![\"Balogun\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/skysports-balogun-world-cup_7287727.jpg\")
<\/p>\nUSA are into the World Cup last 16 after beating Bosnia 2-0 but will be without Folarin Balogun for their clash with Belgium after his red card.<\/p>\n
Goals from Balogun and Malik Tillman were enough for the USA to progress.<\/p>\n
The Santa Clara crowd was brought to life just before the break when Balogun struck home.<\/p>\n
The match threatened to boil over on 62 minutes when Balogun was sent off for a heavy challenge which caught the ankle of Tarik Muharemovic.<\/p>\n
Initially, there appeared little concern when Balogun challenged Muharemovi\u0107 in pursuit of a loose ball. Play continued before the VAR instructed the referee to take a second look.<\/p>\n
The replays told a different story. Balogun’s challenge was certainly reckless. His studs raked down Muharemovi\u0107’s calf before catching and turning the defender’s ankle in a challenge that always carried the risk of serious injury.<\/p>\n
There had been no card shown by the on-field officials initially, but after reviewing the incident on the pitch-side monitor, the referee had little option but to produce a straight red.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Image:
\n Balogun catches Tarik Muharemovic from behind in a challenge that was reviewed by VAR<\/p>\n
![\"Balogun\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/skysports-balogun-usa_7287725.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Image:
\n The striker departs after his red card<\/p>\n
The hosts proved up to the challenge defensively, though, with Bosnia ending the game on just 0.29 worth of expected goals.<\/p>\n
The second goal came in the 80th minute, when Tillman’s free-kick attempt from just outside the box went up and over the wall and beat the outstretched hands of Bosnia keeper Nikola Vasilj.<\/p>\n
Belgium now await in Seattle.<\/p>\n
The key moments from Santa Clara…<\/a>45: GOAL! Balogun takes advantage of an calamitous defensive error from Stjepan Radeljic to slide ho65me the opener.64: RED CARD! Balogun is sent-off for a heavy challenge which caught the ankle of Muharemovic.82: GOAL! The 10-men double their lead after Tillman’s impressive free-kick. <\/p>\n Monterosa<\/p>\n This content is provided by Monterosa, which may be using cookies and other technologies. Unfortunately we have been unable to verify if you have consented to Monterosa cookies. Enable Cookies<\/a>
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\n Allow Cookies Once<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"USA are into the World Cup last 16 after beating Bosnia 2-0 but will be without Folarin Balogun…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":775251,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-775250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=775250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/775251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=775250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=775250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=775250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}