Team USA was in the middle of a firestorm after President Trump called FIFA to reverse a red card suspension. Then it crashed out of the World Cup.Show Caption
SEATTLE — The U.S. men’s national team deserved better than this.Not the loss that brought their World Cup party to a screeching halt in the round of 16 on Monday, July 6. They earned every bit of that, finally looking like the team everyone feared they would be at this World Cup rather than the one that had established a new standard for the USMNT."It stinks. I don't like to be eliminated from anything," Tyler Adams said after the 4-1 loss to Belgium that dumped them out of the World Cup. "Tonight was not a good performance probably overall. It's not what we look to achieve. There was a lot of things that we could have done better."When you concede goals that easily against a team of that quality and that caliber, it's going to be difficult. We gave them good chances, or even half-chances, and they finished them. It was just a little bit too easy today."The USMNT was tentative and sloppy, very much not ready to go toe-to-toe with one of the big European teams. Even one as vulnerable as Belgium has looked at this World Cup and without two regular starters in Kevin De Bruyne and Jeremy Doku.The USMNT was on the back foot from the opening whistle and could never find their groove. Belgium made easy work of the U.S. defense, and could easily have had another two goals in the first half alone.Even the jubilation after Malik Tillman’s equalizer in the 31st minute quickly evaporated, with Charles De Ketelaere scoring his second goal of the night for Belgium two minutes later.Adams, captain Tim Ream and coach Mauricio Pochettino said the firestorm that raged around the team the last few days, through no fault of their own, wasn't a factor in their loss."We don't need to find another excuse. I think we were not good enough," Pochettino said. "... It wasn't a situation that affected our group."But — and again, this wasn't their doing — it changed the way people looked at the USMNT, coating their wonderful, feel-good story in ick.FIFA’s Disciplinary Committee overturned Folarin Balogun’s red card suspension, allowing him to play in the round-of-16 game against Belgium. Less than 36 hours before the game, I might add.That already had folks howling, with Belgium coach Rudi Garcia saying he thought it was an April Fool’s joke and Norway coach Ståle Solbakken calling it a “big mistake.” Then it came out that President Donald Trump, who long ago turned FIFA president Gianni Infantino into a lap dog, had intervened.Infantino and FIFA insisted Trump's phone call had nothing to do with the Disciplinary Committee's decision. But if anyone buys that, I've got a bridge to sell you.Suddenly, the USMNT was a political football. All the goodwill they had built up the last month was overcome by the stench of Trump’s dirty dealing.This was no longer a debate about the rightness or wrongness of Balogun’s suspension being lifted. This was an existential conflict for many fans, who’d fallen hard for the USMNT in part because they saw the team as wholesome and a reflection of the country it represented, only to have it co-opted by Trump. The USMNT’s success was now intertwined with Trump, and the opinions were loud and unending."We've done a good job with this group of allowing outside noise to be outside noise. It's got nothing to do with us as players and getting ready for games," Ream said. "It's one of those things that it's the world we live in. We were fully focused on us as a group and as a team and fully focused on the game, and not really worried about what was being said or debated in the outside world."Still, they didn't deserve to even be in the conversation.The USMNT struck all the right notes at this tournament, even in the wake of Balogun's suspension. Had the players spent the days after Balogun got his red card complaining or whining about the injustice, this exit might feel different.But they went out of their way to be mature and not make themselves out to be victims. Balogun even shook the referee’s hand after the game, for heaven’s sake.“I never want to react out of anger and out of emotion,” Balogun said Friday, July 3. “There's still lots of people we’re inspiring, little kids, boys and girls who are watching, and we have to show them the correct way to handle things, even when you think it's unjust. I felt I did that.”And yet they still got pulled down into the muck as if they’d dialed Infantino’s number themselves.When people remember this team decades from now, the milestone wins, record number of goals and "Country Roads" will come to mind first. But Trump trying to put his finger on the scale on their behalf will be part of the memory, too. It's inescapable.The USMNT took the country on a heck of a ride at this World Cup. It’s too bad it ended in this trainwreck.They deserved better.Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.
