THE AGONY OF DEFEAT

The integrity of the upright guides them,
but the crookedness of the treacherous destroys them.

[proverbs 11:3 nrsvue]

It was not my intention to write a follow-up reflection on the World Cup, but the circumstances surrounding the United States’ match against Belgium compelled me to do so.

And thanks to the old ABC show Wide World of Sports, finding the appropriate title for this post was effortless.

By now the world knows that Belgium defeated the US Men’s team in their match on Monday, ending the team’s hopes of advancing to the quarterfinals.

There was little doubt that Belgium had the more experienced squad, but that doesn’t necessarily guarantee a victory.

The US was confident and dare I say, a little cocky, that this might be their year, until controversy got in the way.

A red card against one of their star players earned him a suspension for the game against Belgium.

A red card is the harshest penalty that can be levied against a player in soccer. The player is immediately ejected from the game, the team cannot substitute for the player, so it must play with one less player for the remainder of the contest, and the ejected player is also suspended for at least the next game.

I did not see the match, but those who did almost unanimously agreed that the violation did not merit the punishment. Yet the athlete, Folarin Balogun, accepted the penalty and suspension without argument.

But the controversy didn’t end there.

A strategically placed telephone call by the President of the United States somehow resulted in the lifting of the suspension, something virtually unheard of in World Cup Soccer.

The Belgians were livid, as was nearly all the rest of the soccer world. Their appeal went unheard, so their only recourse was to retaliate on the pitch.

(Pitch, by the way, is the term for field. I’m picking up a little soccer lingo as I dig deeper into this foreign territory!)

And retaliate the Belgians did!

A 4-1 score in soccer is a thorough thrashing.

Balogun was a non-factor in the humiliating loss.

But the win was not enough for the Belgian players and their fans.

They couldn’t let go of the President’s efforts to circumvent the rules. He was ridiculed in a number of ways for his attempts to interfere.

“Red Card Gate” will not soon be forgotten.

The tenth chapter in the Book of Proverbs includes many references to integrity. I had no shortage of verses to choose as a springboard for today’s post.

However, for a commentary on this situation, I turn to the gospel according to Galeano.

I referenced the book, Soccer in Sun and Shadow (El fútbol a sol y sombra), by Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano, and translated by Mark Fried, in my previous post.

Published in 1997, it was named one of the “Top 100 Sports Books of All Time” by Sports Illustrated.

One of the essays in this engaging collection is titled “The Sin of Losing.” (p. 230) From it, I’ve pulled a few quotes that reflect the stronghold that the game has on the world’s countries.

Soccer elevates its divinities and exposes them to the vengeance of the believers. With ball on his foot and the national colors on his chest, the player who embodies the nation marches off to win glory on far-off battlefields. If he returns in defeat, the warrior becomes a fallen angel…

We are because we win. If we lose, we no longer exist…When England lost out in the qualifiers for the 1994 World Cup, the front page of London’s Daily Mirror featured a headline in a type size for a catastrophe: “THE END OF THE WORLD.”

In soccer, as in everything else, losing is not allowed. In these end of century days, failure is the only sin that cannot be redeemed.

These comments could be made about almost any sport.

Yet because of its international appeal, soccer seems to sit far above the others in its fanaticism.

The United States can be classified as a neophyte in international competition. It has far to go to equal the skill level or the passion of other countries, who have been at this far longer.

Adding to the challenge is that the sport is populated by mercenaries, who play for whoever will pay them the most.

Thus, a national team’s players are scattered all over the globe and must be hurriedly rounded up and assembled into a cohesive unit before World Cup competition gets underway.

It’s also fascinating to see just how far a country, or its leaders, will go to increase their prospects for a championship.

For example, more than half of the twenty-six players on the men’s national team hold dual citizenship, and Balogun, the player at the center of the United States firestorm, has citizenship in three countries, and lived in this country just long enough to be born here. He lives in London, the son of a Nigerian mother.

Yes, he is a birthright citizen!

Quite an amusing irony, that the President of the United States would ask for an exception in his case.

Could that be the lesson to be learned here? Could, in the final analysis, this entire incident prove to be a revelation to the man in the White House: that diversity is a strength, not a vulnerability.

We can only hope…and pray!

We pray for him and for the whole human family:
O God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us through Jesus your Son: Look with compassion on the whole human family; take away the arrogance and hatred which
infect our hearts; break down the walls that separate us; unite us in bonds of love; and work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth; that, in your good time, all nations and races may serve you in harmony around your heavenly throne; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
(Book of Common Prayer, p. 815)