This is something I see so many people forgetting.
The net result of this decision is simply that the USA gets to play with their full squad and you have an actually interesting competition. The reason we as a world spend hundreds of millions of dollars to let athletes play a game for a living is pretty much exclusively for interesting competition. It serves no other socially useful purpose.
Embarrassing for the Belgians and the Europeans to respond any other way than: "we look forward to beating your best team, game on".
With respect, only an American would think that the competition ceases to be interesting just because the US loses. This is already shaping up to be a really interesting WC with or without the US.
Political leaders intervening to give their countries an advantage is what makes it boring. Tilting the scales in favour of a country where you are trying to grow the sport may make financial sense in the short term but it makes for a more boring sport overall. Look at the the historically great teams like Brazil and Argentina, it's not like they have the success they do because FIFA decided that would be the most entertaining outcome. It's not wrestling.
> With respect, only an American would think that the competition ceases to be interesting just because the US loses
With respect to you, I'm a lifelong football fan.
And read more carefully, the argument I am making is not that the competition ceases to be interesting because the US loses. The argument I am making is that the competition ceases to be interesting because the US doesn't get to field its best squad on account of a highly controversial on-field decision (itself downstream of a mis-application of VAR).
Let the chips fall where they may, should the USA lose after this, at least they got to make their best attempt at it. That's all I want as a spectator.
> The argument I am making is that the competition ceases to be interesting because the US doesn't get to field its best squad on account of a highly controversial on-field decision (itself downstream of a mis-application of VAR).
I don’t see much controversy. It is a clear red. Being suspended is the risk you face when challenging that hard.
You play with the team you have in the game. Players get injured, suspended or has previous yellows that would leads to a suspension if another is gotten.
> I don’t see much controversy. It is a clear red.
You're entitled to believe it was a red, but it is objectively controversial. It's not just about what you believe, but what about others might believe. If there are enough people that disagree with you, then it is by definition controversial.
> You play with the team you have in the game. Players get injured, suspended or has previous yellows that would leads to a suspension if another is gotten.
> That’s all part of the game.
Correct, and players can get re-instated (as happend with Cristiano Ronaldo in the very same tournament) by FIFA per Article 27. That is also part of the game.
The Belgians now need to man up and play the game with a full squad rather than whine about not getting an easy fixture. Seriously just take a step back and take stock of what we are arguing here; it's not as though Belgium are being given a disadvantage, it is simply that they are being asked to play against the full squad. It is rather pathetic to complain about that.
>The Belgians now need to man up and play the game with a full squad rather than whine about not getting an easy fixture
Oh the irony. Why don't the US man up and play within the rules? You president whined and whined and whined, he does nothing but whining every single day.
You are completely morally corrupt. The Americans are cheaters, and nobody will respect them even if they win. "Pathetic" doesn't even start to describe how feckless people who defend this decision are.
>You're entitled to believe it was a red, but it is objectively controversial.
It run its course the minute you "honestly" thought the Belgians were whining and the Americans weren't. You have no argument remaining, especially now that Olise's yellow card has been left in place. Wouldn't the game be more interesting if he played without it? Isn't it controversial too?
I don't think you fully understand who you are arguing against.
I also think Olise's yellow card was unjustified. I think it should be overturned also. Even without overturning it, at least he still gets to play, so that's good for all of us as spectators.
The process sucks since it's arbitrary. In a better world there would be a universal appeals process.
You can't choose a random player and give them unfair advantage, and argue that it makes the game more enjoyable (for any type of game). It's not what audiences desire.
It actually makes games less enjoyable, for many reasons.
It's not just a random player, it's a player whose red card was contested even by the commentators as it was playing out. You should just watch the replay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuaS3jUAark.
"Does he endanger the safety of his opponent? You could argue it does, but I think it's slightly unfair because it's more of a stepping action that lacks force and intensity to create that red card."
"Is it the right call? I don't think it's the right call...I don't like that being the level that we're calling for a red card. I think that's a yellow card, I don't see that as a red"
After the match, there was continued debate as to whether it should have been a red. Messi didn't get a red card for a nearly identical incident.
FIFA has a rule to handle this sort of situation, and it's Article 27. In my opinion, that is a poor system as any process that's initiated by FIFA is bound to be arbitrary. It would be better to have a universal appeals process, and such a process might very well have resulted in an overturning of the red card nevertheless. Either way, the outcome was correct, even if the path to getting there was flawed.
And just taking a step back and taking stock of what we are arguing here; it's not as though Belgium were given a disadvantage, it is simply that they were being asked to play against the full squad. It was pathetic to complain about that, especially given that Belgium comfortably thrashed the USA's full squad.
