2026 FIFA World Cup

That is some great news for the U.S. team. Are we even odds in the game now?
 
Don’t know the real betting lines by here is the current Polymarket-

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Ok, why is draw an option there? That is one outcome i would put money on not happening.
 
Draw before it goes to penalty kicks is what they are betting on gbear2. Not that the complete outcome will be a draw.
 
Ah, that makes mote sense. Lol. I was pretty surw there will be a winner.
 
Boys,

I respect the hell out of you all and the USA. I have always respected my neighbour to the south, but this decision to allow Balogun to play and reverse the red card is a disaster for FIFA. The optics are really bad and it opens up a HUGE can of worms moving forward for this tournament and beyond.
 
When did FIFA have any credibility CH?? I have several hard core futbol friends who think this was completely the right decision since VAR apparently was not used appropriately, please note none of them are USMNT fans. Again, as corrupt as FIFA is claiming this hurts their integrity I find very amusing.

I'm not a huge futbol fan, I'll watch it if it's on, Premier or MLS but would never claim to be an expert. If Belgium wins no one will care in 3 days. It's like that lady years ago who didnt wear white trunks at Wimbledon. Average person goes wtf, dont care.
 
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SkinsOrlando said:
When did FIFA have any credibility CH?? I have several hard core futbol friends who think this was completely the right decision since VAR apparently was not used appropriately, please note none of them are USMNT fans. Again, as corrupt as FIFA is claiming this hurts their integrity I find very amusing.

I'm not a huge futbol fan, I'll watch it if it's on, Premier or MLS but would never claim to be an expert. If Belgium wins no one will care in 3 days. It's like that lady years ago who didnt wear white trunks at Wimbledon. Average person goes wtf, dont care.
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SO,

I’m with you - FIFA had zero integrity to begin with. No arguments there. However, you now have England and France considering appealing red and/or the accumulation of yellow cards issued to them in their previous games. It’s going to be a mess if/when other teams have appeals denied after seeing a reversal granted to the US. Again, I want the US to go as far as they can, but this can get really sticky.
 
Unfortunately, Belgium was just the better team tonight.
 
FIFA under Blatter had zero credibility. It has even less now under Infantino. It'll be interesting to see if their wheels ov justice turn just as fast for England. The VAR retroactive red card on that England player was just as terrible as the one we got.
 
Canadian Hog said:
SO,

I’m with you - FIFA had zero integrity to begin with. No arguments there. However, you now have England and France considering appealing red and/or the accumulation of yellow cards issued to them in their previous games. It’s going to be a mess if/when other teams have appeals denied after seeing a reversal granted to the US. Again, I want the US to go as far as they can, but this can get really sticky.
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If VAR was used improperly I think that you have precedent now and just leave it at that (it fits or it doesn't with what was overturned). If it's outside those parameters , sorry no reversal. I don't know the specifics on those cards for those teams. I also again think that now that USMNT is out, no one will care in a few days.

CH just think soon we'll be back to discussing NFL ref calls instead....
 
I think the 'outrage' is being overstated by many. The US paid a heavy price in the previous match on a red card that was extremely questionable - they played a man down for 30+ minutes. That call could've easily ended their World Cup journey right there. The 1 game suspension is another matter. I get the purist argument that 'rules are rules'. But bad rules are also bad rules. Look at the NFL. An extremely aggregious foul might get a player ejected. Once that call is made, that call is made. But the NFL has figured out that allowing teams to appeal suspensions and fines is a reasonable thing to do. And the nature of allowing an appeal is that sometimes it will change the outcome, and sometimes it won't - and will depend on the specific details of the situation.

I think where FIFA may have gone wrong up till now (vs. them being 'corrupt') is that they have not already adddressed the issue of doubling and tripling down on a highly questionable call by just stubbornly refusing to listen to counterarguments. VAR is supposed to be some kind of a magic bullet to ensure mistakes can be corrected in real-time so that 'appeals' later are superfluous, but we all know VAR can make it's own errors.

So I would argue that the US situation was driven less by corruption or power politics than it was by the fact that the call was clearly overly aggressive and the US had already paid a severe price for something that at worst should've generated a yellow card, and FIFA trying to minimize the damage of that bad call.

I have a fix for the whole thing.

When a red card is issued - that player is immediately suspended for 90 minutes. If the red card happens 5 minutes into a match, the player exits the game, and then is ineligible for the first 5 minutes of the next match. If the player gets a red card in the 85th minute, he exits the game, and is suspended for the first 85 minutes of the next match. That makes the penalty equal regardless of when in a match a red card is issued. I think this would make much more sense than a blanket 1 game suspension no matter when the infraction occurred in the match.
 
