reported<\/a>.<\/p>\nU.S. Soccer Responds<\/p>\n
\u201cWe accept the decision of the Disciplinary Committee and are pleased that Folarin Balogun is eligible to compete tomorrow,\u201d U.S. Soccer said. \u201cOur full attention is focused on the Round of 16 match against Belgium in Seattle, and we look forward to the continued support of our amazing fans.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Athletic first reported Balogun\u2019s updated playing status Sunday. Fox Sports also confirmed that Balogun would be eligible for the Belgium match.<\/p>\n
Balogun told reporters Friday that the play was unintentional.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst and foremost, it was totally unintentional, which I\u2019m sure a lot of people know,\u201d Balogun said. \u201cBut, you know, I think the choice of the referee was, of course, his choice, but I don\u2019t think it was the correct call.\u201d<\/p>\n
Balogun said he believed a yellow card would have been fair.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s not many places I can place my foot in such a scenario. But it\u2019s happened, and it\u2019s something that I have to accept and move forward from,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Belgium Match Ahead<\/p>\n
The decision gives the United States another attacking option as it prepares for Belgium.<\/p>\n
Balogun said the red card brought \u201clots of different emotions\u201d but that he tried to stay composed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never want to react out of anger and emotion,\u201d Balogun said. \u201cThere\u2019s still lots of people we\u2019re inspiring. Little kids, boys and girls are watching. We have to show them the correct way to handle things even when you think it\u2019s unjust, so I felt I did that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The United States faces Belgium on Monday in Seattle with a spot in the World Cup quarterfinals on the line.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Folarin Balogun plays for AS Monaco during a Ligue 1 match against Paris Saint-Germain at Parc des Princes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26429,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,5731,4559,13894,14764,15114,4529,1849],"class_list":["post-26428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-belgium","tag-belgium","tag-fifa","tag-folarin-balogun","tag-red-card","tag-round-of-16","tag-usa-soccer","tag-usmnt","tag-world-cup"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@be\/116869382980144828","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26428\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}