Trump Jinx Strikes US Men's Soccer/Football Team
Now we can't stop thinking about that last scene in The Jinx.
Is there anything, ANYTHING good at all that jumbo-sized nullity Donald Trump can’t ruin with his rancid, rancid vibes? It’s as if the man walks around trailed by a black cloud that sucks in everything even remotely good or hopeful or fun and disappears it into a void beyond the reach of all consciousness. He’s a human version of Stephen King’s mist, trapping all human endeavors in his depths until they are eaten by escaped lab experiments.
The latest Trumpian ruination of American hope is the United States men’s soccer team, which was cruising through the World Cup until star forward Folarin Balogun got a red card in the match against Bosnia-Herzegovina. This meant an automatic suspension for the next match, Monday night against Belgium.
Then our big damp president called his good buddy, FIFA president Gianni Infantino, to ask him to revoke the card. This caused predictable howling from the rest of the world. Infantino has been sucking up to Trump for a year and a half, even going so far as to invent a consolation peace prize to give Trump when he was stewing over not winning the Nobel. So FIFA cutting the US a break, even if it had already been planning on doing so before Trump or any other administration official called, looked like galactic favoritism.
Anyway, Balogun’s suspension was lifted, he was added to the starting lineup, and the entire team promptly lost by three goals, two of which it gave up on the sort of boneheaded defensive blunders you usually don’t see outside of youth rec leagues.
We can’t say how much the days of controversy might have affected the men’s team’s mindset. (For what it’s worth, the players say it didn’t.) We can’t know if it was a distraction for the players so all-encompassing that they came out Monday night looking disjointed and out of step from the opening kickoff. Belgium is a good team. They might have kicked the United States’ ass anyway.
Plus, the Balogun red card was a legitimately bad call, and it would be great if FIFA had a formal process for automatically reviewing all red cards after a World Cup match. The hopes of entire nations hang on these decisions. Maybe Balogun being out would have also left the team moping instead of getting ready for the match.
But Trump — and reportedly quite a few members of his administration — did what they think is the divine right of the United States: They stomped in and demanded special treatment like the zoo’s largest gorilla demanding the staff give him extra bananas and throwing his own poop around his enclosure until he gets them.
And they did this after a year and a half of turning America into a worldwide pariah with provocation after provocation. Everyone already hates us! Everyone was already rooting for us to get our butts kicked! But Trump and Stephen Miller and Howard Lutnick — and oh Lord, imagine being a FIFA official and getting a call from Howard Lutnick trying to schmooze you into doing the US a solid, our skin crawls thinking about it — do not care.
From Al-Jazeera:
The FIFA decision prompted criticism from Belgium’s football association, Europe’s top football body, a former FIFA boss, multiple top former players and many others. Critics argued that overturning a red card suspension after direct political intervention undermined the integrity of the tournament and set a dangerous precedent.
The former FIFA boss is Sepp Blatter, and if you have Sepp freaking Blatter telling you a decision made after consulting with the leaders of nations looks bad and corrupt, hoo boy, you really need to re-evaluate not just this but all of your life choices.
The Trump jinx strikes again. Last month he disrupted half of New York City so he could nap through Game 3 of the NBA Finals in person. That wound up being the only game in which the New York Knicks did not dominate and win. Until Trump showed up, there was a chance the Knicks were going to sweep San Antonio. Instead, for a minute it looked like the Spurs were back in the series.
And even that wasn’t the first time in his presidency that Trump seems to have jinxed teams. He attended a Washington Commanders game last November, and they got stomped by the Detroit Lions. Then a Lions player celebrated scoring a touchdown by doing Trump’s infamous dumb dance — which has been described as looking like he’s jerking off two giraffes at once — and the team promptly lost five of its next eight games and missed the playoffs.
Trump also attended a day of golf’s Ryder Cup, which was being held on Long Island in 2025. The US was down after the morning rounds. Trump told the media that the US team would come back, and the team promptly tanked in the afternoon, finishing down even more.
Shoot, Trump was even sitting behind home plate when the New York Mets lost the 2006 National League Championship Series to St. Louis, way before he was president. The Trump jinx has been with us for literally decades.
And to think, we were concerned that a win would look somewhat tainted because of Trump’s intervention. It turns out there was never any need to worry, Trump’s intervention pretty much sealed the loss ahead of time.
As it happens, soccer star Christian Pulisic has been known to do Trump’s dance after scoring a goal. Monday night, Pulisic turned in one of the worst performances of his career. COINCIDENCE? We think not.
Plus, Pulisic gave the entire Belgian team a way to twist the knife after scoring their fourth goal on Monday:
If America does nothing else, for the sake of our athletes we need to keep Trump as far away from the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles in 2028 as we possibly can. Maybe the Secret Service could lock him into that bunker he’s allegedly building under his stupid ballroom and forget where they left the key.
Also, he might be dead then.
[Al-Jazeera / ESPN]
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I just want to find 4 goals.
Trump's next phone call to Infantino.
By the way did Trump return the Stock Exchange opening bell or is he gonna keep it in the White Power House?