You would think being a Skins/commanders fan watching a team play a bad game in what could have been a huge game should feel normal. That game still sucked. Somehow we were slow to the ball all game long and our touch looked like previous world cups. Ah well, burn that tape and watch some good soccer the rest of the way. Oh, and enjoy knowing we won a knock out game which is a rare occurance for us. As an aside, we also played some of the best soccer i have seen from the U.S. in this World Cup.
 
Boone said:
I think the 'outrage' is being overstated by many. The US paid a heavy price in the previous match on a red card that was extremely questionable - they played a man down for 30+ minutes. That call could've easily ended their World Cup journey right there. The 1 game suspension is another matter. I get the purist argument that 'rules are rules'. But bad rules are also bad rules. Look at the NFL. An extremely aggregious foul might get a player ejected. Once that call is made, that call is made. But the NFL has figured out that allowing teams to appeal suspensions and fines is a reasonable thing to do. And the nature of allowing an appeal is that sometimes it will change the outcome, and sometimes it won't - and will depend on the specific details of the situation.

I think where FIFA may have gone wrong up till now (vs. them being 'corrupt') is that they have not already adddressed the issue of doubling and tripling down on a highly questionable call by just stubbornly refusing to listen to counterarguments. VAR is supposed to be some kind of a magic bullet to ensure mistakes can be corrected in real-time so that 'appeals' later are superfluous, but we all know VAR can make it's own errors.

So I would argue that the US situation was driven less by corruption or power politics than it was by the fact that the call was clearly overly aggressive and the US had already paid a severe price for something that at worst should've generated a yellow card, and FIFA trying to minimize the damage of that bad call.

I have a fix for the whole thing.

When a red card is issued - that player is immediately suspended for 90 minutes. If the red card happens 5 minutes into a match, the player exits the game, and then is ineligible for the first 5 minutes of the next match. If the player gets a red card in the 85th minute, he exits the game, and is suspended for the first 85 minutes of the next match. That makes the penalty equal regardless of when in a match a red card is issued. I think this would make much more sense than a blanket 1 game suspension no matter when the infraction occurred in the match.
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I completely and utterly disagree with you. You don't change 'bad' rules in the middle of a tournament in order to benefit only one team in six decades of tournament play. You think this is the only time during that span a team has felt it was given an unfair red card?

There is NO way this is overstated. It was ugly and cast a huge pall over what, up until that point, had been a great tournament for a US team finally ... FINALLY ... earning some semblance of legitimacy from the rest of the football-playing world. That is all gone now. And the controversy absolutely affected both teams, inspiring the Belgians to put us harshly in our place while we sleepwalked through the entire game.

It was an unnecessary and awful end for us. And now we get to sit with it for four years.

Oh well. Back to watching American sports.
 
Imho, the result of that match had very little to do with FIFA's. decision. None. It's the World Cup elimination round and the Belgians didn't need any extra incentive. They simply outplayed us because they are a better, more experienced team.

I don't disagree you on the timing of the reversal. I'd probably have preferred they didn't do that, just because I don't enjoy the controversy. I do think the 'outrage' is overblown - primarily because I was outraged we had to play a man down for 30 minutes on a call that never should have been made. I also think any crying from the Belgian side because the US was supposed to lose it's top goal scorer based on a bullshit overreach by the referee was not solely based on respect for the traditions of soccer. They loved not having that player in the match and when all of a sudden the US got their player back, that's what they were most upset about, not the sanctity of the rules.

FIFA does need to have some mechanism to look at badly made calls that result in key players being suspended. I will agree choosing that moment to try and do that was not a good look and as I said, I wish they had just let it lie in this case. It didn't help that 'other' high profile folks who should have stayed out of it got involved.
 
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We need more soccer talk moving forward…it’s been fun and I know there is a pocket of guys here on BGO that are into it. I will be sad when the WC is over, but we need to keep this soccer discussion train rolling.
 
The US team got special treatment. Then they got crushed. This completely changed the narrative of the American World Cup campaign. And that’s too bad.

And that’s all I have to say about that.
 
So for the first time ever, the top 4 FIFA ranked teams will battle for the World Cup with England trying to oust Argentina and Spain and France also trying to get to the final. I'm kind of sick of hearing about Messi and Argentina, so I hope the Brits take them out.
 
England reminds me of Italy in 2006 in so many ways - they are a team that has been knocking on the door for so long. They have lost the last two European Championship Finals in dramatic fashion to both Italy and Spain. They were in the 2018 World Cup semis…they are due for something much like the Italian team in ‘06 when they finally got over the hump. Don’t discount what that win in Mexico in the round of 16 did for England. That was a huge character win in that environment. They are the more battle tested of the two clubs in this WC, whereas Argentina have been scraping by against the likes of Cabo Verde, Egypt, and Switzerland with some officiating good fortune along the way. If England gets past Argentina and shakes off the ghosts of the “hand of God”, they are 100 percent winning the final, much like Italy in ‘06 when they slayed Germany in Berlin in the semis. That win galvanized the team and there would be no denying them in the final.
 
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