Two things can be true about Balogun's World Cup reprieve - ESPN

SEATTLE — At the risk of attempting the impossible and injecting nuance into something being discussed on the internet, let's start here: Two things can be true at the same time, and so it is reasonable — perhaps even natural — for United States men's national team fans to feel that what happened to striker Folarin Balogun and the lifting of his one-game ban is both amazing (for the Americans) and awful (for the sport).

These do not have to be binary states. You can think that Balogun didn't deserve a red card in the first place after his collision with Bosnia-Herzegovina defender Tarik Muharemović in the round of 32, and you can point to any number of current players, former players or referees who said that it was an overreach by the video assistant referee (VAR) to even call down to the match official in the first place. Even more, it was possibly a misuse of slow-motion replay in the VAR sequence that made an innocuous moment look far more violent.

— Ogden: Nobody benefits from FIFA letting Balogun off the hook
— Folarin Balogun channels Michael Jackson after red card suspended
— USMNT World Cup bracket scenarios, odds to advance, predicted path

You can think all of these things and, if you do, you can also feel heartened that, for once, sporting justice was handled at the appropriate time as opposed to another one of those pointless, after-the-fact mea culpas that leagues so often publish in a tepid news release when an error is acknowledged. Then, nothing is achieved other than making the aggrieved team and its fans feel worse about how they lost.

But even if you feel that way, you can also recognize that so much about this situation just stinks. The only part of the Belgian federation's lengthy statement that