As spectators of any sport, that's all we can hope for: take the best of 2 teams and pit them against each other. See where the chips fall. I don't actually enjoy watching an easy fixture, I want it to be a nail biter.
Belgium should have either said nothing, or just said "cool we don't care, we'll beat them either way, game on". Instead, they (and most Europeans) came across as sissies.
Looking ahead, for me personally, I'm hoping football comes home.
It is more entertaining if the rules are the same for everyone. It would be fine if the official rule is red card disqualifies from next game until a dignitary calls. Or red card consequences can be modified for the top or most popular player on a team.
You're right, it's a failure of governance that FIFA doesn't have a proper appeals process for everyone to use. It is unfortunate that the only rules-based mechanism to suspend the match ban had to come from FIFA, which in practice will be arbitrary.
The US had no procedural route to get Balogun reinstated. That doesn't mean FIFA can't wave their magic wand to make it happen.
Had FIFA implemented an appeals panel for the tournament, it would've looked at the incident, deemed it a misapplication of VAR and a wrongful red card, and the world would've moved on. Instead because of their incompetence, the only remedy was via their magic wand, which is arbitrary and capricious.
I‘m actually not sure this statement is true. “The goal is ultimately entertainment” is a thought terminating cliché. What about sportsmanship, competition, beauty, experiencing a common cultural phenomena with the entire world, etc?
But even if this statement is true, FIFA needs to learn from the failure of Eurovision and see that people are not entertained by watching a rigged game. For competition to be fun, it has to be fair.
The US has been asking that when they get a red card that Messi doesn't get. Or a handball on the goal line is ok for a UEFA company. Or a US goal called back when another UEFA team hauls multiple US players to the ground.
You see where I'm going with this? I just can't seem to get upset that a red card that isn't a red card for other teams is getting rescinded.
I've literally been watching for decades and nobody seemed to care before.
A ref got a call wrong and that's ok and should be doubled down on according to UEFA. Well, UEFA can just view this as the disciplinary committee getting it wrong and they can just live with that.
Ones it became apparent that Eurovision was rigged in favor of Israel, the viewership stats plummeted. And worse, the entire sub-culture around Eurovision enthusiast died.
WWE is not an apples to apples comparison, as it is widely known among fans that the spectacle aspect of the sport weighs heavier then the competition aspect, as such both the fighters and referees play loosely with the rules to maximize the spectacle aspect. The same is not true of Eurovision, and it for sure is not true of the World Cup and the game of soccer in general.
No, your comment is an example of "argument by joke" and "false equivalency".
The bad faith free speech argument that somehow applies to only some people, to only one side of the political divide, but never to the other was prevalent mainstream argument for years now. Some peoples free speech was sacred and if you criticized or opposed them, the criticism and opposition themselves did not counted as free speech - even if it in fact consisted of speech only.
So like, kicking at those people is entirely fair. Because they actively damaged "free speech". Not that they care or ever cared.
For this to be anything like "so you hate waffles" there would have to somebody going around declaring to all that "all breakfast foods are good and can not be criticized" and them only showing up to defend pancakes on the basis of "all breakfast foods" but then deafening silence when waffles or bacon or scrambled eggs get trampled on in a far more prevalant manner.
Even the one reply to me from a self-proclaimed absolutist didn't bother to defend the political speech and petition of government, just said that they were present!
This has been a dream project of mine too, so happy to see that it exists.
One thing that I've also wanted was to be able to reason about the total timeline using the Holocene calendar[1] instead of the standard BC/BCE AD/CE timeline. It makes it easier to internalize how long ago (or how recent) certain civilizations were without having to do the wrap-around math in one's head. Would be nice to be able to maybe toggle that view.
The biggest problem with news is that it's fundamentally an exercise in elevating anecdotes over data. Every time the news reports on an incident or a happening, it's a deep dive into one single data point — and how that deep dive is characterized can influence how the reader thinks about society as a whole. The narratives used to characterize that data point vary based on the biases of the news institution, but either way it (more often than not) paints a distorted picture relative to the macro reality.
> The narratives used to characterize that data point vary based on the biases of the news institution, but either way it (more often than not) paints a distorted picture relative to the macro reality.
That's true, but I'd dispute that some kind of objective understanding of "macro reality" through "data" is even possible or practical outside a few narrow areas.
To be clear, there is certainly a spectrum/degree for bias.
The best kind of news/journalism informs readers based on factually accurate and unbiased data — and perhaps uses noteworthy current events and human interest anecdotes to corroborate that data.
A worse kind of news/journalism partially misinforms readers by presenting factually accurate data in a biased way.
