{"id":907711,"date":"2026-07-02T14:49:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T14:49:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/907711\/"},"modified":"2026-07-02T14:49:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T14:49:16","slug":"justice-for-u-s-star-folarin-balogun-red-card-for-var","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/907711\/","title":{"rendered":"Justice for U.S. star Folarin Balogun, red card for VAR"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

SANTA CLARA, Calif.\u00a0\u2014\u00a0What do you mean U.S. forward Folarin Balogun<\/a> got red-carded? For that?<\/p>\n

As a nation, we\u2019re pretty new to all this. And this VAR abomination<\/a> we\u2019ve all now been introduced to? Thanks, we hate it.<\/p>\n

Soccer\u2019s video assistant referee system is worse than the NBA\u2019s tedious in-game reviews. Worse than the existential NFL question of whether it is or is not a catch. Dumber than not being able to argue obvious balls and strikes in a pre-ABS baseball world.<\/p>\n

Worse than all those things put together.<\/p>\n

And now that we witnessed it burn the U.S. men\u2019s soccer team in its rousing 2-0 round of 32 World Cup victory<\/a> over Bosnia and Herzegovina on Wednesday, all of us newly accredited soccer experts in America are ready to declare war on VAR.<\/p>\n

In a physical fixture filled with shoving and shouldering, pushing and pummeling, blood and guts, after 62 minutes of letting \u2019em play, Balogun\u2019s off-balance misstep got him kicked off the pitch.<\/p>\n

A match of no-calls \u2014 including, initially, this gnarly moment of incidental contact between Balogun and Tarik Muharemovic \u2014 and the United States found itself down a man for most of the second half at Levi\u2019s Stadium.<\/p>\n

The unfortunate accident will rob Americans \u2014 both those on the pitch and those glued to screens at home or at a watch party \u2014 of their top scorer (Balogun has three goals in three matches) in a round of 16 showdown with Belgium on Monday in Seattle.<\/p>\n

The young man was doing LeBron James\u2019 silencer celebration after scoring a goal one moment and being tagged with soccer\u2019s equivalent of a Flagrant 2 the next \u2014 because of how one moment was assessed on tape delay.<\/p>\n

Delay being the operative phrase. No one loves late calls, but soccer has some late calls. Examined in super-slow motion. And, as the United States\u2019 Tyler Adams pointed out: \u201cWhen you slow everything down, it\u2019s only going to look worse.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Balogun didn\u2019t mean it! That\u2019s a better defense in some situations than others \u2014 including this one. Per letter of the law.<\/p>\n

ESPN\u2019s resident refereeing expert, Andy Davies, a former Select Group referee with more 12 seasons on the elite list provided this summary judgment: \u201cWith both players challenging for ball, the contact from Balogun on Muharemovic, while it looked bad in slow motion, was purely accidental and an unfortunate result from two players challenging for possession of the ball in a normal football movement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also, Davies: \u201cVAR made their recommendation to the referee based on slow-motion and still replays, which is not aligned with VAR protocols, as these should be used for only point-of-contact purposes in a red card tackle situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Let me tell you something you already knew: FIFA is inconsistent.<\/p>\n

Malik Tillman\u2019s exquisitely placed, curving free kick for a goal in the 82nd minute might have been Messi-esque, but the call on Balogun? Not Messi-esque.<\/p>\n

In a group play match against Algeria, Lionel Messi, the Argentine superstar, seemed to rake his studs along A\u00efssa Mandi\u2019s right calf and ankle. That time, a foul was called. VAR had a look. And despite the rules stating that a challenge from behind with studs-on-calf contact and a level of force should be a red card \u2014 no card was administered. Can\u2019t have Messi missing games.<\/p>\n

The armchair referee system, so far from unassailable, is also unappealable<\/a> \u2014 to U.S. coach Mauricio Pochettino<\/a>\u2019s dismay.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, never is this red card,\u201d Pochettino said. \u201cWatching after on TV, never was [it] intention[al] to step up on the player. That was a normal action in football that happened by accident.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is why for me it\u2019s never a red card.\u201d<\/p>\n

But you don\u2019t have to take his word for it.<\/p>\n

On Fox, former French footballing legend Thierry Henry said: \u201cYou need to adopt some type of common sense. He never went to hurt nobody. He went to get the ball, and where do you land after? You have to land somewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

Commentator Ian Darke weighed in with a post on X: \u201cReckless and yellow would have covered it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trust your own eyes.<\/p>\n

In an attempt to eliminate human error, this great sport has introduced human error. But it feels more egregious than a bad call in the run of play because it\u2019s justice \u2014 or injustice \u2014 meted out arbitrarily, unevenly and after the fact.<\/p>\n

Look, I\u2019m sure the world doesn\u2019t want to hear any of our star-spangled opinions about how to improve the beautiful game \u2014 but in this, we\u2019re united.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a universal sentiment: Give VAR the red card.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SANTA CLARA, Calif.\u00a0\u2014\u00a0What do you mean U.S. forward Folarin Balogun got red-carded? For that? As a nation, we\u2019re…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":907712,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[367344,1582,276,8897,367342,42155,367343,8142,2961,224,5337,2089,198,367341,9323,285549,16221,221,367001,128517],"class_list":["post-907711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-andy-davies","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-folarin-balogun","tag-gnarly-moment","tag-goal","tag-incidental-contact","tag-justice","tag-la","tag-los-angeles","tag-losangeles","tag-man","tag-match","tag-obvious-ball","tag-player","tag-red-card","tag-round","tag-soccer","tag-tarik-muharemovic","tag-var"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116850941647447739","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=907711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/907712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=907711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=907711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=907711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}