Today’s column comes with this caveat: I become a soccer or futbol fan once every four years. I find the World Cup fascinating, even when I don’t always understand the intricacies of what I am watching.
That probably put me firmly in the majority among the crowd of roughly 300 who watched the U.S. defeat Bosnia and Herzegovina 2-0 on the 18-foot wide, outdoor TV screen at Fondren Yard in northeast Jackson. We were of all ages, all races, male and female, with one trait in common: We pulled for Team USA. We left happy, sort of.
That’s because perhaps we had two things in common. The second: We often disagreed with the inconsistent officiating of referee Raphael (no kin to Santa) Claus. We will get to that.
First, the scene: It was festive. Many in the crowd wore red, white and blue. Some of us, especially those of us with little or graying hair, approached the game with equal parts anticipation and trepidation. We were buoyed by the American team’s impressive play in this year’s World Cup group stage, yet we were mightily concerned about our history once we have reached the knockout stage. We had won only once in knockout stage history, 2-0 over Mexico in 2002. (All together now: USA! USA! USA!) Other than that, we were 0-6-1 and had not scored more than one goal in any of those seven matches. Where the World Cup is concerned, we have been like Casey Stengel’s original New York Mets, back when the great Casey plaintively asked, “Can’t anybody here play this game?”
There was also our previous World Cup record against European teams to consider: only three victories and six draws against 15 defeats. Even the original Mets had a better winning percentage.
But those are just stats. We had other numbers on our side. Our population is somewhere around 346 million. Bosnia and Herzegovina, part of the former Yugoslavia, has a population about 3.4 million. Surely, we can find more soccer phenoms out of 346 million than they can out of 3.4 mill. Can’t we?
If not, maybe we can borrow. Actually, we have borrowed. Our coach, Mauricio Roberto Pochettino Trossero, is from Argentina. Our leading scorer, Folarin Balogun, was born to Nigerian parents, in Brooklyn, New York, but grew up in London. He owes his U.S. citizenship to birthright citizenship, something President Donald Trump wants desperately to end. (If a vote on birthright citizenship had been taken at Fondren Yard last night, Trump most assuredly would not like the result.)
Balogun also owes his U.S. citizenship to airline officials in New York, who refused to let his mother fly home when she was seven months pregnant with the child she would name Folarin.
Wednesday night, Balogun was often being grabbed and held by the opposing players who were quite physical in defending him. What Balogun needed was one of those old tear-away jerseys Johnny Musso used to wear when he played football for Alabama. Balogun would have needed at least 20 of those tear-aways against Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Nevertheless, early on, he broke free to score an apparent goal only to have it disallowed for offsides. Later, he scored again to give his team a 1-0 lead, which only seemed to provoke the Bosnian players to increase their relentlessly physical defense of him.
And that’s what made what happened in the match’s 64th minute all the more incomprehensible. Balogun and Bosnia’s Tarik Muharemovic were battling for the ball when Balogun stepped on Muharemovic’s ankle. After a video review officials ruled that Balogun had done so maliciously and presented him a red card, soccer’s version both disqualification and suspension. Boos rang out both in Santa Clara, where the game was played, and in Fondren Yard.
To these untrained eyes, the foul looked far more inadvertent than malicious. To say the least, the sentence did not fit the crime. Not only was Balogun forced to leave the game and not only will he be ineligible for Team USA’s next match against Belgium, but the U.S. had to play the last 36 minutes of the match with 10 players vs. Bosnia’s 11.
Claus, the referee, would have to have been an accurate mind reader to make such a potentially game-defining call. Otherwise, how could he determine that Balogun’s foul was intentional rather than accidental? Granted, soccer refs need some mind-reading ability in order to differentiate between the almost constant flopping that goes on and real injuries. (It should be noted that Muharemovic kept playing after appearing as if he had been mortally wounded.)
Whatever, the U.S. seemed in some real trouble at that point. I mean, 10 vs. 11 is hardly fair. Somehow – and thanks largely due to German-born Malik Tillman’s remarkable penalty kick in the 82nd minute – our guys prevailed. They were both resilient and valiant and whatever other heroic terms you want to use, and will now continue their World Cup quest Monday night in Seattle against Belgium.
You should know Belgium easily defeated the U.S. 5-2 in a pre-World Cup match, and the U.S. will be without Balogun. Also, despite Wednesday night’s victory, the U.S. World Cup record – especially against European teams – remains abysmal.
But as Al Michaels said during the most unlikely U.S. sports victory of all-time, the miracle that happened on ice, “Do you believe…?”
In Fondren, for one night, we surely did.
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