World Cup: Crossing a Red Line

The World Cup quarterfinal match between Spain and Belgium isn’t until today. That leaves time for President Trump to find another horse’s head for the bed of his goombah, Gianni Infantino, and inspire him to overturn Belgium’s 4-1 thrash of the U.S. Monday at Seattle Stadium.

It’s not over until the fat prexy cheats.

If Trump can deliver an uninvited reversal of a referee’s decision that influenced  one major sports event, why stop there? Surely there are others. The city of Seattle should petition the White House to reverse the 2015 Super Bowl result after “discovering” the New England Patriots were, um, offside prior to Russell Wilson’s end-zone interception that denied the Seahawks a triumph.

Rigged? Of course. Must have been.

Sports outcomes apparently are the new frontier for presidential power freed from the rules-based global order that the U.S. had largely created and sustained. After Trump proudly admitted he called Infantino, the FIFA don suspended the red card issued by game officials to U.S. striker Falorin Balogun in the 2-0 win over Bosnia-Herzegovina on July 1. The original foul call itself was subject to controversy, but the consequence was more significant — not only ejection from the game, but for the subsequent match with Belgium.

That’s when self-appointed soccer expert Trump called Infantino, a man immersed in nearly as many corruption complaints as the president. When news broke of the red card suspension, the soccer world exploded with outrage. One of Balogun’s teammates looked at his phone and said he thought the news bulletin was AI slop. European soccer’s governing body, UEFA, messaged that the decision “crossed the red line” and was unprecedented, incomprehensible and unjustifiable.

One of sports’ most appealing cultural values is the widespread acceptance of rules. Most kids learn that impulsive contempt for how games are structured is an easy way to get alone time. Someone obviously missed the lesson.

Once the bedrock is shaken, especially from the highest levels, integrity begins to crack.

Trump, of course, revels in fracture. He was proud of his feat, even if it benefited Balogun, who is a birthright U.S. citizen, a class of people Trump reviles. Balogun was born 25 years ago to Nigerian parents who were British citizens. Just before his birth, his mother, in New York, was denied a flight home by the airline that deemed her too near her delivery date. So her son was born in Brooklyn. According to FIFA rules, Balogun could have chosen to represent one of his three countries. He chose America, where he became the best goal scorer on its 2026 Cup team.

But the controversy—called “a pardon” by Fox Sports TV studio commentator Alexi Lalas—overruled all other story lines. The modest denials of subversion were blown away by the White House itself. At a press conference in the Oval Office on another subject, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Addams Family) engaged in felony obeisance by swerving to compliment Trump, who was standing 10 feet away, over his hijacking of sports integrity.

“It was spectacular,” Cruz said. “There was a reason the FIFA trophy sat here for as long as it did.”

The reference was to FIFA’s embarrassing “peace prize” awarded to Trump by Infantino during the Cup draw in December. A New York Times writer this week altered the reference to the “appease prize.”

Then came the Monday match.

The favored Yanks were blasted by a Belgian team missing two starters due to injury, including Kevin De Bruyne, 35, regarded as one of the greatest players in English Premier League history.  The Americans, suddenly the black hats in the soccer world through no fault of their own, played terribly. They attempted only seven shots. The first shot on goal came in the 79th minute. The only score came on a free kick.

All the positives built through their first four games, including the improving chance to advance beyond the round of 16, which the U.S. had last done in 2002, imploded gruesomely. It is hard to know the impact of the Trump hijacking, but having been around professional athletes competing at the highest levels, I know the value of clear-minded focus. Just imagine all the texts, calls and media queries each American player and coach received ahead of the game asking the same thing: WTF?

Participants always immediately deny being distracted. What else can they say that doesn’t sound like an excuse?

The actions of the Belgian players after the game spoke loudly on the topic. On the field and in the locker room, they broke into imitations of the mega-dorky Trump YMCA dance. Turned out the mockeries were their only disjointed moves of the day.

The loss also squandered a large asset: the best home-field advantage among the U.S. host cities.

Three hours ahead of game time, an estimated 25,000 fans began surging south on Seattle’s waterfront, including Alaskan Way, Western Avenue, Harbor Steps and First Avenue. The immense March to the Match was boisterous but orderly, seeming to sense they were a key part of the U.S. sports story as long as mayhem was averted. They even held their position to let a much smaller crowd of Belgian fans enter Seattle Stadium first after marching from Victory Hall, which had been their First Avenue drinking base for weeks.

In the best outdoor stadium for an audio riot, soccer fans gave their all during the sixth and final sellout. The loss can’t dispel the notion that in Seattle, the World Cup experienced a world-class celebration of the sport — and some of what is best about America in its 250th year.