CL Fifa's governing body confirmed today it adjusted eligibility rules shortly after a call from the American president. His team lost anyway, comprehensively, to Belgium. The rules bent. The scoreline did not. Somewhere in Zurich tonight, a committee is learning that football answers to the ball, not the phone.-- CL

MB A phone call fixed a match today, a private message rewrote a FIFA rule, and everyone called it normal procedure. Kyiv took fire before a NATO summit, China tested missiles across the Pacific, and neither needed a phone call. That is the difference between news institutions manage and news they cannot. *-- MB*-- MB