The USMNT got some good news over the weekend. Folarin Balogun will play Monday night against Belgium after FIFA overturned the red card he picked up in the Round of 32 win over Bosnia and Herzegovina. That was the original plan anyway — a one-game suspension that would have left the U.S. without its leading scorer for the biggest match of this World Cup run.
Belgium isn’t thrilled about it. According to reports, the Belgian federation is appealing FIFA’s decision, and part of that frustration stems from the belief that U.S. President Donald Trump personally contacted FIFA about the matter. The team has not confirmed that directly, but the optics aren’t great for anyone who likes clean procedural optics.
Christian Pulisic, for his part, isn’t spending much time worrying about the politics. He spoke with FOX Sports’ Laken Litman about what it meant to have Balogun back in the lineup after spending a couple of days wondering what life would look like without him.
“Of course, you have other guys filling in and trying to figure out what the lineup could look like,” Pulisic said. “But we didn’t have anything set. Not some crazy adjustment we have to make. We have a day, we have to train, and yeah, it’ll be great.”
He didn’t stop there. Pulisic made it clear that Balogun’s presence changes the vibe heading into a match that carries real weight for this program.
“Just knowing that we’re going to have him around tomorrow, it just helps so much and gives us a big boost,” he said.
Balogun has three goals in this World Cup so far, including one in that Bosnia match before he got sent off. That red card came on a second yellow that looked a little soft in real time, and FIFA apparently agreed. Now he’ll be out there in Seattle, leading the line against a Belgium team that bounced the U.S. from the 2014 World Cup at the exact same stage.
That 2014 game was wild, by the way. Tim Howard made 16 saves — still a World Cup record — and the U.S. still lost 2-1 after extra time. Most of those Belgian players are gone now. Most of the American ones too. But the memory sticks around, and so does the idea that this U.S. team might finally get over that hump.
The U.S. is hosting this one. That matters. And having Balogun out there instead of watching from the stands matters even more.
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