Legendary crash out, 10/10 fantastic finale

The guy wanted to be able to moderate in the background and went to efforts to block mod abuse comms - of course people are going to find ways to express dissent, and of course he’s going to be incredibly triggered by it.

But his reaction to the pushback has been spectacular, no notes

The misuse of this meme is far more upsetting than the political message

It still amazes me that you don’t see how dangerous Balogun’s challenge was. Did you not see the dude’s ankle? Could have got broken

I don’t think we’re using ‘dangerous’ in the same way here. I’m saying there is no reasonable expectation that Balogun’s play could have resulted in a serious injury, regardless of what injury almost did occur. Just because Muharemovic’s ankle almost did get broken, doesn’t mean that was due to any risky, aggressive, or malicious move made by Balogun to begin with. That the foul didn’t even initially merit a yellowcard at the time points to the same conclusion.

When I was taught to be a referee (granted, that was 15 years ago), they urged us not to issue red cards unless the play itself was uniquely dangerous, where that if another player committed the same foul there would be the same high risk of injury. The two other remedies for keeping this type of play in-check are more reasonable and less likely to cause chaotic discontent from the bench, and sending the player off doesn’t make anyone else on the field any safer.

Your job as referee isn’t to doll out justice or retribution for harm committed on the field, it’s to keep the players safe and the game fair to the extent reasonable.

Quansah didn’t even touch the guy with studs and won the ball.

That’s not the point - he made a needlessly aggressive tackle against an attacker that wasn’t an immediate threat on goal, and hit Gallardo midway up the shin with studs up. If someone else on the field made a similarly needless and dangerous tackle, the risk of serious injury would be just as high. It could have just as easily been a yellow card, but what made the tackle worse was that it was done without any apparent strategic advantage over staying on his feet, which made it seem like he did it in part because there was a risk of harm.

If the ref didn’t take action, it was likely that the two would continue escalating their challenges until someone did get injured

Either way, Belgium’s hammered the USA even with Balogun. Tis a lol.

No question - they shouldn’t have even made it that far

A red can be given for serious foul play.

The ref is intentionally given leeway to make whatever calls necessary to keep control over the game (which is why the reversal is so damaging to the tournament broadly). He had every right to send Balogun off, I just dont think it’s was a good one.

Quansah got a red card for England despite playing for and winning the ball

A bunch of reasons why this comparison is bullshit:

• Quansah went into a sliding tackle against a player in control of the play, not after a 50/50 challenge
• despite there not being intent, sliding tackles are held to higher scrutiny because they’re dangerous even when done correctly
• The tackle was unnecessarily aggressive. Quansah could have stayed on his feet and defended without risking a tackle

You obviously don’t know enough about “soccer”. You been listening to your presidents definitions?

I love how catty this is

They shouldn’t have fucked with the ruling at all, but lmao at “dangerous”

It could only possibly be considered dangerous if you thought he intentionally stepped on Muharemović’s ankle. Straight reds are typically reserved for aggressive plays that are either clearly malicious or willfully reckless.

Balogun was playing the ball without looking where he was stepping - at worst it should have been a yellow. Careless? Definitely. Dangerous? Lmao, I guess taking a reaching step is dangerous now

But thats really not the problem anymore - the league overriding the decision reaks of corruption and does a disservice to everyone involved, including the USA team.

It’s easy because our current geopolitical reality has been contrived by western hegemony.

Plenty of criticism to go around but there’s little question that our current reality is mostly a direct result of the decay of western capitalist democracy.

Have you seen how much bullshit “The West” has been responsible for lately?

I dont think it’s strange at all for there to be a strong undercurrent of anti-western sentiment.

I wish I could tell if ‘liberate’ was being used facetiously or not