SEATTLE — At the risk of attempting the impossible and injecting nuance into something being discussed on the internet, let’s start here: Two things can be true at the same time, and so it is reasonable — perhaps even natural — for United States men’s national team fans to feel that what happened to striker Folarin Balogun and the lifting of his one-game ban is both amazing (for the Americans) and awful (for the sport).
These do not have to be binary states. You can think that Balogun didn’t deserve a red card in the first place after his collision with Bosnia-Herzegovina defender Tarik Muharemović in the round of 32, and you can point to any number of current players, former players or referees who said that it was an overreach by the video assistant referee (VAR) to even call down to the match official in the first place. Even more, it was possibly a misuse of slow-motion replay in the VAR sequence that made an innocuous moment look far more violent.
You can think all of these things and, if you do, you can also feel heartened that, for once, sporting justice was handled at the appropriate time as opposed to another one of those pointless, after-the-fact mea culpas that leagues so often publish in a tepid news release when an error is acknowledged. Then, nothing is achieved other than making the aggrieved team and its fans feel worse about how they lost.
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But even if you feel that way, you can also recognize that so much about this situation just stinks. The only part of the Belgian federation’s lengthy statement that rang hollow was when it said it was “astonished” by FIFA‘s decision, since this is pretty much right out of FIFA’s playbook when it comes to seemingly making things up as it goes along, and sharing little to nothing about the process.
After the red card, FIFA executives made clear to reporters that there was no avenue for the U.S. to appeal the automatic one-match suspension.
U.S. Soccer indicated that there were no plans to appeal unless the suspension was extended to something longer than a single game. Even if it was a bad call, sometimes bad calls happen; Balogun himself said as much when expressing his disagreement in the classiest of ways. (And for this, he deserves all the kudos he has received.)
Yet still: There was back-channeling done. The White House reached out to FIFA officials, according to ABC News, and even if that was nothing more than a government advocating for the national team that is currently captivating its country, it is not hard to see how the non-USMNT-supporting population in the world would view it.
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FIFA president Gianni Infantino has been incredibly unsubtle in his approach to courting President Donald Trump. More than 50 European leaders have already requested an ethics investigation into Infantino’s awarding of a hastily created “FIFA Peace Prize” to Trump (citing FIFA’s oft-championed political neutrality).
Balogun’s sudden amnesty, then, only adds to the perception of favoritism — a perception that also cuts, fairly or unfairly, at what the U.S. team might still yet accomplish. What if Balogun scores the winner against Belgium on Monday? How will the rest of the world remember it now?
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This is where we are. The U.S. team and those who love it are ecstatic that their top scorer can play in what is certainly the biggest occasion in program history. They do not need to apologize for feeling that way, and they should cheer Balogun on Monday as long and as loudly as they want. Any fan of any team anywhere in the world would do the same if the situation happened to their star forward. World Cup moments don’t come along every day; American fans deserve to drink this in.
But many of those who play or coach or work in soccer, not to mention so many of those who simply love the sport, are disgusted. At the lack of transparency. At the potential for bias. At the inherent precedent. At the possibility that something larger and more political might have altered something that was supposed to have been determined on the field.
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For U.S. fans who fall into both categories — devoted to their team and committed to their sport — it is an uncomfortable paradox, a jumble of joy tinged with a heavy slice of unease.
Put another way: When the match begins Monday and Balogun is on the field, it might feel correct that he’s playing, while also feeling altogether not right.
