Pardon me, I can and did call you out for incorrectly calling this shoulder-to-shoulder independent of what he posted. I'm not so insane as to use one angle of stills to find out what happened.
This wasn't shoulder-to-shoulder. Even the crappy slow-mo shows that. Neither the initial contact was simply shoulder-to-shoulder (some arm and back touching.. is that the same?) while the impact comes through the hips. As I've said several times, watch real replays. I guess it's debatable since we're here, but two guys mutually bumping shoulders factually did not happen here.
It's shoulder to shoulder in stills, in slo mo, live speed, fast forwarded, from a satellite in space. What the Bosnian player did is done a 100 times a game and maybe called a foul once or twice because refs make mistakes sometimes. Expecting a situation where two players are battling for possession and the arms stay limp at the sides is like expecting a WR and DB to battle for position without touching each other. There's always going to be some level of contact that's allowed and if you watched this game the ref consistently allowed players a decent level of contact in these side-to-side battles.
Get that junk about established position out of here.
Lol, ok tough guy.
The BiH player doesn't have the ball. Neither player has the ball. They haven't even touched it.
Sure but establishing position means that when you get to a spot in the path of the ball, you have a right to stand in that spot without having an out of balance player fall into you like Balogun did. I'm not saying it was a foul on Balogun for that part of it btw, I don't think it was.
Not that that's 100% protection but wtf? I can match contact with you at my shoulder, but I don't get to shove my hip into you from the side just because I outran you. This is wild.
So your contention is the Bosnia player outran Balo to the ball and then threw his hip backwards and sideways into him? The mental gymnastics is one thing, but now we've got literal gymnasts and/or Shakira backup dancers playing in the World Cups trying to weaponize their hips!
Jokes aside, it's one thing to argue that the red card was the wrong call. I've agreed on here it was harsh. A lot of experts have also agreed. But those experts largely take issue with the red card. Not many I've seen arguing not foul at all, and plenty conceding a yellow card would have been appropriate (including prominent Americans like Taylor Twellman and Alexei Lalas). And here is where I think there should be a change. Apparently the VAR review cannot result in a yellow card, only a red card or nothing. I think that should change.
As for the idea that the Bosnian player is the one that committed a foul? Couldn't really find any so I asked AI to help:
At this point I'm done debating this. Feel free to tell me how wrong I am and how the Bosnian player's hips/weapons of mass destruction constitute a war crime. You can have the last word.
If anyone is interested in a defense of the red card, here is how AI summarized it:
I still think the red was harsh, and think it shouldn't have been one.
