Extremely minor point but will mention anyway - Mbappe coulda had a bit more class and reciprocate hand bump with the losing goalie before celebrating. I mean, he was right there.
Where’s Lalas? Did they fire him, please God?
He was in phila., he was shown at independence hall.
I gotta say, the first two Round of 16 matches were horrible compared to the last few matches in the round of 32.
Tomorrow’s and Monday’s matches should be better. They can’t be worse.
As somebody who defaults to rooting for the underdog unless I have interests otherwise (I know, very original), Paraguay made me root quite emphatically for France.
I couldn’t watch the game (only on pay TV I don’t have), but kicker.de tells me that it’s a mystery how Paraguay could get away without any yellow card from this game.
No splash on that dive.
Yeah, no kidding.
Bad reffing. And bad VARing, since at least one of the cards given to France was a clear simulation.
After watching the highlights this morning I am very glad justice prevailed and France went through. Paraguay comfortably the least likeable team I’ve seen, full of horrible snide tactics and how they escaped a single booking is ridiculous. One of them threw an arm at Mbappe as he tried to run past, in full view of the ref from maybe 7 yards away and didn’t even have a foul given for it! Not sure what was worse, Paraguay or the ref. Complete incompetence.
Oh and the incident where the Paraguay player, prone on the ground, kicked out at Mbappe’s shin? Not even a yellow for that either. In 1998 Beckham was sent off for essentially the same thing and then vilified by the English press for it.
The Athletic has an article saying that Balogun’s suspension has been lifted and he will be available against Belgium.
Yeah, and really doesn’t give any details other than FIFA can do what they want. So almost certainly wildly corrupt.
That’s excellent news that if any other team got that kind of break I’d be screaming bloody murder.
Yeah, I’m kind of “yay!” and “what the fuck!?” at the same time.
I’ve just noticed with horror that the next two games are only shown on magenta.tv, a pay channel I don’t have, and this will be the first day of the WC without any game for me. I would have stayed up for the England-Mexico game which kicks off at 2 PM my local time, but nope, they don’t show it on regular TV. Bummer.
Wasn’t a red card but this kind of intervention feels wrong. Off the top of my head in the pre-VAR days there were red cards that were wrongly given and neither FIFA or UEFA in club competitions changed it. Which leads me to believe FIFA should not have the VAR from the USA vs Bosnia match get another match now if they are effectively declaring the decision to give a red card to Balogun wrong.
Pre- and post-VAR, this never happened on the international level before, and it’s a very bad precedent IMHO. And smells like favoritism for the host nation.
Although they also did it for Ronaldo, which sounds more like financial incentive in wanting the popular players on the pitch to sell tickets.
(Although Balogun probably wouldn’t have had the same cache elsewhere, so being the host likely helped there.)
Yeah I’m not sure how I feel about it. In general I don’t really like the automatic suspension for red cards. To pick an example, the first red card Qatar got vs Canada was a very light tackle judged to be a DOGSO. That absolutely doesn’t warrant a suspension, but that’s the rule
For what Balogan actually did, I think a suspension is quite unfair. But it’s the rule, and to rescind this particular one seems like somebody tipping the scales.