World Cup: Harry Kane for Prime Minister!
by San Pedro 
, Wednesday, July 01, 2026, 12:14 (21 days ago)
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Balogun for President!
by PMan , The Banks of the Spokane River, Wednesday, July 01, 2026, 18:07 (21 days ago) @ San Pedro
So weird for the USMNT to have an in-form 9 at a World Cup.
Can the Lubbock Judge handle his red card appeal?
by HumanRobot , Cybertron, Thursday, July 02, 2026, 14:16 (20 days ago) @ PMan
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Freeman's got so much riz they need to call him Aura Parseghian
Poster child for birthright citizenship
Shitty call. Just totally shitty. Clear yellow. No red.
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The 2007 ND-UCLA game was a once in a lifetime experience, I hope
I had no idea about that story until last night. What an
by BillyGoat , At Thanksgiving with Joe Bethersontin, Thursday, July 02, 2026, 09:46 (20 days ago) @ Greg
amazing week for him to score that goal in that game.
Not anymore
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He is out for the next match as well, right?
by Jeff (BGS) , A starter home in suburban Tempe, Wednesday, July 01, 2026, 20:34 (21 days ago) @ cdawg
The fix is in
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At night, the ice weasels come.
Just incompetence.
by PMan , The Banks of the Spokane River, Wednesday, July 01, 2026, 20:40 (21 days ago) @ Jeff (BGS)
A smart fix for $s by FIFA would keep the US advancing…
Should never get a red card for an off-balance…
by PMan , The Banks of the Spokane River, Wednesday, July 01, 2026, 19:09 (21 days ago) @ cdawg
accident. VAR robs Balogun of the Belgium game.
Imagine if Messi did that
Oh, he did and had his studs up with no card? That ref was awful. He let a number of shirt pulls go without cards as well. Just a horrible performance.
That ref lost control of the match.
He should have handed out yellow cards earlier before anything escalated.
Way too much fouling from the Bosnians were completely ignored.
That play where the replay shows Pulisic, on the ground, saying “Shouldnt that be a card?” (After he’s pulled down by his jersey from behind) …
Why Yes Christian, it should have.
That play where the Bosnian coach took off with the game ball? That should have been an automatic red card.
The hit by Dzeko on Adams should have been a yellow
That was intentional and meant to harm.
Also forgot about the unnecessary shove on Freese
by PMan , The Banks of the Spokane River, Thursday, July 02, 2026, 10:14 (20 days ago) @ Bryan (IrishCavan)
while Freese was on the ground.
Balogun's red card would be one thing if Rapahel Claus hadn't sucked all game.
I forgot about the Bosnian manager…
by PMan , The Banks of the Spokane River, Wednesday, July 01, 2026, 20:37 (21 days ago) @ Mark
holding on to the ball while yelling at the referee.
He should have been sent to the locker room. A yellow was way too lenient for that absurd behavior. Extra so since he was wrong any way.
This is what bothers me about the decision-making here.
by ReginaldVelJohnson , Wednesday, July 01, 2026, 19:40 (21 days ago) @ PMan
The framework for a red seemingly boils down to "did it look bad" (in slow motion on VAR). Oh, and the ref kept the cards in his pocket while Bosnia was mugging people for the first 60 minutes, only to decide it was time to put his foot down on a 50/50 red.
The cheap shot on Adams off the kickoff before half…
by PMan , The Banks of the Spokane River, Wednesday, July 01, 2026, 20:16 (21 days ago) @ ReginaldVelJohnson
was a penalty in the NFL for player safety.
That was violent conduct endangering a player, in my biased opinion.
IMO, the foul warranted a Yellow card.
I don't know how you send him off for a non-international foul.
The problem is that it wasn't called anything on the field
I think if he saw it and gave it a yellow on the field, he'd have justification to say it was reckless but not serious foul play. But you can't just let that go completely after they alert you to it, so on VAR when you look at it closely and see it as an ankle-breaker it has to be straight red.
I agree with this
The neutrals were saying that it was reckless, which it may have been, but the word "reckless" does not appear in the definition of a red card offense. It *does* appear as a condition of a yellow card offense.
"Intent" does not appear in either definition, so it depends on the definition of "serious foul play" which cannot reasonably be interpreted to include "action caused by gravity".
It was, by definition, a yellow card offense.
But the definitions of "serious fould play" is
by ReginaldVelJohnson , Thursday, July 02, 2026, 06:13 (20 days ago) @ Dylan
"endangers the safety of an opponent or uses excessive force or brutality". Which is the crux of my frustration above. Basically, if your action injures someone, you can be guilty of serious foul play and get sent off. The fact that the rule is written to punish the outcome, and not the action itself, is a problem.
