INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Strong first impressions were in abundance for the U.S. men’s national team as they opened a World Cup on home soil with a 4-1 win over Paraguay on Friday. They couldn’t stop pushing the right buttons on a night where the world’s gaze was fixed on them in a way it rarely ever is. Some of the details were foreseeable for those who had been paying attention, from the overtly attacking approach to the list of players who rose above the rest. Yet, there was a prevailing sentiment as the USMNT came out of a much-anticipated game with the three valuable points they had waited months to secure.
“I visualized my debut at the World Cup, scoring,” Folarin Balogun started, “but the reality did surpass that.”
A batch of U.S. players enjoyed standout displays, but if there was one player who made a name for himself in front of a packed house at SoFi Stadium, it was Balogun. It does not exactly come as a surprise that he would bag the first USMNT goal of the World Cup (after Damian Bobadilla’s own goal seven minutes in, of course). With his brace against Paraguay, he now has 14 goals in his last 19 games combined for his club, Monaco, and the national team. He was just one prong in a multifaceted USMNT attack, a wide range of players overwhelming Paraguay’s defense during a relentless first half that saw the U.S. take a three-goal lead and circling back around to finish the job after Mauricio pulled one back in the 73rd minute. Balogun, though, was on a different level.
“Not much else to say,” forward Christian Pulisic remarked. “It’s insane. He’s lethal right now. We’re really lucky to have him. Just hope he keeps coming like this.”
Balogun’s World Cup debut — and the road to Friday’s game in the Los Angeles suburbs — brings to an end a years-long wait for a true talisman to lead the U.S. team’s offensive operation, especially for a team that mustered just three goals in four games at Qatar in 2022. He has earned the title of being the hardest player to play against in training, his talents on full display during a game in which he realistically could have scored even more.
“Where do I start without just trying to kiss his ass?” midfielder Tyler Admas said. “He’s a really unique player because for a No. 9, he’s obviously not huge but he’s extremely strong and I think a lot of center backs think they can get in a grappling match with him but he spins you and you’re not catching him after that. From the first time I’ve seen him to now, he’s developed a lot from his timing, how clever he is in the box, making the right runs, not taking as many touches in and around the [penalty] area. He’s just efficient. He seems efficient, he seems confident when the ball’s at his feet. He’s just a threat.”
The moment meant just as much to Balogun as it did to his teammates. Three years ago, the New York-born Balogun chose to represent the U.S. over England, the country where he was raised and began his career after rising through the Arsenal academy. The U.S. mounted a genuine campaign to recruit him — he happened to be in Orlando taking in an NBA game between the Magic and the New York Knicks three years ago, multiple meetings already taking place as the national team attempted to win him over. Fans who saw him in the wild encouraged him to pick the U.S. and he was wined and dined by Pulisic and Weston McKennie before Balogun formally committed.
Even before Friday’s brace, Balogun had described making his World Cup debut at a tournament on home soil as a full-circle moment. The feeling was only magnified after the game, a years-old choice fully paying off.
“When I committed and throughout the whole cycle and the whole journey, to me, being at this point — I’ve always said the fans gave me so much motivation, showed me so much support and for me, the most important thing has been being able to repay that,” he said. “I feel like today’s a great opportunity and like I said, I just want to continue to show the fans I made the right decision, and I’m completely proud, and I want to continue to make the fans proud as well.”
Moments after the final whistle blew, the fact that he had essentially a perfect World Cup debut had yet to sink in.
“A real dream,” he said. “It was a dream. It was a dreamy night. I’ve not been able to take it all in after this … I’m sure when I get back to my hotel and I rest, I’m sure I’m going to be really to be in the moment and experience how much of an amazing night it is.”
He and his teammates were quick to note that there was more work to be done – the group stage continues with games against Australia on June 19 and Turkiye on June 25, while the group hopes a deep run in the knockouts awaits them. With plenty of work ahead of them, it is understandable that a big celebration was not how they would finish out the night and Balogun was quick to admit as much.
