my opinion, I think FIFA would like to limit how/when it's used.

Below is a different point of view, but I think he's missing the fact there were questions surrounding how VAR was used and he's basically saying that the US was "gifted" this decision maybe being a host country, which I'm not entirely sure that's accurate. In my humble opinion the VAR review was flawed and led to a flawed red card being given which FIFA has now tried to correct. It's messy, but it might lead to better governance around the use of VAR which I feel would be an improvement to the sport.

Nobody benefits from FIFA letting Balogun off the hook

This is like the NFL admitting a penalty was called incorrectly. 

[Pappy13]

This is like the NFL admitting a penalty was called incorrectly.  

It's similar and yet in some ways even more than that. How many times have we been disappointed when the NFL says they missed a call, but there's nothing that can be done about it now that the game has ended. Well in this case something can be done about it. The red card in the game forced the USMNT to play with 10 men the remainder of the game. Nothing can be done about that and fortunately for the USMNT they still won but the resulting 1 game suspension was the icing on the cake. FIFA took a look and said, I think we messed up. We can't change the game, but we can suspend the resulting 1 game ban. It's actually pretty cool in my opinion they did that, but not everyone agrees. It's a unique situation.

[Dave Gray]

I don't watch enough soccer to have an opinion on what is a red card vs a yellow vs a common foul.

I was at a bar with a bunch of international soccer fans rooting for the US and the consensus there seemed to be that the card was legit, though unfortunate.

[Pappy13]

I don't watch enough soccer to have an opinion on what is a red card vs a yellow vs a common foul.

I was at a bar with a bunch of international soccer fans rooting for the US and the consensus there seemed to be that the card was legit, though unfortunate.

In my humble opinion they are wrong and their description that it was unfortunate gives it away. A red card is given for intentional or dangerous play, it was neither. It was an accident, but that's all it was. If a yellow would have been given, no one would have batted an eye but you can't use VAR to review a yellow card. Since they used VAR essentially the ref is forced into a decision, either give a red card or simply give the foul call on the field, but the mistake the ref made was looking at the severity of the injury and trying to imply that because it looked severe that means it's a red. The severity of the injury is not really the factor here, it's intent. There was no intent to hurt. It wasn't a dangerous challenge, it was purely accidental. There have been far worse infractions that went without red cards in the world cup (Messi comes to mind, but no one was really injured on that play). This isn't hockey, whether or not the challenge results in an injury is not the deciding factor. No red card should have been the call.

And that doesn't even go into the fact they only used slow-motion to replay it which makes it looks worse than it really was which is not to be used to determine red cards.

That's just my opinion, but that opinion has been backed up by several former and current players and even a professional ref and obviously FIFA agrees.

[Dave Gray]

In my humble opinion they are wrong and their description that it was unfortunate gives it away.

They thought it was unfortunate because they were rooting for the US.

[Pappy13]

They thought it was unfortunate because they were rooting for the US.

Oh gotcha. The foul was indeed unfortunate which is why it's not a red card.

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

I honestly don't know if a red call was deserved or not. 

I do know that there is something fishy about FIFA changing it after a phone call from Trump. 

[Dave Gray]

The concept of a red card is like nothing in American sports.

It's so severe of a penalty.  The concept of a team playing down a man is already kind of weird (hockey does it), but to do it for the whole game is crazy.  And then to have to be suspended for the next game is also crazy.

It's just such a huge swing between "no foul" and "your team has to play the rest of the game one player short + you get an additional game suspension".  Wild.

[Pappy13]

I honestly don't know if a red call was deserved or not.  

I do know that there is something fishy about FIFA changing it after a phone call from Trump.  

Well there was already precedent set in this World Cup. FIFA suspended Ronaldo's 3 game red card ban in the World Cup Qualifiers and allowed him to only sit for 1 game prior to the World Cup starting so very similar. The question then is what if it's not a star player or perhaps a host country? I think that's a reach, but I could be wrong.

Europe is furious over Balogun reprieve but FIFA...

[Sibster]

It's similar and yet in some ways even more than that. How many times have we been disappointed when the NFL says they missed a call, but there's nothing that can be done about it now that the game has ended. Well in this case something can be done about it. The red card in the game forced the USMNT to play with 10 men the remainder of the game. Nothing can be done about that and fortunately for the USMNT they still won but the resulting 1 game suspension was the icing on the cake. FIFA took a look and said, I think we messed up. We can't change the game, but we can rescind the resulting 1 game suspension. It's actually pretty cool in my opinion they did that, but not everyone agrees. It's a unique situation.

So then it would be like an NBA player being suspended for a game because he was called for too many flagrant fouls, but then they look at the tape of the last game and determine that one of the fouls was just a regular foul and not flagrant.   So they tell him he is not suspended.  It can happen.