Belgium National Team Discussion

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RBFA STATEMENT

The Royal Belgian Football Association (RBFA) is astonished by FIFA's decision to declare suspended United States player Folarin Balogun eligible to play in the USA–Belgium match on Monday, 6 July at 5:00 p.m. (Seattle time).

FIFA bases its decision on Article 27 of the FIFA Disciplinary Code. This provision states that the FIFA Disciplinary Committee may decide to suspend the enforcement of a previously imposed disciplinary sanction.

However, Article 66.4 of the same FIFA Disciplinary Code clearly provides that a red card (sending-off) automatically results in a suspension for the team's next match, as has been the case for all previous red cards issued during this FIFA World Cup.

Furthermore, and irrespective of the above, the decision is in direct contradiction with the provisions of the FIFA World Cup 2026 Competition Regulations, as set out in Article 10.5:
"If a player or team official is sent off as a result of a direct or indirect red card (second caution), they will automatically be suspended from their team's subsequent match. In addition, further sanctions may be imposed."

The automatic nature of such a suspension was also explicitly reaffirmed in FIFA World Cup 2026 Circular No. 16, which was distributed to all participating member associations on 12 May 2026.

The same rule is reiterated at every FIFA World Cup 2026 Match Coordination Meeting prior to each match and is included in all FIFA World Cup 2026 workshop presentations.
In order to safeguard the legitimate rights of all participating teams and to protect the fundamental principles of fair play in our sport, both at this FIFA World Cup and at future editions of the tournament, the RBFA is investigating all potential options.
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onemanarmy said:
https://www.facebook.com/share/1J9qLQ2UfR/
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Good statement. Balogun playing tomorrow will be clear corruption and a farce and I hope fairness prevails. If not, then I genuinely hope he twists his ankle in warm ups or has diarrhea in the morning or something. Nothing serious, but there's not a fecking chance he should be playing tomorrow. Absolute joke. Honestly if I was a Belgian defense I'd absolutely be going in extremely hard on Balogun all game and talking about it the whole time. feck this whole situation. Balogun also a cnut of he just accepts cheating and plays.
 
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Real Name said:
Come on lads, eyes of the whole football world, except US, are on you tonight.
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That's part of the problem. There is pressure enough on players, outside of this stuff. Although if this doesn't motivate you, nothing will.
I'm pretty sure we will bottle this, hope I'm surprised.
 
duffer said:
Balogun is absolutely nailed on to score, isn't he?

Kinda feel for him in this, he's a Londoner really just caught up in this nonsense.
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Yes, it's not his fault. It wouldn't even matter if he was born and bred in Mississippi, 100% of the blame on Trump and Infantile.
 
Would be interesting if the USA goes out on a dodgy goal....wonder what happens then...
 
Let's hope this serves as the motivator they need, because IMHO the USMNT wouldn't even need Balogun to beat Belgium.
 
Can Belgium stand up for, Truth, Justice, and The European Way?
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Following its previous statement, the RBFA wishes to publicly explain the events of the past few hours.
After learning through media reports of FIFA’s decision to lift the automatic suspension of player Balogun, the RBFA sent a letter to FIFA requesting a copy of the decision, an explanation of the process that had been followed, and setting out its position regarding the applicable regulations.
As its only response, FIFA sent a letter to the RBFA stating that it considered this correspondence to constitute an appeal, that a judge had been appointed, and that the RBFA had only a few hours to complete that appeal. No information whatsoever was provided by FIFA.
For an appeal to be admissible, FIFA’s own regulations state that the reasoned decision must first have been communicated to the appellant. While the RBFA was merely seeking legitimate explanations, FIFA itself created an appeal and immediately ensured that it would be declared inadmissible.
All of this occurred while FIFA simultaneously refused to respond to the RBFA’s legitimate requests.
Furthermore, during the match coordination meeting, FIFA deliberately removed the section concerning the automatic suspension of players from its presentation. This topic had nonetheless been part of all such meetings before each of the previous four matches. The RBFA questioned FIFA, both orally and in writing, about the reasons for this change, yet once again received no response.
To be clear, as of this moment, the RBFA has still not received any decision or any explanation from FIFA regarding this matter. It therefore has no alternative but to challenge the player's eligibility for the upcoming match.
Regardless of the sporting outcome of this match, the RBFA is deeply concerned by the course of events and will continue to fight in the coming hours, days and months in defence of the fundamental principles of ethics, fair competition, and the interests of football as a whole.
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Changeisgood said:
Would be interesting if the USA goes out on a dodgy goal....wonder what happens then...
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We will just pretend it's a sissy sport played by European pansies and we never really cared at all. It's what we do after each tournament flame out, then we focus on real men's sports.

Note: while this may look sarcastic, I actually have neighbors that will do this.
 
André Dominguez said:
Let's hope this serves as the motivator they need, because IMHO the USMNT wouldn't even need Balogun to beat Belgium.
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You do realise they beat the US 5-1 a few months ago? Based on what exactly do you reckon they can beat Belgium without their best player?
 
