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Posted on 07/14/2026 11:23:51 AM PDT by MinorityRepublican
The United States Men's National Team had all the momentum when Folarin Balogun's red card from the Round of 32 was suspended, giving him a chance to play in the Round of 16 — at least, that's what American soccer fans thought.
The day before the USMNT's Round of 16 game against Belgium, which Balogun was originally supposed to miss because of a red card in the previous game, FIFA ruled that he would be eligible.
The ruling added to what was already a huge controversy, as it was argued Balogun should not have been red-carded in the first place. Nonetheless, Balogun was active despite an appeal and strong reaction from Belgium.
However, it was hardly a needle-mover, as Belgium embarrassed the Stars and Stripes with a 4-1 win. If anything, the needle might have moved the wrong way, Balogun himself said.
"My initial reaction was I was happy to be back in the team, but when I kind of started to reflect, I knew it was going to cause a lot of controversy, and I could almost see within my teammates a bit of nerves, because it is something that is so unique," Balogun told CBS on Tuesday.
"The closer we got to the game, I tried to just focus as best as I could, but it was difficult. A lot of outside noise and that’s hard to avoid."
Balogun said the entire situation was "confusing," as the team was initially practicing without him. But the team found out on the bus to practice that Balogun would be active.
"Everybody was screaming and shouting," Balogun said.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
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I appreciate your candor.
Yep if you cant take the heat stay out of the kitchen..so if this soccer team can’t take some media attention perhaps they were NOT meant to win it all
Without realizing it, your name calling is directed at yourself.
There is only one problem here: anti-Americanism. It’s a religion followed by most low IQ entities in our world.
And there was massive psychological pressure on Balogun after FIFA made their low IQ fumbling.
Doesn’t take a genius to see what happened.
Next to my humbleness, my candor is my greatest attribute. If I do say so myself. Which it seems like I always have to do because nobody else ever does. Jealous jerks.
This Soccer game was a thing.
To be perfectly honest, our USMNT isn’t all that great when compared to so many other countries. Being a host nation meant that we didn’t have to qualify, and I’m not altogether sure we would have qualified for this WC without that designation.
Omygosh. You should hear the things I say about myself in my brain. Of course you can't because they're in my brain. But I do say them out loud sometimes by accident. Like a dumbass.
Same game. Same teams in 2014. We did better back then. We had a great goalie. But the team was not that good. They played 110%.
Obviously, that was not the case this time even though we are probably more talented (except for the goalie). But we had no heart in the game.
👍
Does your brain tell you to support anti-Americanism, or to reject it?
Reject it.
If your reply is honest, then your IQ is quite high.
If he didn't embrace it, next time he can try out for either England or Nigeria.
“What he’s basically saying is that the team wasn’t up to the pressure..good teams can play regardless of what is being said behind the scenes. This team wasn’t good enough”
Subliminally he is convincing the liberal World Cup crowd that it was the fault of POTUS Trump.
Pressure to defeat the opposing team is what these players do.
But it’s unreasonable to expect them to shoulder the burden of political correctness exerted by the low IQ of institutional anti-Americanism.
Until the World Cup my dogs have probably watched more soccer than me. This play was kind of like a football player trying to tackle a receiver or running back with his shoulder but ends up hitting him with the crown of his helmet. Such fouls are usually reviewed and sometimes the official rules it worthy of ejection and sometimes he doesn’t. That’s what happened here. I don’t know if Falungong intentionally stomped on the guy’s ankle or not it looks like was trying to play the ball when he clearly had no chance of doing so because the other player was in between himself and the ball
We're the top dog. So we're going to have to embrace it. If you're "soft", you shouldn't be on the team.
I also think VAR is being used in ways that it wasn’t intended for.
You get one challenge per half.
Right now, it's goofy the way they're using VAR.
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