America rigs the World Cup, then bows out as a laughingstock

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I can think of only one thing more satiric than the only country on Earth that still routinely makes fun of soccer fixing the world’s biggest soccer tournament in their own favour. That would be fixing it and losing anyway.

Say this much for Donald Trump – he did what he could. He made the call to FIFA and got forward Folarin Balogun’s red card rescinded. Not that anyone can prove it. It’s one of those bend the nose and say no more type things.

Everybody got angry about it, especially Belgium, who had to play the U.S. on Monday night. One can only imagine the rage at (don’t call them French) Fries HQ as they realized they would have to face Balogun. This would be after they’d called up some YouTube clips to jog their memory about who Balogun is.

Until three weeks ago, most people had no idea that Balogun is a) American by birthright citizenship and b) alive. He plays in France for Monaco who, even by France’s middling standards, are pretty average.

Then Balogun showed up at the World Cup, scored a couple of goals, and all of a sudden he’s Johan Cruyff. America can’t make it without him, this guy none of them had ever heard of before. Cue Watergate version infinity.

Poor Balogun. He didn’t ask for any of this. On Monday, he played like a man who can see two possible futures for himself. In one, he’s tied to Trump like a tin can for the rest of his career, the President’s pet soccer player. In the other, he goes back to the Riviera and forgets any of this happened. Balogun chose door number two.

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As it turned out, scoring goals was not the U.S. team’s biggest problem. Preventing them was. Belgium – a team that is often an odd combo of over-talented and underpowered – stuck four by the Americans. It ended 4-1.

The really delicious part is that after doing everything wrong for a year and a half, America was getting it all right at the World Cup.

Ahead of the tournament, the prevailing narrative was that everyone would be terrified to travel to the U.S., lest they be swept up in an ICE dragnet. Aside from that, too expensive, too big and too unwelcoming.

People came anyway, and a strange thing happened. Once ensconced in Kansas City and Atlanta, European fans began to carry back tales of rural chain restaurants and the strange beauty of tract housing. Every summer, the kids discover some cool, new thing. This year, it was Flyover Country.

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Unused to thinking of themselves from the viewpoint of strangers – probably the reason they so often get things so wrong – Americans didn’t know what to make of this. But pretty quickly, they leaned into it. Football wasn’t getting them anywhere with their global neighbours. Maybe futbol could do the trick? The team was winning, the stadiums were a hit, the world was digging them. The World Cup was a PR winner.

And then, as it so often does, America America’d itself.

Don’t blame Trump. He just did what Americans expect management to do when they are in danger of losing. At anything.

Remember when Italy lost a playoff to get into this tournament, and a U.S. official suggested fixing that, also by making a call? Italians reacted with disgust. Top government officials lined up to slate the idea – “shameful,” “I would feel offended.”

Said the sports minister: “[Readmittance] is, firstly, not possible, and, secondly, not appropriate. I don’t know which comes first.”

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What did Americans do when Trump jumped the queue on their behalf? Nothing. The coach waved it away, saying Balogun had already been “punished enough” (by not being punished at all). The players hid. All the new celebrity soccer fans got all bipartisan. Why ruin the vibe?

Everyone else made a face like, “Oh, that guy. He’s the worst,” and then happily accepted their cut of the backhander he’d just negotiated for them.

Because that is the American way. The modern twist is that you don’t have to bother finding a back room to do it in. You can do it in the front room, or the Oval Office. The system is there to be gamed. Only suckers, losers and foreigners play by its rules.

What the U.S. forgot in its rush to forget was that this con was never paying off. After Belgium, it was Spain. After Spain, it was France. The only way this was getting fixed right was convincing Gianni Infantino to announce that he’d just found Lionel Messi’s and Erling Haaland’s real birth certificates – twins, born in Boise, Idaho, separated at birth.

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Let’s play time machines. Balogun’s iffy red card stands, as it should have. The U.S. goes out and gets hammered by the same score. What do people say? Tough break. Poor Balogun. They handled it with class. Great tournament though. Terrible government, but maybe we’ve been too hard on the rest of them.

Now what happens? The U.S. goes out, gets hammered and people don’t just resent them, they’re laughing at them. They are a punchline. All the goodwill they’d earned in the first few weeks of this tournament has evaporated. They aren’t just cheaters. They’re bad cheaters.

Most World Cups are remembered for one thing, often something silly – Ronaldo’s pie chart haircut or Zinedine Zidane’s headbutt in the final.

This one will be remembered for Trump gleefully admitting the crime, followed a few hours later by 4-1.

This is the sort of small humiliation that lingers longer in the collective memory than sweeping policy insults. You can’t get people worked up for very long about tariffs. They’re too math-y. But rigging the World Cup? People will never forget you did that, and how badly you screwed it up.

So congratulations America, you’ve really run the table in this one. You were at your best, then your worst, and then your most hilarious.