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That one was legit and should have been booked immediately. That game was wild. At some point you would have thought the Mexican strikers had to start actually putting shots on the net instead of chucking up one terrible cross after another.

As for the first game: I readily admit I know very little about the tactics employed by various soccer teams. @SFBadger96 and @utee94 have forgotten more about soccer than I ever will. Plus a friend is married to a Big Ten soccer referee. That said, even I knew it was unwise to leave the EPL's leading scorer and all-around freak of nature alone, unmarked and unbothered, wandering around the crease.

The bigger question: after the WC is over, what are we going to do? Having 4 matches a day for a month was a ton of fun.

Yeah I agree, the red card on England's Quansah looked pretty textbook to me.  It was nothing like Balogun's completely accidental and unintentional leg mix-up with a player  who ran up from behind him, initiated the contact, and that he never even saw.

And yeah, they really did seem to let Haaland roam dangerously free.  But also, he just completely dominated and manifested those outcomes.  He had a fantastic game and was fun as heck to watch.

The story first came to light after The New York Times reported that President Trump had asked FIFA to review Balogun’s suspension before the governing body announced its decision.

Later on Sunday, Trump confirmed the report while speaking at the White House.

According to BBC Sport, Trump said he spoke directly with FIFA president Gianni Infantino because he did not believe Balogun deserved to be suspended.

“I thought it was two great athletes who crashed into each other and got entangled,” Trump said.


He added that he only asked FIFA to review the incident and did not tell the organization what decision it should make.

“I can’t tell them what to do,” Trump said. “I believe it was the commission that made the decision. And it was the right decision.”

Trump also said he felt enforcing the suspension “would have left a big stain” on the World Cup.

FIFA said Balogun’s suspension was suspended under Article 27 of its Disciplinary Code, allowing him to play against Belgium while placing him on a 12-month probationary period.

The ruling has drawn criticism from several football organizations, including UEFA, which called it “unprecedented, incomprehensible and unjustifiable.”

UEFA didnt mind when they also suspended Ronaldos 2 game "automatic" suspension earlier in the tournament

Nope they sure didn't, did they?

Wait, so a guy was already suspended in this WC and had his suspension suspended (that term is stupid, they should say "lifted"), and OAM still argued that this doesn't happen?

That's delicious. 

It's a slightly different case but the same basic result happened.

Back in November, Potueguese superstar Cristiano Ronaldo got a red card in one of Portugal's World Cup qualifiers against Ireland, for a violent play where he deliberately elbowed an Irish player to the ground.  It was determined by the FIFA Disciplinary Committee that it was worthy of not just a one-game ban like a normal red card, but rather a 3-game ban due to the violence and intent of the play.

He served one game of that ban in their final World Cup qualifier against a scrub team (Armenia) where he wouldn't be needed anyway.  But then FIFA decided to "suspend" the final 2 games of the ban until sometime after the World Cup tournament, for the sole purpose of ensuring that one of the world's best players on one of the world's top teams, didn't miss the tournament.