It brings no joy to take a victory lap in defeat.
But didn’t it feel like something shifted after FIFA’s eyebrow-raising decision to overturn Folarin Balogun’s red-card suspension? Like, there was a disruption in the good karma and momentum the U.S. Men’s National Team had accumulated in its first four World Cup matches?
As news broke Sunday that Balogun was cleared to play in the Round of 16 despite being sent off in the previous game, I texted a few friends my gut reaction: It was an awesome surprise that also smelled like you-know-what. After all, this was FIFA, the infamously corrupt governing body of international soccer that seems to function not based on its rulebook but on the whims of a few guys in a room.
I felt a little queasy about it, but I pushed it down in my stomach. Maybe we had earned this. An opportunity to benefit from FIFA’s litigious inconsistencies, which usually feel reserved for the A-list stars. (How exactly was Cristiano Ronaldo allowed to play the entire group stage, again?)
Then FIFA Peace Prize winner Donald Trump rushed to the first microphone he could find on Monday to brag about making the call that got Balogun reinstated, and I knew it was over. This was all starting to feel a little too much like Game 3 of the NBA Finals — when Midtown Manhattan transformed into a massive security operation to accommodate Trump’s desire to watch the Knicks at Madison Square Garden. His appearance eclipsed the game itself, which ended with the Knicks’ only loss of the Finals. In fact, it was their only interruption in the entire last month of a magical championship run.
This is not to politicize our national team’s 4-1 loss to Belgium, I promise. But come on, man. The head of state for the World Cup’s host country calls in a favor, and suddenly the USMNT looks like a shell of its former self? I can’t help that I’m a superstitious being: that was karma we just watched on Monday night. You felt it before kickoff, and you knew it was over even before Belgium scored in the ninth minute.
There was no connectivity, no creativity, no sustained possession, no urgency or poise on the back line. One of the most humiliating performances from any team in this World Cup.
Certainly, the talent gap between European and American soccer was yet again laid bare, a once-every-four-years tradition like no other.
But the final score in Seattle was not an accurate referendum on either team’s ability. I’m not convinced the Belgians are meaningfully better than the USMNT. I watched their tournament opener in person last month, a 1-1 group-stage draw with Egypt, and walked away fairly confident that Belgium’s fading golden generation wouldn’t muster another deep run. When they scored two greasy goals to oust Senegal with a miracle comeback in the Round of 32, I celebrated what I thought was a stroke of luck for the Americans. Belgium looked like the more favorable matchup of the two.
The stars and stripes were aligning for a quarterfinal run on home soil. Then Balogun was shown a red card against Bosnia, some 20 minutes after he scored his third goal of the tournament.
It was a questionable call, sure. We were right to be outraged from our biased vantage point. Heck, we might’ve even been unified by it. Balogun was suddenly a household name at Fourth of July barbecues.
But the rules are the rules. Subjective real-time officiating is a part of sports. Red cards are binding one-game suspensions. I had made peace with the reality of the situation by Sunday (which was four days after the win over Bosnia, by the way — FIFA couldn’t have decided Balogun’s fate any sooner?). Honestly, I believed the USMNT still had a good chance to beat Belgium, even without him. I was prepared to celebrate 250 with a defying-the-odds victory.
Instead, the president’s insistence on making these major sporting events about himself loomed over match day. It became a national story. Then the game became our national headache.
For all the talk about Balogun, it was like the rest of the lineup felt saved by his presence. Christian Pulisic was sloppy and listless (and perhaps injured), defenders Sergiño Dest and Tim Ream were vulnerable, and goalie Matt Freese was reckless in a decision that will haunt U.S. soccer fans for years. Balogun barely had any chances to make an impact.
Belgium would call that poetic justice. Americans can only look at it as cruel irony.
Maybe we’d be celebrating a 5-4 classic and preparing for Spain right now if the president had called in four more favors.
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