🚨 Zinedine Zidane on Folarin Balogun’s challenge on Muharemović:
🗣️ “For me, that’s a red card. I don’t think there’s any debate about it.”
“When you go into a challenge with that much force and your studs are high, you’re putting another player’s safety at risk. That’s exactly what the red card law is there to protect.”
“I don’t care if it’s the first minute or the last minute of a World Cup match. A dangerous tackle is a dangerous tackle.”
“Balogun is an outstanding striker, but in that moment he completely lost control. You cannot make challenges like that and expect to stay on the pitch.”
“If the referee sees the full contact and judges it as serious foul play, then he has every right to send him off. Football is a physical game, but there’s a clear line between being aggressive and being reckless.”
“Players have families waiting for them after the match. The first responsibility is protecting your opponent. Challenges like this can end careers if we’re not careful.”
“For me, if we’re serious about player safety, that challenge deserves a straight red card.”
USA. A Mexican restaurant. We had not yet ordered anything, and the food was already arriving.
Chips. Salsa. Unrequested. Free.
I stopped the waiter. "We have not earned these."
"They just come with the table, man."
They come with the TABLE. In my land, hospitality is a debt. Every gift creates an obligation, weighed carefully, returned in the proper season with interest of feeling. Here, the gift arrives before you have even proven you can pay for dinner.
This is not an appetizer. This is a declaration: we trust you. Eat.
I ate with the gravity the moment deserved. And then — I must report this calmly — the basket emptied, and a new one appeared.
"Did we…?"
"Refill," the waiter said. "It's bottomless."
Bottomless. They have wells of salsa. The supply lines of this nation are beyond anything my ancestors imagined.
My friend warned me. "Don't fill up on chips, dude."
Too late. I had accepted three baskets. Honor demanded each one be finished — an unfinished gift is an insult. By the time my actual food arrived, I was a ruined man.
I was not hungry. I was not comfortable. I had been defeated by a courtesy.
Generosity that arrives before the request cannot be repaid. It can only be survived.
I know the rule now. I have made my peace with the basket. One basket. Two at the most.
Who am I deceiving. There is no number of baskets I would refuse. The trust of a nation is in that salsa, and I intend to honor all of it.
BOSCO!!!! (Just Kidding but I just couldn’t resist the joke. It’s my fatal flaw. The shot was there. I had to take it. I’m gonna grow from this. It’s not only the right thing to do. It’s the Ryder thing to do)
@stoolpresidente Dave next year, you do a few barstool personalities maybe and then just have a casting for some added people. You have a banger of an idea, add in some randoms and make it fun
@JimCosta_ I agree in the sense of I don’t think they should over reach for those positions. I am also not sure what this towns obsession is with the idea that you have to have two elite DE. They were 4th in sacks and 11th in pressures. Is that really a top 2 need for this team?