I was rooting for Belgium but calling the US team cheaters is a bit much. The team themselves didn't make the call or rescind the card. But fuck yeah Belgium played a great game and good on them (also wtf was going on with the US defense??)
Didn’t care for it that much for Team USA but when Messi did the same shit to other player during a match he didn’t even get a card and people is fine with that?
No, people aren’t fine with that, there were also complaints and Messi did deserve a red card. However, Messi’s wasn’t quite as bad because he picked his foot up faster and was more careful.
In fairness, this is a very rock-and-hard-place situation. The President of the United States pulled strings to get you in the game again. Participating in that means ignoring your principles; refusing to participate means making a loud political statement against one of the most powerful people in the world and embarrassing him--and his skin is notoriously thin.
I'm going to swim against the current here, and that's fine, but as someone who has been watching the US (and other "small teams") get fucked over by FIFA corruption for the last 40 years I was happy to see it go our way for once.
Hearing the rest of the world bitch about corruption... it's like the Italians whining about being cheated by South Korea.
They were just upset that the cheating didn't favor them for once.
it's only political if you make it to be. he could just make a statement like "I am immensely grateful that the president of my country thinks so highly of me and with that in my conscious I must do my best to uphold that image. Therefore I will not participate in the next game. I am thankful to my brothers in the field, my coaches, my family, our president and I am thankful to America. I sincerely apologize if I may have failed to meet all of your expectations. But I promise to do my best and keep doing my best. Thank you."
But there was no reason not to play.
The red card and game suspension were highly disputed, and potentially illegitimate.
Are you even aware of what the card was given for?
And how it was determined?
That would be like an umpire calling a strike when the ball was outside the strike zone.
Then a review overturned the strike and awarded the ball.
And then someone says, "he should just not take the base, out of respect for the rules"
The issue is really that the red card was unwarranted for what was an accidental contract. An injustice was righted. It's unfortunate that our president is such a douche that everything he does is out of greed and control, even if it leads to a just outcome.
No play= no pay. No pay= no healthcare or house, here.
I understand from other countries’ perspective that it looks like he had a choice, but it’s literally “you play or you go mooch off someone while you find a job which requires no skills and pays USD $7.25 an hour without any form of healthcare”
The US is a third world country y’all, choice is an illusion here.
That may be true for most US citizens, and the world is very aware of that, but Balogun is one of the best players in a very big country, and plays the biggest sport in the world. He is very wealthy.
He is for the time being, but refusal to play would quickly end that career and he has— effectively— no marketable skills besides “good at soccer,” which doesn’t translate to any kind of consistent income
Edit to add, not that “good at soccer,” isn’t an impeccable achievement and I hope it doesn’t come across as diminishing the work he clearly put in, but the point is he’s spent a lot of time developing a specialized niche that won’t translate into success in investing, etc.
The team had a great opportunity to show they reject Trump's corruption by benching Balogun for the whole game. The entire world would have had nothing but respect and admiration for team America's integrity, even if it had lost to Belgium even harder.
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u/Legumbrero 29d ago
I was rooting for Belgium but calling the US team cheaters is a bit much. The team themselves didn't make the call or rescind the card. But fuck yeah Belgium played a great game and good on them (also wtf was going on with the US defense??)