World Cup 2026

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

Heck, pretty much everyone in the futbol world was in agreement with that assessment prior to the decision]

Do you have any evidence to support this?  From what I saw there was some (but not all) in the US who thought it was unfair and almost no one outside the US was calling for the red card to be rescinded.   

[Sibster]

It only works as an analogy if it wasn't the team's GM who filed the appeal but rather a senator or governor. 

There was no appeal. FIFA has a disciplinary committee that looks at stuff at their discretion. They looked at it and ruled. At least that is what FIFA said. The fact that Trump called infantino is not relevant. Whether you believe that or not is up to your own discretion, but I think it's more than plausible given the buzz surrounding the initial red card that the discretionary committee would have ruled on this even without Trump lifting a finger. Let's not give Trump more credit than he deserves.

^^^ When it comes to dishonesty and corruption, it really is impossible to give Trump too much credit...

This is true in exactly the same sense that FIFA "independently and objectively" decided to invent a "FIFA Peace Prize" and give it to Donald Trump, who has been lobbying furiously for a Nobel Peace Prize.

all totally above board, nothing suspicious whatsoever

[masterfins]

I'm not a Futbol guy, but once they reached the knockout stages I've watched a lot of very good games, more than I thought I would.  Once they are playing for elimination there is a lot more intensity.

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

Tommy,

You have no self-control.  You saw the meme today and JUST HAD TO POST IT somewhere.  Never mind, that if you just waited a little while there would eventually be a thread where it made sense. But no, you had to post it in the first thread you could find even though none of the posters are the ones who made the World Cup political, but rather your cult leader.       

[Sibster]

Tommy,

You have no self-control.  You saw the meme today and JUST HAD TO POST IT somewhere.  Never mind, that if you just waited a little while there would eventually be a thread where it made sense. But no, you had to post it in the first thread you could find even though none of the posters are the ones who made the World Cup political, but rather your cult leader.       

First of all, my name is Jeff, not Tommy.  Get your names straight.

Second, and more importantly, it's irritating to see politics spill over into sports discussions.  That's why I don't allow politics in any of the Facebook sports groups I own.   

Now back to the World Cup and let's leave Trump discussions in the Off Topic.

[Spider-Dan]

Tommy, when FIFA invented a BS "Peace Prize" award to give to Donald Trump, and by his own account Trump called the President of FIFA to lobby for Balogun's automatic suspension to be overturned, THEY "made this about politics."

And attempts to silence discussion about the corrupt despot in charge of this country and his hamfisted public attempt to obtain unfair advantage for the USMNT is another form of "politics": you're trying to quash relevant criticism of your glorious orange emperor.

[Sibster]

Tommy, when FIFA invented a BS "Peace Prize" award to give to Donald Trump, and by his own account Trump called the President of FIFA to lobby for Balogun's automatic suspension to be overturned, THEY "made this about politics."

And attempts to silence discussion about the corrupt despot in charge of this country and his hamfisted public attempt to obtain unfair advantage for the USMNT is another form of "politics": you're trying to quash relevant criticism of your glorious orange emperor.

So you're starting up too now?  Again, the name is Jeff.

And while Trump might've made it about politics, you and Hoodie brought it up IN THIS THREAD, just like with all your other rampant bullshit in a bunch of other threads

[Dave Gray]

Everything is political.

Why do people not understand that?

[Pappy13]

Do you have any evidence to support this?  From what I saw there was some (but not all) in the US who thought it was unfair and almost no one outside the US was calling for the red card to be rescinded.

No one was saying the red card should be rescinded because you can't, but most thought the red card was undeserved and/or that the VAR review was incorrectly applied because they only showed the play in slow motion which they are not supposed to do when they review a play for a potential red card. The reason is that when you slow the play down, it often looks worse than it does at full speed which was the case here. When the play happened in real time, it looked like just an ordinary challenge and a foul was given which was the correct call, not even a yellow card was given, it just so happens that while both players were going to the ground Balogun steps on the defenders ankle and it twists badly. It looks worse in slow motion, but again they are not supposed to use slow motion in reviews of red cards for just this reason because the red card is not about if the player was injured or how badly the player was injured, it's about the intent and you learn nothing about intent by slowing down the video.

