{"id":399214,"date":"2026-07-15T11:02:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T11:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/399214\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T11:02:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T11:02:12","slug":"folarin-balogun-red-card-controversy-didnt-help-u-s-at-world-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/399214\/","title":{"rendered":"Folarin Balogun: Red card controversy ‘didn’t help’ U.S. at World Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Folarin Balogun<\/a> insists that the red card controversy surrounding him during the World Cup<\/a> was not the reason the U.S. lost 4-1 to Belgium in the round of 16.<\/p>\n

But, the breakout American star said Tuesday on NBC\u2019s \u201cToday\u201d show<\/a>, \u201cit didn\u2019t help.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs an athlete, you go into a game that\u2019s already difficult enough with everything that goes on, the pressure,\u201d Balogun said. \u201cSo to have more pressure, not just internally [but also] from almost the whole footballing world, was difficult. But it\u2019s not an excuse. We were disappointed with the way it ended, but there\u2019s still a lot to be proud of.\u201d<\/p>\n

Balogun, a birthright U.S. citizen whose Nigerian parents live in England, scored his third goal in four World Cup games during a 2-0 win over Bosnia and Herzegovina<\/a> on July 1 in Santa Clara. But he also received a straight red card for stomping on the ankle of Bosnian center back Tarik Muharemovi\u0107, meaning the top-scoring American player would have to miss the next game.<\/p>\n

It was a controversial call, with some feeling the red card was unwarranted since Balogun\u2019s action didn\u2019t seem intentional.<\/p>\n

Then came an even more controversial call, when President Trump reached out<\/a> to FIFA President Gianni Infantino<\/a> to ask for the decision to be reviewed. On July 6, the day before the U.S.-Belgium game, FIFA announced that Balogun\u2019s suspension had been lifted<\/a> and he would be allowed to play the following day. <\/p>\n

The only other time a red-card suspension was overruled during a World Cup was in 1962, when Brazilian attacker Garrincha was allowed to play in the final after Brazil\u2019s prime minister lobbied on his behalf. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy initial reaction was, I was happy to be back in the team,\u201d Balogun said Tuesday on \u201cCBS Mornings.\u201d<\/a> \u201cBut when I kind of started to reflect, I knew it was going to cause a lot of controversy.\u201d <\/p>\n

He was correct about that. Although Infantino insisted that the FIFA Disciplinary Committee makes its decisions independently, the reversal caused outrage among many in the soccer world. Belgium submitted an appeal, but it was rejected<\/a> hours before the game. <\/p>\n

Amid all that, the U.S. had to prepare for Belgium \u2014 first without and then with Balogun in the mix. He told CBS the situation was \u201cconfusing\u201d for all involved.<\/p>\n

\u201cI could almost see within my teammates a bit of nerves, because it\u2019s something that is so unique,\u201d Balogun said. \u201cBut the closer we got to the game, I tried to just focus as best as I could, but it was difficult. A lot of outside noise, and that\u2019s hard to avoid.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added, though, that he and his teammates were \u201cable to separate the emotion from the job at hand,\u201d and the distractions didn\u2019t contribute to the disappointing loss.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re all professionals, so it\u2019s not something I think was too difficult to be separate once we kind of got over the initial announcement that I\u2019d be back in the team,\u201d Balogun said. \u201cI think you saw definitely it was a difficult game against Belgium, and that can kind of overshadow whether we were focused or not. … I know we had full concentration going into the game.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Folarin Balogun insists that the red card controversy surrounding him during the World Cup was not the reason…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399215,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[61169,24324,160286,217,6848,145222,423,5679,48,52,51,47,50,49,1741,160285,39538,427,68,2281,5393],"class_list":["post-399214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-belgium","tag-cbs-mornings","tag-controversial-call","tag-day","tag-decision","tag-folarin-balogun","tag-game","tag-july","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-lot","tag-red-card-controversy","tag-suspension","tag-team","tag-tuesday","tag-u-s","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399214\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}