USA U17 has Tanguy Mebiame from Gabon tomorrow. Remind me, is that the younger guy from the AFCON that we really liked last year? Or was that the Somali ref that was at the U20 WC last month?
Even if FIFA is treating a missed call fixed by video the same as a correct initial call (which I find doubtful, even if the final decision has more weight), not making the right call initially is hoping the coach actually makes a challenge on the particular play. While the possibility (probability?) that the refs are subconsciously impacted by knowing there is the video back up, I don't believe for a second the refs are deliberately avoiding making calls because they think it is in their best interest.
Why was 19 given a red in the US v Chechia match? Was that reckless? If you know you are second to the ball, just stick yourself out in front of the follow through and the other team gets a red I guess. Good strategy.
Yep basically. Forceful studs to the ankle seems like its now red regardless of playing the ball or really anything else. Mentioned in a different thread here in the last couple weeks.
I guess it's hard to tell how forceful it was. Live, it seemed grazing. But you can find a freeze frame that implies otherwise. The freeze frame on video review is often misleading and highly misused in my view.
Mexico advanced to the knockout round as the final 3rd place qualifier over Saudi Arabia. But the irony lies in the details. They advanced on Fair Play points. We're talking about Mexico hear. Kings of the debauchery.
Okay, so I was expecting something a lot different based on description above. Over in the UEFA thread, I railed a bit last week on the SFP reds that are purely results-based, where the contact is high and the ankle buckles, so it's red. But in both of those cases, the guilty player was either in possession of the ball right before the challenge or first-best on a contested, unpossessed ball. Here, the Czech player is dribbling and the American challenges him to disposses. Yes, it's a long way after the second touch and you can argue that it's so heavy it means possession is questioned (which is how the American gets to the ball first), but this is still an American running at an opponent looking to "tackle" him. He comes from great distance, with a lot of speed, and just kicks fully through the ball (where is he sending it?) without one thought about the follow through. And the follow-through is bad, as we can see. The idea that the Czech player "sticks himself in front of the follow through" is folly; you can see that play developing and you know the Czech player is always going to be there (which is different from the two cases I cited last week in the UEFA thread). I don't know. I don't have a problem with this. This seems definitionally an "excessive force" tackle. There are a number of ways to make this play without doing what he did. Once the contact is that high with the leg clearly buckling, it's a red card. What I find interesting here is the FVS aspect. Did the referee look on his own volition or did Czechia ask for a review? Because if it's the latter, then that means one team is absolutely in-tune to current instruction and the rules and knew the referee would have to give it if he saw it again. Which sort of belies the idea that the referee is making some absurd decision, as the announcer clearly implies here.
Care to say more? I mean, this was given after review and (correct me if I'm wrong) initiated by one team. So it's not some gigantic surprise for non-American partisans (or a British announcer). This is the expected decision on this challenge and I laid out why. You think the American player has no responsibility for what happens after he touches the ball in this case?
It's a surprise. I don't think I am too partisan for that surprise. I think the full speed version looks like the US player goes in to win a ball that he is clearly first to; he gets the ball clean and his follow through barely comes off the ground and he clips the back of the Chechia players heel as his foot returns to the ground. The ref seemed to react to a single freeze frame that shows contact with the lower ankle, but the angle of that frame gives no depth. Live, it looked like he might have scraped the Chechia player with the first row of cleats, as opposed to put any weight on the Chechia player's heel or ankle (by, say, landing on him with the middle of his foot), and the freeze frame is consistent with that, but because it is a still, it is hard by itself to tell what's happening. So. yes, I think the US player has responsibility for what happens after he touches the ball, but that seemed like the kind of contact that happens all the time in fair tackles. So it seemed harsh and your agreement with the call surprises me. In general, the freeze frame approach to refereeing is fraught. Helpful sometimes. Just as often misleading.
