ERROL BARNETT:
00:02:37
And a comfy pillow or a stuffed animal. Even for Christian Pulisic, he did not have a strong or dominant performance. He was in tears by the end of the match. And all of this was preceded by FIFA's decision to allow Flo to play, despite the red card. That drew so much international reaction. Was that a real distraction for the US team, or was it more of a motivator for Belgium? Yeah, I think it was a massive distraction. And that's just my personal opinion. I know that other people are going to see it differently. But the proof is in the pudding. What we saw with that decision, what we saw with that ruling that, at the end of the day, FIFA made-- it wasn't a US Men's National team decision. It wasn't a Folarin Balogun led decision. It wasn't a Mauricio Pochettino led decision. These players did not have their hand in this matter. This was outside forces, and we now know that it was a phone call-- it's what's been reported-- between President Trump and someone high up at FIFA. And some people are going to speculate that it's Gianni Infantino that led to this decision. What I saw was a team that, for most of this tournament, felt like a victim. The US Men's National team, going into this match against Belgium, they had this "we're the victim, we have this siege" mentality. This is our cross to bear. Well, when that decision gets made, the US Men's National team went from victims to international villains. And that's nothing to do with the players' part. Has nothing to do with Folarin Balogun. It's everything to do with that ruling. And so what the US did and what that ruling did was it gave Belgium the rocket fuel that they needed to go in and put a five-star performance. That game wasn't even close. And I want to be honest, that game, at a different time, could have been 7 to 1. It was that bad. And Belgium, they embarrassed the United States of America on a football pitch for 90 minutes in front of the rest of the world. They played with intent. And there's going to be people seeing this as potential justice was served for 90 minutes. It was a painful game and match to watch. I hope you'll take lots of natural light, water your plants. Folks will get through this. But Michael Lahoud, great to get your analysis on this, and we'll discuss this also later this hour. Thanks for your time today.