“To be honest,” he said about how he would conclude a memorable evening, “I think I’ll probably just watch some Netflix.”
USMNT Player Ratings: Folarin Balogun has arrived; Weston McKennie, Christian Pulisic dominate Paraguay
Roger Gonzalez
‘Things were definitely clicking’ in USMNT World Cup win
The USMNT’s road to Friday’s World Cup opener was far from a straightforward one, but their 17-day, five-city swing in the build-up to the tournament has been an exercise in building and successfully operating a factory of good vibes. The commanding win over Paraguay kept the feeling going for at least another few days; the long wait for things to finally turn in their favor finally over.
The batch of impressive individual performances was the foundation for a strong collective showing, rooted in head coach Mauricio Pochettino’s attack-minded approach. Pochettino has preferred that stylistic strategy for the entirety of his coaching career, now well into a second decade, but it’s usually more difficult to implement at the international level when coaches generally have 10 days at a time with their players, weeks or months apart. He has smartly noticed that the USMNT’s strengths are in attack and has built the team around that strategy, the high intensity he has demanded from the day he started the job in the fall of 2024 hard to miss — and especially during a stellar first half. It was not exactly a guarantee that a U.S. team defined by inconsistency in the build-up to the World Cup would actually bring that energy to the tournament, but they certainly boasted the potential before kickoff on Friday and actually lived up to the hype.
“I don’t think I’m surprised,” Pulisic said. “I’ve seen us play like this recently. The guys were up for it. We have the ability to play and do the things that we do on the ball, score goals, but today, just the effort, everything was there. To me, not a huge surprise, but things were definitely clicking.”
Pochettino was validated for a batch of choices on Friday evening, from his complex tactical demands to his ask that they find a mental toughness that reminds him of a winning mentality he’s sensed from Americans in sports. Then there are his personnel selections, midfielder Malik Tillman was impressive as an attack-minded player despite his deeper placement in the center of the park, while Gio Reyna proved his worth quickly as a late-game substitute. From the last World Cup to this one, Reyna has dealt with injuries, a lack of playing time, and a family feud (to put it mildly), his inclusion on the roster no sure thing. Many even questioned the selection, arguing players with more consistency under their belts should have made the cut instead. Reyna’s natural talent makes him a unique talent in the U.S. player pool and with his game-closing goal on Friday, he only reinforced the idea that the USMNT’s depth is in attack.
The U.S. men’s team has not historically been one that embraced a free-flowing and downright entertaining style of soccer, but Pochettino has pushed all the right buttons, doing so a day after encouraging players to remember their emotional relationship to the game they fell in love with as children.
“I think that that’s something that he preached and we’ve been preaching this whole week leading up to the game, is all the hard work and all the hard stuff and everything — we’ve done that already,” midfielder Weston McKennie said. “That’s in the past. We got here in this moment and what we want to do is go out there and have fun, remember why we got into the game and just enjoy the game, and if we make mistakes, cool, but we’re not scared. That’s why we have a team. That’s why you have 10 other players on the field, is to back you up if a mistake happens, and whatever, and I think this group is really good at that. Our togetherness on and off the field is almost like no other team I’ve been a part of, so I think we just wanted to go out there and enjoy the game, and I think it showed.”
In the end, a natural confidence that has long eluded this team actually was their defining quality.
“I think we knew that it was there,” midfielder Sebastian Berhalter said. “I don’t think we needed the validation. Even if the result didn’t go our way tonight, we knew we’d be doing the right things. We’ve grown from game to game. Even last in the March window, we knew that we did the right things, but the results [a 5-2 loss to Belgium and a 2-0 loss to Portugal] weren’t there. These last two years, at least against Senegal [a 3-2 win] and Germany [a 2-1 loss], better. It’s just about keeping it that way.”