For what it's worth, transparency (and my conciensce) dicates that I've been informed FIFA concluded this was a bad outcome and it shouldn't have been a red card. The conclusion is that there was too much focus on the slo-mo/freeze frame of the result. That leads to what I think is the obvious question, though. If FIFA feels that way, how did one team and a referee get to a point where they at least thought there was a plausible case for a red card here. I really think instruction around this needs to be calibrated quickly. Because it runs the risk of going in a lot of different directions at once.
I don’t think you should be putting any stock into the fact that the team challenged this. As we’ve discussed, coaches are willing to challenge just about anything this late in the game because there’s nothing to lose. It doesn’t mean they had any confidence it would be successful. Really this is just the case of one referee (and perhaps the fourth official) read too much into the slow-mo replay and got the decision wrong. I agree that instruction needs to be calibrated uniformly here, but I don’t agree that many people would’ve expected a red card.
Obviously I agree philsosophically, but I think you need to put some stock in it. Because they are challenging based on a specific result that has recently been a trademark of SFP cards. If you have FVS 10 years ago, I don't think this gets challenged because teams would just be like "well he played the ball cleanly." But we are seeing reds given for plays like this based on the result and, here, we saw a referee do exactly that. The challenge (again, presuming Czechia made it) is because of a specific component that they had a chance to see on replay while their injured player was down. Yes, it's still a gamble. Maybe a referee rejects it. But unlike a few we highlighted from the U20s where the premise was completely absurd, there was something here to justify the challenge--quite obviously, given the outcome! Right and we just disagree here. I actually still think this is an expected red card in UEFA, for what it's worth (I almost think that's undeniably true based on what we've seen recently). And it's worth noting where Czechia is geographically. That's why I think there needs to be calibration. We're going in different directions on this based on who the competition authority is.
I was finally able to go and watch the entire sequence. First, yes, Czechia did ask for the FVS intervention. And second, having seen the whole sequence live (for me, the touchline angle that is high and above from the US bench is most helpful), I agree it shouldn't be red. Still stick with my line that this is what you get when you teach results-based refereeing (and again, I think that's obvious given a team asked for it and a referee acquiesced) but there use of slo-mo and the exact freeze frame is too much here. Live, it's not as bad. One thing I will say in the positive category is that the referee and US bench handled this well. He went over to tell them, they seemed to accept it, and you hear the coach, without any protest, just say "okay 4-4-1" now. I'm sure he didn't agree with the red, but it is nice to see that sort of bench reaction as opposed to what you might typically expect.
50' minute of Austria-England, red card for SFP: https://www.plus.fifa.com/en/player...3f3-4b33-975a-af78347cc4e9&entryPoint=Default It's a solid card. The replay shown above doesn't show how badly the attacker got the keeper in the torso/stomach. No debate on the card itself. However, look at the offside. This was pretty clear. So this is a case of offside delay unnecessarily leading to a red card and, potentially, a goalkeeper injury. I guess one day automated offside will take this out of the equation, but it's a weird error we're living in.
There are rivalry matches and then there are 16 year old North Koreans against Japan in a World Cup knockout match: North Korean players were punching Japanese players during their U17 World Cup game 😭pic.twitter.com/tEEVdLJ68U— Troll Football (@TrollFootball) November 19, 2025
North Korea is obvious, but yeah Japan’s imperial history in Asia has made them quite contentious with he rest of the countries there
Surprised no one is advocating for 11 red cards for violent conduct here. Usually we get one of those on situations like this.
For what it's worth, and stipulating this is only a four-second clip, I think you have a real problem on your hands if Japan doesnt react the way they seemed to, which was to laugh it off (you see one player doing so as he walks behind the DPRK squad). Same setting, same behavior, but let's say Uruguay v Argentina U17s. I don't think you get the same immediate outcome and then you have some real refereeing to do before the opening whistle.
Was at the game and things started to get pretty feisty towards the end. Wasn't there at the beginning as we were watching Switzerland v Ireland before walking over to see this one, but definitely was some tension at the end