Folarin Balogun’s evening began with a goal and a celebration fit for LeBron James. It ended with the United States striker walking off after a red card that will keep him out of what would have been the biggest match of his international career.<\/p>\n
Balogun scored his third goal of the World Cup to give the US a first-half lead in their 2-0 round-of-32 win over Bosnia, continuing his breakout tournament on home soil.<\/p>\n
The forward marked the goal by mimicking James’ famous “Silencer” celebration, lifting his knees and pounding his chest before repeatedly pushing both arms downward in front of a raucous Santa Clara crowd.<\/p>\n
“Helluva goal there Young King!” the NBA great wrote on social media during the match, giving Balogun’s moment an extra jolt of star power.<\/p>\n
But Balogun’s night took a sharp turn after the break when he was shown a red card for planting his boot into the ankle of Bosnia defender Tarik Muharemovic, leaving the US to navigate the remainder of the knockout tie a man down.<\/p>\n
The contact by Balogun appeared inadvertent and he was not shown a red or even a yellow initially, but was sent off after a Video Assistant Referee review.<\/p>\n
For a few anxious moments, the red card threatened to overwhelm everything Balogun had done well.<\/p>\n
It also stirred uncomfortable memories for US fans of Tim Weah’s sending-off against Panama at the 2024 Copa America, when the Americans unraveled and crashed out in the group stage on home soil.<\/p>\n
This time, Balogun’s teammates made sure the story did not end the same way.<\/p>\n
Rather than fold, Mauricio Pochettino’s side stayed compact and composed, defending with discipline while still posing a threat going forward. Malik Tillman eventually doubled the lead with a free kick, allowing the U.S. to close out victory despite Balogun’s dismissal.<\/p>\n
“We had to dig deep for that one,” Christian Pulisic said.<\/p>\n
“Obviously, I felt we put on such a good performance and didn’t deserve the red card. I mean, I didn’t see it, but it’s unfortunate. But for us to dig in deep, get another goal and defend the way we did, it took a real team effort, but we’re proud of that.”<\/p>\n
For Balogun, the night was a contradiction: another good finish that reinforced his value as the U.S. attack’s focal point, followed by a costly lapse that will leave him watching from the stands when the Americans face Belgium in the last 16<\/a>.<\/p>\n The US survived without him on Thursday. In Seattle on Tuesday, they will have to prove they can do it again from the start.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Folarin Balogun’s evening began with a goal and a celebration fit for LeBron James. It ended with the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":505934,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":["post-505933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=505933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}