Striker Folarin Balogun stood out in the first 45 minutes of the United States’ performance as host of the 2026 World Cup. The 24-year-old player, currently at Monaco, found the net twice in the 4-1 rout of Paraguay last Friday (12), in a match held in Los Angeles.
It is interesting to note that Balogun could be defending another nation in the world tournament, such as England, the team for which he played at youth level, or even Nigeria, his parents’ country of origin. However, a fortuitous event was decisive for his birth to occur on North American soil.
The stay that resulted in Balogun’s birth in Brooklyn, New York, lasted just two months. His mother, Florence, lived in London, but traveled to the United States in 2001 for vacation, already seven months pregnant with Folarin. Her initial plan was to return to England to give birth.
However, the airline responsible for Florence’s return flight home denied boarding. “My belly was really big,” she revealed in an interview with ESPN, in 2023, explaining the reason for the impediment.
Balogun’s mother needed medical approval from her professional in London to be released for the trip. She then chose to stay in her sister-in-law’s two-bedroom apartment, located in Brooklyn, and that is how the current number 20 of the US World Cup team was born as a New York citizen. For North American football, this decision proved crucial, filling a goalscoring gap that had persisted for years.
“I don’t believe that things happen by luck. I believe that the fact that I went to the United States and he was born there was something that was really meant to be. Even when he didn’t even think about making a decision about selection, I knew that he should choose the USA”, said Florence, showing a vision of destiny.
Balogun was born in July and, at the end of August, he was back in London, where he spent his childhood and grew up. No cenário do futebol, ele emergiu como uma das grandes promessas das categorias de base do Arsenal e representou a seleção inglesa em todas as divisões inferiores antes de receber sua primeira convocação pelos EUA, em 2018.
That call-up to the under-18 team, however, was not definitive, as it was not an official professional competition. It was only in 2023, at the age of 21, that Balogun announced his formal commitment to the North American team, despite strong interest from both England and Nigeria in having him on their teams.
At that time, Balogun already stood out significantly in Europe, after leaving Arsenal and scoring 21 goals in a season on loan at Reims, in France. In August 2023, Monaco invested 40 million euros to secure his signing, betting on his potential.
For the US team, Balogun represented the end of a years-long search for a striker capable of being a consistent goalscorer, a trait the team had lacked since the retirements of icons such as Landon Donovan and Clint Dempsey. His two goals at the start of the 2026 World Cup indicate that this long search may finally have come to an end.