Endangering saftey doesn't require an injury.
One can be in danger without it resulting in a bad outcome. And studs onto an ankle, intentional or not, can certainly be defended as endangering safety, whether there is a serious injury or not.
I thought that Balogun was unlucky, but I'm not incensed by the outcome. It's defendable.
Unless you're Messi.
by ReginaldVelJohnson , Thursday, July 02, 2026, 09:35 (20 days ago) @ ndroman21
Studs in an ankle earlier in the tournament, and not even a penalty. Balogun is unlucky because it "looked bad", which is my point. It's a rule that leaves an absurd amount of discretion to a referee watching it in slow motion. Is it a defensible ruling based on how the rule is written? Yes. Doesn't mean the rule itself and process make sense.
The whole thing reminded me of soooooooo many
by BillyGoat , At Thanksgiving with Joe Bethersontin, Thursday, July 02, 2026, 09:46 (20 days ago) @ ReginaldVelJohnson
targeting calls. Live, to me, it was a bang-bang aggressive play. I could have seen a yellow card, but there were plenty of other things in that game that went uncalled.
Slow it down and you can't help but feel how much it would hurt to have your ankle bent like that, PLUS the cleats being jammed into it.
Kind of the same thing as the targeting call on Shuler against A&M last year. At full speed, whelp, that was a physical football play. Then you parse it on replay from 9 different angles, and you can see that TECHNICALLY, the crown of his helmet dropped (as obviously it would because he was tackling a guy who was trying to go low to gain an extra yard) and he TECHNICALLY dealt a glancing blow with his helmet to the offensive player's helmet, even though he was clearly in a tackling (as opposed to spearing) posture, against a moving target.
But a Texas safety commits attempted murder on Tori Hunter Jr. and what's the big deal?
Interestingly I see the parallels, and its almosthe opposite
by ReginaldVelJohnson , Thursday, July 02, 2026, 10:19 (20 days ago) @ BillyGoat
problem. You've precisely designed the rules in targeting (kind of), which doesn't leave room for determining severity as mitigation. It would be like having a targeting rule that says "contact above the head that puts the opponent in danger" or whatever. Then you end up calling targeting fouls anytime someone gets hit in the head causing a concussion.
Seems like there could be an easy way
To use VAR in these situations in the future. VAR can only increase the call on the field by "one degree" so to speak. For example, if there was no call on the field, slowing the play down can only result in a yellow. If a yellow was called on the field, but replay suggests it should be more, then it can elevate to a red.
But if an incident that didn't even warrant a call on the field in real-time, at full speed, gets elevated to a red card, that seems unjustly harsh. Video review should only be supplementing the live, in-person officials, not replacing them.
At the risk of being biased, rugby does this well.
by ReginaldVelJohnson , Thursday, July 02, 2026, 10:27 (20 days ago) @ Jeremy (WeIsND)
Not to say they don't have problems, but there are well-defined frameworks for these types of calls. The biggest would be head contact. See here. The gist is that if you have "foil play" with a high degree of danger, you start at a red card. Then you can drop at down for mitigating factors. On replay, it's those factors that often get discussed.
They've also moved to 20 minute red cards, for the reason that these judgement calls (which can sometimes also just be unfortunate accidents) so dramatically alter a game.
I dunno, is Marius Jonker the TMO?
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Just don't let the French TV producers control the feeds.
by ReginaldVelJohnson , Thursday, July 02, 2026, 11:40 (20 days ago) @ HullieAndMikes
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Happy for Kane. He had to wait 4 years for redemption
after he missed a PK against France in the 84th minute of the 2022 WC quarterfinals in a match that England went on to lose 2-1.
Would have loved for Pickford's lazy goalkeeping...
by PMan , The Banks of the Spokane River, Wednesday, July 01, 2026, 13:28 (21 days ago) @ hobbs
to have been the ultimate difference, but looking forward to an England CONCACAFing.
I watched the last World Cup.
by San Pedro , Wednesday, July 01, 2026, 12:29 (21 days ago) @ hobbs
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They can be happy for now
But playing Mexico in Azteca in a WC Elimination Game is serious FAFO territory.
England has even more Azteca trauma than we do
Their last trip there was probably England's most devestating defeat since the Siege of Calais.
They'll always have the Falkland Islands.
by San Pedro , Wednesday, July 01, 2026, 12:42 (21 days ago) @ HCE
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It's a brutal assignment. But I'll be firmly behind England
by San Pedro , Wednesday, July 01, 2026, 12:28 (21 days ago) @ Captain Robb
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