The worst kind of news/journalism entirely misinforms readers by presenting an anecdote (or a statistically insignificant collection of anecdotes).
Unfortunately the majority of news today (at least in the US) falls into that 3rd bucket.
I'm a strong proponent of the right to freedom of speech (and I'm pro-choice), but we have to be clear about the fact that these are derived from axioms, which are by definition maxims derived from subjective leaps of faith and not evidence-based objectivity.
I think that's Rayiner's point; you can't admonish people deriving philosophical views from the theistic beliefs and value systems they practice when the opposing side of those views are essentially derived from secular/atheistic beliefs and value systems. At some point in the chain of derived arguments and justifications, you arrive at an axiom whose only justification is "because I believe this should be so" or "because my in-group believes this should be so" or "because <authority figure> believes this should be so" — it's still a leap of faith.
"Humanism" is just another subjective belief system, and its adherents are no more immune to the forces of tribalism and faith-based reasoning as adherents of older belief systems.
I work in this industry and can provide some insight.
Every payer has the concept of "UCR Rates" or "Usual, Customary, and Reasonable Rates" for every procedure code, for every ZIP code. For example, the median cost of an X-ray should be a certain dollar amount in Topeka, Kansas and a different (higher) dollar amount in Manhattan, NY.
When a provider is out-of-network, they'll bill as much as they possibly can to see what the insurance company will pay — the insurance company will only pay up to the "UCR Rate" for the treatments (or in your case, apply that to the deductible before the payments start to kick in). Whatever the difference is between the UCR rate and the requested amount is almost always ignored, since the doctors' motivation for the high requested rate was to try and maximize payment from the insurance company. In your case, since you paid out of pocket, you're unfortunately on the hook for that difference. In other situations the provider might also invoice the patient for that difference, but it's relatively rare.
In contrast, when a provider is in-network, they have contracted rates for all of the procedures (also typically varies by ZIP code). These are called the "fee schedule" rates, and every payer (including Medicare/Medicaid) has their fee schedule rates defined and agreed upon with the physicians/providers.
It sounds like pure fantasy to come up with a number they should charge and it is the same for every provider in a zip code. Different hospitals, clinics and offices would pay different rents, staffing expenses, supplies, marketing, utilities, and the list goes on. Not even McDonalds charges the same price for the same meal in every location in a zip code. Malls, airports, entertainment venues are easy examples of divergent pricing.
Right, the UCR is usually pegged at the 75th percentile price for that ZIP code — though that can vary from payer to payer, some can even go up to 90th percentile — it's usually determined by actuaries. It's basically a guidance that conveys "we've never met you before, but you're asking us to reimburse for a treatment, and we as an insurance company think this is the highest reasonable amount to charge for that treatment". It's also important to note that payers don't advertise whether they're doing 75th percentile or 90th percentile or 50th percentile or whatever, because then it just becomes an incentive for providers to anchor at that amount, even if it may be higher than they would otherwise bill for that treatment — they'd just submit a claim for that amount and say "cool, thanks, pay me". In single-payer countries in which the state is a monopsony buyer, there is only 1 rate (sometimes a narrow range), often per location.
In either case, the goal is to try to keep prices down, and in many cases to prevent so called "upcoding" by providers. You'd be surprised how prevalent upcoding is among providers. I've been on the phone with a provider that included in a claim an $80 line item for "oral hygiene instructions", which is a fancy way of saying "instructing the patient to floss more". I've seen another claim that asked for $300 for sign language because the patient was deaf. I've seen yet another claim that asked for $200 for a swaddle for an infant patient. In all 3 of those cases, I personally informed the clinical administrator on the other end "this is not covered", and their response was something to the tune of "oh yeah that's okay, we just put that on there to see who covers it, you can go ahead and ignore that line item".
All of this is characteristic of the fee-for-service model, which is increasingly being seen as quite flawed, regardless of whether it's done by the public sector or the private sector.
And people wonder why health care in America costs so much. You have two businesses (at least one of which is totally removed from the services being provided) trying to scam each other every time someone goes to the doctor.
Additionally, I've found that they're a bit less risqué than Western productions and that creates broad appeal.
Crash Landing on You was a heartwarming (and cheesy) story told in a very "PG" way. It not only appealed to me, my wife, and our friends, it appealed to my modest Indian in-laws.
This is something I see so many people forgetting.
The net result of this decision is simply that the USA gets to play with their full squad and you have an actually interesting competition. The reason we as a world spend hundreds of millions of dollars to let athletes play a game for a living is pretty much exclusively for interesting competition. It serves no other socially useful purpose.
Embarrassing for the Belgians and the Europeans to respond any other way than: "we look forward to beating your best team, game on".