Willie B. Hardigan

On Balogun, via ESPN's @MarkOgden_ , here's former Premier League ref Andy Davies: "In my postmatch review, I spoke about not only the decision being incorrect, but the VAR process not aligning to protocol, as only slo-mo and still pictures were presented to the referee when asked to review the situation at the screen," Davies said. "Real-time footage should have been considered by the referee, and this was not the case. "In my opinion, FIFA has reviewed the incident internally and felt that either the judgment to send off Balogun was incorrect, or the correct process to do so via VAR was not followed. But either way, this outcome feels like a pivot from FIFA using a regulation to add credibility to their reasoning. The decision lacks transparency and a credible rationale as to why a red card has effectively been overturned." To summarize, Davies says the call was wrong and the wrong procedure was used to make it. That's 0 for 2. But FIFA owes it to everyone--the USMNT, its fans, Belgium, everyone else--to explain the process.