Donald Trump<\/a> give the Qatari-gifted new Airforce One a run to Seattle on Monday night? If so, he\u2019ll be in a full house. The battling, unyielding nature of this win over the honest if limited Bosnian and Herzegovinian threat will have drawn in new supporters across the States. The USA scored two, had two goals disallowed and saw their tournament talisman Folarin Balogun red-carded controversially. <\/p>\nOn Monday night, Independence Day celebrations all done, they will play Belgium in Seattle for a place in the quarter-finals. If they are to breathe that rare air, then they\u2019ll have to do it without Balogun. But after this, there will be little doubt they have the stomach for the task, and the Seattle crowd will extend a new level of intimidation for the Belgians.<\/p>\n
As the several tiers of class and winning potential have established themselves over the past three weeks, the USA have progressed comfortably without fully answering the question of how far they can go. Their motto for this tournament was provided by the rhetorical question that Pochettino set his players before the tournament began: Why not us? <\/p>\n
The fans streaming in from San Francisco and San Jose on Wednesday afternoon adopted it on T-shirts and placards. It was a deliciously sly piece of propaganda by Poch, framing the American nation as plucky underdogs, right here in this dazzling open-air tiered stadium, home to the 49ers for the past decade and in the epicentre of the US tech and AI production hub. Its location, about 40 minutes south of San Francisco on the Caltrain is a symbol of the transformation of city and valley over the past 40 years: Candlestick Park, the old stadium on the city waterfront, was razed and replaced by Levi\u2019s Stadium in the heart of Silicon Valley. <\/p>\n
And the sun inevitably shone, and among the few hundred Bosnian shirts – many of whom spoke in American accents – was a full house of American believers full of gung-ho certitude.<\/p>\n
Yup, why not them?<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had to dig deep for that one,\u201d Christian Pulisic said shortly after the full-time whistle.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt we put on such a good performance and didn\u2019t deserve the red card. I didn\u2019t see it, but it was unfortunate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Diplomatic words. Balogun had put in an electrifying hour when he became tangled up with Tarik Muharemovic and while his body was turned away from the Bosnian defender, both players lost balance. Balogun\u2019s foot caught his opponent\u2019s heel and caused his ankle to twist badly. On initial sighting, it looked innocuous but as Muharemovic lay receiving treatment, the Brazilian referee Raphael Claus was called to the monitor and issued a 64th-minute red card to general disbelief, and American outrage delivered from the steep stands.<\/p>\n
![\"Inside](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/DGFV4KI5SS6BUCY5DXNDC7EDYE.jpg\")
Inside the stadium during the World Cup match between USA and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Photograph: Charlotte Wilson\/Getty Images <\/p>\n
What did the Bosnian and Herzegovinians bring to this land of blase Californian sunshine and new-tech omnipotence? A certain granite-jawed Balkan stoicism, a determination to frustrate, a defensive block that the Americans had over-run 20 minutes in and a grim determination to hang in there as long as possible and then see what happens. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s a recipe at which no other small nation should scoff. The closest they came to silencing the juiced US crowd came in the ninth minute, off a clever set-piece from a Bosnia and Herzegovina goal-kick when Muharemovic delivered a Howitzer restart over the USA\u2019s high press for veteran Edin Dzeko, who rolled a pass for Ermodin Demirovic to test Matt Freese. Kerim Alajbegovic then almost deceived Freese with his inswinging corner.<\/p>\n
The visitors won a couple of early corners but after the first quarter, they gradually ceded both the rhythm of the game and territory to the ferocious and highly organised pressing game of the USA.<\/p>\n
For the sell-out crowd of 68,827 – and the Brazilian referee – Balogun established himself as the main instrument of American intent. His penalty claim was correctly waved off on the half-hour mark, he had a goal disallowed a minute later after Malik Tillman robbed Ivan Sunjic just outside the Bosnian box and he finally struck goal just before half time. Bosnia had begun to doubt their capacity to play through the US press by then: Nikola Vasilj, busy all day, hoofed a ball in the general direction of New York: Tim Ream tided up and found Tyler Adams. Tillman\u2019s pass to Balogun was facilitated by a clumsy touch from the retreating Stjepan Radeljic but the finish was poised and deserved.<\/p>\n
Sergej Barbarez, the Bosnian coach who took up his first coaching post with the national team at the age of 52, was not about to allow himself to die wondering about what was, without question, the biggest football night in the history of the young nation. You can but imagine the 2am scenes there. A triple substitution in the 52nd minute included the departure of Dzeko and the arrival of Esmir Bajraktarevic, the Wisconsin-raised winger who played for USA underage teams before an emotional pull caused him to switch allegiance to his parents\u2019 country two years ago.<\/p>\n
After Balogun\u2019s departure, Bosnia-Herzegovina enjoyed the luxury of periods of possession without perpetual American harassment but little more. Pochettino\u2019s team shrugged off the red card and pressed home their advantage when Tillman cleared the wall with a superbly struck 23-yard free that, while lacking lacerating power, skimmed the Bosnian wall and outwitted Nikola Vasilj.<\/p>\n
The two-goal lead was a truer reflection of the USA\u2019s overall dominance and resilience. Pochettino has a long weekend of patriotic fervour as a backdrop as he thinks about adjusting his line-up for the absence of Balogun \u2013 the one shadow on another wise cloudless July afternoon in northern California.<\/p>\n
USA: Freese; Ream, Richards, Freeman; Robinson, Dest (Berhalter 88); Tillman, McKennie (Reyna 90+5), Adams, Pulisic (Repi 88); Balogun. <\/p>\n
Bosnia and Herzegovina: Vasilj; Muharemovic, Radelji\u0107, Kati\u0107; Kola\u0161inac, Sunjic (Tahirovi\u010752), Gigovic (Bajaktarevic 52), Dedi\u0107; Alajbegovi\u0107, Demirovi\u0107; D\u017eeko (Mahmi\u0107 52).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"World Cup Round of 32: United States 2 (Balogun 45, Tillman 82) Bosnia-Herzegovina 0 Stocks rising in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":529096,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[223134,969,2956,61,60,112,115,4018],"class_list":["post-529095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-bosnia","tag-donald-trump","tag-fifa","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=529095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529095\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/529096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}