USMNT, Folarin Balogun dominate in ‘dreamy’ 4-1 World Cup debut win vs. Paraguay

INGLEWOOD, Calif. — Folarin Balogun can make the game seem effortless with the way he moves. He glides, really, team captain Tim Ream marveled recently. Even his nickname is “Flo.”

The U.S. men’s national team has on it a prized striker, and on Friday, Balogun dazzled and dominated in his World Cup debut with two first-half goals in the Americans’ convincing 4-1 win against Paraguay.

The group-stage victory to open their World Cup journey on home soil produced a star performance at SoFi Stadium. As the Americans controlled possession in the first half, Balogun was moving well and found the back of the net in the 28th minute, but was ruled offside. Then came the barrage.

Balogun, the Brooklyn-born 24-year-old, made it look easy in the 31st minute, depositing a perfectly-delivered cross from Christian Pulisic past the goalkeeper.

Then, in added time before the half, he made a run toward the penalty area to take a pass, shook a defender with a touch off his right foot, and buried the shot with his left in the upper corner of the goal to make it 3-0.

“It was a dream,” said Balogun, who became the first U.S. player to score multiple goals in a World Cup match since 1930. “It was a dreamy night.”

The three-goal outburst in the first half made a winner out of coach Mauricio Pocchetino, an Argentine who is coaching the Americans in the World Cup for the first time and trying to get them to the next level in the tournament. Balogun, a multinational player who grew up in London and plays for Ligue 1 club Monaco, committed to playing for the U.S. in 2023 and said the team made a statement with the win.

The Americans got off to a promising start, going ahead in the seventh minute on an own goal from Paraguay’s Damian Bobadilla. Pulisic split two defenders in the penalty box, passed to Weston McKennie, whose touch toward Balogun never made it. Instead, Bobadilla accidentally kicked it in.

Three decades earlier, just up the road at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, the Americans’ only previous World Cup group-stage win in their home country had also been aided by an own goal. Colombia’s Andres Escobar had that misfortune, and rather than remain in the U.S. after elimination and stay with family in Las Vegas, he returned home. Ten days after his own goal, Escobar was shot and killed in Colombia.

What might have been an eerie occurrence to onlookers of a certain age on Friday with Bobadilla’s accidental touch was celebrated joyously by the Americans on the field. After all, Pulisic was magnificent on the play to force the goal, and he created opportunities throughout the half.

Scoring four goals in a World Cup match for the first time in their history not only gave the Americans a leg up in goal differential, but also enabled Pocchetino to sub off Pulisic at halftime for precautionary reasons after the top player was kicked in the calf.

“I’ve seen us play like this recently,” Pulisic said. “The guys were up for it. We have the ability to play and do the things when we do have the ball, score goals. Today, the effort, everything was there. To me, not a huge surprise.

“Being an American and having this crowd, the red, white and blue … it’s awesome.”

And the U.S. got quite the exclamation point with Gio Reyna’s goal on a nifty strike from just inside the penalty area in added time shortly before the final whistle.

While Paraguay’s Mauricio scored in the 73rd minute, that would be the South American nation’s only shot on goal for the entire match.

Contact Diamond Leung at dleung@reviewjournal.com. Follow @diamond83 on X.