Let’s all remember, Canada and the US finished in the same round of the World Cup and we didn’t need Mark Carney to call FIFA to rescind the broken leg of Kone
Hey Florian @balogun , hear me out my brother in football⚽️
this is not about whether the red card was right or wrong anymore. That debate will never end. This is about the integrity of football.
If I were in your boots, I’d refuse to play against Belgium. Not because I think you’re a bad player or because you asked for any of this, i think you are great, but because politics has now entered the game.
A President of the United States publicly intervened, FIFA softened your suspension, and UEFA says FIFA crossed a red line. If you step onto that pitch, fair or unfair, millions of people will forever question whether you should have been there.
Don’t forget that your career is in Europe, the home of the world’s biggest clubs, the highest level of football, and fans who treat this sport almost like a religion. They care deeply about the integrity of the game. If it were me, I wouldn’t risk carrying this controversy for the rest of your career over a single match. One act of principle today could earn more respect than a hundred goals tomorrow.
Be a hero, don’t get branded as a corrupt loser, fans all over the world will remember your choice. Forever. One game can change all your career and life, choose wisely.
List of players to have their red cards overturned (or suspended) at the World Cup, since the card was introduced in 1970:
🇺🇸 Florian Balogun
End of list.
Holy smokes...
USA vs Belgium might become the most-watched World Cup match ever.
The world isn't tuning in to cheer for the USA, they're tuning in for Belgium. 🇧🇪
Trump interfered in the World Cup and made it all about himself.
We should be celebrating the the U.S. team’s success, but now everything sadly has a cloud over it.
It’s unfortunate for the players, the fans, and the country. Some thoughts...
Read this text from Volodymyr Kukharenko to understand the everyday life of Ukrainian people:
I have not been on vacation for four years. I have had no business trips to establish new connections. Currently, I live and work about 70% of the time without electricity. I had to buy batteries. On average, every two weeks I wake up in the middle of the night to explosions. My children have spent hundreds of days sleeping outside their own beds. Some of my friends have been killed; others are on the front line. Some members of my team joined the army, and one of them was wounded. I’ve seen hundreds of videos and photos of destroyed homes, murdered people, torture and executions, and children’s funerals. I may end up in trenches myself.
Do I want the war to end? Of course I do. Much more than you — believe me. So why don’t I support the “peace plan” Trump is pushing?
Because one does not have to be a genius to understand that this plan would bring only a short pause before a much bigger war. If no one but Ukraine uses force to stop Putin, why would he stop? He will come up with another excuse for why his army must move further. And if he knows that neither the U.S. nor the EU will intervene, what will stop him?
I often hear the argument: “I just want people to stop dying.” I want that too — far more than you —b ecause I am one of those people. But if Ukraine withdraws without a fight from the cities in Donbas that it has fortified for years, why do you think that will save lives? About 300,000 people live there. They will either have to flee or stay and undergo “filtration,” which means many will be tortured and executed. Men will be forcibly drafted into the Russian army. And then that army will march further, forcing Ukrainians to kill Ukrainians. Tell me — how does that save lives?
It also means the Russian army will gain the ability to bomb territories that are currently safe. The war will not end. Ukraine will simply lose its fortress cities without a fight. Those who “just want to go home to their families” and support this idea will eventually find themselves fighting again — this time in even worse conditions.
And who says that if they go home, they won’t be quietly taken in the middle of the night and simply disappear? That would be the most logical thing for Russia to do if it takes over. Genocide is the only way to break a nation’s spirit. In the 1990s, they killed 25% of the Chechen nation. They killed millions of Ukrainians before. They killed in Bucha and Izium in 2022, and in other occupied cities — you can find the photos if you want. Why do you think they won’t repeat it?
There is nothing that would protect us from this scenario. That is why there is absolutely no reason for me to support this plan. We need peace — not the horrors of occupation.
Theres a very long list of US products that cannot be sold in the EU thanks to EU regulations. Since the favorite pastime of the Trump regime and every US oligarch is now to demonize EU regulations, I thought it would be very much worth going through some of those products.🧵
On Holodomor Remembrance Day, Ukrainians light a candle at 4 pm
and place it on the windowsill to honor the millions who died in the 1932-1933 famine.
🕯️4 pm in Ukraine
“Mom, kill me. I can’t bear this anymore”: a child to his mother, Irpin, March 2022.
This is the story of Marina Yarova, a mother of two who, like many from Donetsk, moved in 2014 to what she hoped would be a safe place — the Kyiv suburb of Irpin.
It was in Irpin that the full‑scale invasion reached them.
“We stayed in the parking garage because it was the only shelter in Irpin. When the alarms sounded, everyone hid like mice. When it was quiet, people ran out for heart medicine, sedatives, food. The goal was to survive,” Marina recalls.
On the evening of March 6, the family went up to their 15th‑floor apartment so little 3‑year‑old Mykhailyk could calm down. Moments later, a powerful explosion shook the building.
“It was very close. My daughter grabbed the baby and ran. I followed. Then — darkness. I remember lying on the floor, and the smell… something industrial,” she says.
Marina found her daughter and grandson unharmed. Her adult son, trapped under debris, shouted: “Mom, grab Yana and the little one — run!” She knew he was injured but couldn’t reach him. Her husband, Mykhailo, was also trapped; she could hear only his breathing.
When she returned with help, Marina found her husband dead at the entrance. Her son Serhiy lay in the kitchen, gravely wounded.
“His legs were broken, his abdomen open. I knew I couldn’t save him without doctors,” she says.
A neighbor gave him a painkiller. From her face, Marina understood Serhiy wouldn’t survive. She asked her to leave so she could say goodbye.
“I stayed with my son as long as I could. He was in such pain. He begged: ‘Mom, kill me. I can’t bear this.’ He cursed putin. And those were my child’s last words — not about joy, not about something he wished he’d done,” Marina says.
This is only one story — one among thousands of Ukrainian families shattered the same way.
The only “peace plan” that makes sense is the one from Sanna Marin, Finland’s former Prime Minister:
“The way out of the conflict is for Russia to leave Ukraine. That is the way out of the conflict.”
Kherson Liberation Day.
I remember those scenes — people hiding Ukrainian flags under Russian occupation.
They kept them safe, as their most precious treasure, because they believed Ukraine would return.
And it did.
When our defenders entered the city, people came out with the flags that had been waiting for this day.
Each of us has a flag at home — a reminder that freedom cannot be destroyed as long as the Ukrainian heart beats.