Sammy

They’re using very shady and subjective rules in Messi’s favor because he’s the face of MLS. FIFA used a very shady and subjective rule in the USMNT’s favor during the WC because we were the host nation. FIFA also used this very shady and subjective rule to make sure Ronaldo wasn’t banned for Portugal at the same WC (people conveniently never talk about this). UEFA a few years back used a similarly very shady and subjective rule to make sure Jude Bellingham wasn’t banned for a key game for England’s NT. I’m okay with getting rid of all the favoritism, but the amount of ganging up on the USMNT we saw (and still see) from some of these snotty Euro federations is ridiculous in light of all the evidence in this sport that if it commercially makes sense for these governing bodies to overlook the traditional rules of a suspension they will do it. So you see it wasn’t just for us. Our players and our team got bullied over this and just took it. They cracked under the pressure and should’ve instead defended themselves and not given in over a topic that has plenty of precedent of star/home team calls over the last few years.