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El-Manos said:
You do realise they beat the US 5-1 a few months ago? Based on what exactly do you reckon they can beat Belgium without their best player?
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5-2 I think ;)

Based on form, I'd say US are slight favorites. Home crowd too. I'm pretty nervous for this game, more than the Senegal because I was convinced we'd lose that.
 
onemanarmy said:
5-2 I think ;)

Based on form, I'd say US are slight favorites. Home crowd too. I'm pretty nervous for this game, more than the Senegal because I was convinced we'd lose that.
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I think Senegal was the much tougher game for Belgium but time will tell.
 
El-Manos said:
You do realise they beat the US 5-1 a few months ago? Based on what exactly do you reckon they can beat Belgium without their best player?
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To be fair, the US have had a better tournament than Belgium so far. Based on intrinsic quality I would still put us above the US, but almost all of our key players are in dire form right now. I don't know how we suddenly fix that.
 
Ainu said:
To be fair, the US have had a better tournament than Belgium so far. Based on intrinsic quality I would still put us above the US, but almost all of our key players are in dire form right now. I don't know how we suddenly fix that.
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Yes admittedly that’s a problem. Then again, the likes of KDB & Doku can switch it on in a matter of minutes. If they find their form in this game I’d be pretty confident the USA are out.
 
onemanarmy said:
5-2 I think ;)

Based on form, I'd say US are slight favorites. Home crowd too. I'm pretty nervous for this game, more than the Senegal because I was convinced we'd lose that.
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They're more than slight favourites, if you start doing too well they'll call a hydration break and you'll come back to find your goal has doubled in size.
 
Ainu said:
To be fair, the US have had a better tournament than Belgium so far. Based on intrinsic quality I would still put us above the US, but almost all of our key players are in dire form right now. I don't know how we suddenly fix that.
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We play the players who are actually in good form. No gain in playing Doku who's been struggling mentally and physically imo. Trossard on the left, Lukebakio or Moreira on the right. Doku can come in later when US defenders are tired.

DOTA said:
They're more than slight favourites, if you start doing too well they'll call a hydration break and you'll come back to find your goal has doubled in size.
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:lol: and they'll be allowed to play 14 players probably.
 
onemanarmy said:
We play the players who are actually in good form. No gain in playing Doku who's been struggling mentally and physically imo. Trossard on the left, Lukebakio or Moreira on the right. Doku can come in later when US defenders are tired.
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I'd like to see it but we're dealing with another weirdo managing our team. One who passed up several alternatives to include Pardo in our selection, plays him at the end of a few matches where he went on to impress only to not give him any minutes against Senegal where our attack was failing miserably for 85 minutes. I just don't know what to make of it all.
 
Really curious to find out how we'll line up. Raskin has done enough to warrant a start imo, Moreira made an instant impact but to immediately let him start this game, I'm not sure about that. Lukebakio has mostly been good when given the opportunity and he is way more threatening than the likes of Doku and CDK so I'd like to see him start.

Courtois
Castagne Ngoy Mechele De Cuyper
Raskin
Tielemans Vanaken
Doku Lukebakio Trossard
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Is what I'm hoping to see, and I think it has a decent chance apart from KDB instead of Vanaken and that he'll probably stick with Theate at the back.

The eyes of the world will be on this game, also immense pressure on the referee from the get go, all not ideal circumstances. I haven't seen any USA game after the Paraguay game, thought they looked decent enough there but Paraguay were awful as well. Just hope we start with some fire in our game, and stick it to them from the first minute. Our intrinsic quality is way higher than what they have to offer so we should be dominating this game.
 
El-Manos said:
You do realise they beat the US 5-1 a few months ago? Based on what exactly do you reckon they can beat Belgium without their best player?
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Phisically, it's day and night and in an endurance sport like football, that's usually a big deal.
 
At this point I'd just call it a day. Blatant cheating at the request of a US president. Football is really gone, and it's a fecking shame.
This has ruined the entire tournament for me. I would have had 0 problems with losing against the US before all of this kicked off.
 
Best performance of the tournament so far, almost certain the US would've had a better chance if not for all the drama the last 24 hours.

Rudi Garcia deserves credit to adapt his team every game here and there but keep the core the same, not afraid to make changes and big calls. Tournament already a successful one now, I hope this gives us even more confidence to set our foot against (a for me less than inspiring) Spain on Friday and just play our own game.
 
I take it all back CDK, sorry for ever doubting you! Excellent game from him. I'm so glad we put these feckers back in their place.
 
Executed his game plan really well in stifling the channels for balogun to run into where US had threatened all tournament. Poch didn’t really have any answers for that, though it didn’t really help that they basically self destructed via losing important individual battles and a Sunday league level giveaway.

Spain might be a hill too tall to climb but QF is still a solid result for this team.
 
When you watch them in action tonight you can't but help think what if for them with some decent manager in charge instead of Martinez during 2016 to 2022 in what was wasted years.
 
I think Spain are more beatable than the last Euros. It’s all about shutting down Yamal, which is not going to be easy and Courtois will need to have a big performance. It wouldn’t surprise me if you did manage to beat them.
 
Fantastic performance tonight. If they play like this against Spain, they may actually have a chance.
 
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