The Red Card...

It's possible to hold two thoughts in your head at one time.

The red card was bullshit. The way it was reviewed, the slow motion and freeze frame, and not the context of space and intent. It was bullshit. Yellow, sure. Yeah, it's a foul. But it's not a red. It looks terrible in a freeze frame photo, but Balogun was tracking the ball, he wasn't going in to injure anyone. He had to land from his jump. They were tangled. All of the arguments you could make. The red card was bullshit.

The way it was rescinded was bullshit. FIFA is a little island (big continent) unto themselves and makes up their own rules. Every other league, tournament, system has a way to protest a red and get it reviewed. FIFA says in World Cup you don't get to. BUT...if your president calls our president and says I'd like to use my FIFA Peace Prize Get Out of One Red Card Free exception you get it overturned. And that's bullshit.

Balogun should have never gotten the red. So everyone who then said the only honorable thing to do would be for Ponch to sit him or him to choose to sit himself is insane as well. He is one of our best players if not our best player. In a game we have to win. On a bogus red that nobody on the team or staff or fan thought he deserved. So you sit him to say, oh yeah, it was a red? No.

BUT...by inserting himself Trump made all of that just a mess.

People saying the only honorable thing was for him to sit. People saying that the USMNT are cheaters. People learning what it means to live in the United States right now where our president's nasty little fingers are in every single pie. We don't get nice things because if it's nice enough he ruins it.

ETTD. You see that now as shorthand. Everything Trump Touches Dies. Nice winning streak you got there, Knicks, be a shame if something happened to it. Oh you like golf? I like golf too! Whoops! Guess you aren't winning that trophy. FIFA says what? Oh I can out corrupt them. Watch. And now all of the goodwill you've built up, all of the positive exposure, all of that is gone.

They were in a literal no win situation. Literal because there was no win. But also because if they had come out and played the game of their lives and beaten Belgium for the first time EVER people would have said it was down to cheating. There would have been an asterix. He ruined even feeling badly about the loss.

I've watched the national teams play for a long long time. I've watched the men not get past the round of 16 (if they got that far) over and over and over again. But I've not ever approached a game like I did last night were I just didn't care enough. I mean I was excited when we tied it up 1-1 I was thinking, okay we might, but...it wasn't the same.

And then when it was over Brent said, "Look at all the time you'll get back." and I had to remind him that I have been watching all of the games, not just ours. And today's slate was going to be good. Argentina and Egypt? Come on! That's great. And then this morning when it was time for the game to start I thought... I just don't care. He's ruined the whole fucking thing.

There is only so much corruption you can bake into a thing I guess. Only some much yeah but...you can do before you just give up.

But I soldiered on. I watched the game. And it was a great game. There was good old fashioned FIFA stuff, like "Is this ref really in the bag for Argentina? And if he is, am I mad about it?" There was the Egyptian bench getting red cards and calling the ref a racist. Or getting a red card for calling the ref a racist, I'm not actually sure which direction that went. But either way, LOOK AT THE PASSION! And holy shit, Argentina did pull off an amazing come from behind win and...

Okay, I can finish. A little less joy probably, but I fucking refuse to let the orange man take it all away from me.

And now, my evil little heart wants Belgium to win it all. Because Trump has decided that he is going to give the trophy to the winners and I think that's the funniest outcome there could be.

And that would make it all seem worthwhile.