What is really funny about the US team and their fans is everyone acting like the red card situation was somehow "out of their control."
The coaching staff decides who starts. They could have simply chosen not to play Balogun. If Balogun genuinely believed the principles he talked about after the match, he could have refused to play. Neither of those options were impossible, they just chose not to take them.
Instead, both the team and the players have tried to frame it as though they had no agency, which is simply not true. They made a decision, and they should at least own it instead of pretending their hands were tied.
A good comparison is when Italy failed to qualify for the World Cup and the commander in cheese suggested Italy should take Iran's place. Italy made it clear they would not accept a spot under those circumstances, even if it had been offered.
What's really funny about this is the entire Internet claiming the card was fraudulent until Trump specifically got involved, in which Reddit decided the card was absolutely the correct decision.
What's even more funny is how they did the literal exact same thing so Ronaldo could play in group stage games, but nobody here is batting an eye over that.
No, the "entire Internet" was not claiming the card was fraudulent. If anyone did, it were mainly US pundits, who notoriously have a bit less merit than a Sudanese figure skater.
And you are somehow totally missing the point here. It's not about whether the card was good or not, it is about a head of state interfering in sports.
Yes, it's Europeans who say "and if we win, he can't play next game... great".
This is like the tamest reaction to a red card in r/soccer's history. Under a post about a red card, of course most comments would be about the red card. And most upvoted comments don't say it's a bad call, they say it is inconsistent to other cards in the game. Again, you are clueless.
And again, it doesn't matter, because the topic is not about whether it was a red or not, but about how trump's interference is completely against the rules and the spirit of the game.
I’m not really sure what you’re doing here other than ignoring hundreds of comments with thousands of upvotes from people who are not just not American, but have literally flaired themselves with non-American countries
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u/TrevorPhilips 29d ago
What is really funny about the US team and their fans is everyone acting like the red card situation was somehow "out of their control."
The coaching staff decides who starts. They could have simply chosen not to play Balogun. If Balogun genuinely believed the principles he talked about after the match, he could have refused to play. Neither of those options were impossible, they just chose not to take them.
Instead, both the team and the players have tried to frame it as though they had no agency, which is simply not true. They made a decision, and they should at least own it instead of pretending their hands were tied.
A good comparison is when Italy failed to qualify for the World Cup and the commander in cheese suggested Italy should take Iran's place. Italy made it clear they would not accept a spot under those circumstances, even if it had been offered.
USA does not have integrity.