There's been a lot of talk about VAR overreaching in this World Cup by all countries. VAR hasn't been around as long as the World Cup, this is only the 3rd World Cup where it's been used so the fact that this is the first World Cup where the disciplinary committee stepped in and suspended a red card call that was made due to VAR is not really all that surprising. It's a relatively new thing and they are still working out the bugs, remember the World Cup only comes around every 4 years. I imagine there will be some changes to the way VAR is used before the next World Cup. In my opinion the problem here is that you can't review a play for a yellow card, you can only review a play for a red card. Why? Most likely because they don't want every single foul on the field to be reviewed which I completely agree, but they could review every single yellow, it doesn't happen that often. If there's a yellow card and you want to review it then you could do 1 of several things, change it to a foul, keep it a yellow or make it a red so basically increase or decrease the severity by 1 degree or keep it the same. But in this situation because they decided to review it with VAR and because he had already called it a foul, not a yellow card, he couldn't award a yellow card, it either stays what he called on the field or they change it to a red. I can see changing it to a yellow on review, but it should have never been changed to a red and if it was called a yellow card in the first place we wouldn't be here discussing it because the game would have gone on without any discussion whatsoever. By giving him a red card which was not deserved which carries with it a mandatory 1 game ban and a review for more, it made it an issue that it should have never been and the disciplinary committee felt the need to step in and suspend the 1 game ban.

There's very few people claiming that VAR reviews haven't been a disaster this world cup. It's pretty apparent that refs and VAR officials don't know how to use it properly. VAR is supposed to correct OBVIOUS mistakes, it's not supposed to be to used to see if someone's toe was stepped on 15 seconds before a goal at the other end of the field. Yes that happened and yes it may have cost Egypt a win. Unfortunately there was nothing the disciplinary committee could do to rectify that mistake.

Edit: Actually I was wrong, there's already been a change to the way that VAR will work in this World cup.

FIFA rolls out major VAR update amid World Cup criticism

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

Felicidades to any Spanish fans

[Phishfan]

Congratulations to Spain. For all the early talk about ticket prices,  travel restrictions, etc. I thought this was a pretty successful tournament. The fans seemed to have a good time, beer sales boomed with the Scottish and ranch dressing seemed to boom with just about everyone  The home teams generated some excitement for a few weeks.

[CF DolFan]

Argentina got embarrassed. They set a record they didn't want to set in having zero shots on goal. That's really hard to do when you have arguably the greatest soccer player in history.  Congrats to Spain for allowing only one goal during the tournament! Pretty impressive.

[Sibster]

And now we can get back to real football.

[Downunder Dolphan]

And now we can get back to real football.

Yeah, the AFL season in Australia is only a few weeks away from the finals (playoffs). That's real football. 

[Downunder Dolphan]

Congratulations to Spain. For all the early talk about ticket prices,  travel restrictions, etc. I thought this was a pretty successful tournament. The fans seemed to have a good time, beer sales boomed with the Scottish and ranch dressing seemed to boom with just about everyone  The home teams generated some excitement for a few weeks.

Argentina got embarrassed. They set a record they didn't want to set in having zero shots on goal. That's really hard to do when you have arguably the greatest soccer player in history.  Congrats to Spain for allowing only one goal during the tournament! Pretty impressive.

Overall I thought it was a great tournament, one of the best World Cup series I can think of, and easily the best since the 2002 series (won by Brazil).

The majority of the games were great and played with an attacking flair, and I don't think I can recall so many long goals scored outside the penalty area.

As for the final, Spain was a worthy winner, and Argentina played like a team that didn't deserve to be there... and they really didn't. They should have lost to Cabo Verde and Egypt, and only an English meltdown got them in. Argentina played about as ugly in the final as Paraguay did against France, and their ugly sportsmanship after the game topped it off.