{"id":27062,"date":"2026-07-07T05:19:25","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T05:19:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/27062\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T05:19:25","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T05:19:25","slug":"folarin-balogun-in-usmnt-lineup-vs-belgium-as-red-card-drama-rages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/27062\/","title":{"rendered":"Folarin Balogun in USMNT lineup vs. Belgium as red card drama rages"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>SEATTLE \u2014 One day after the <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/07\/06\/sports\/folarin-balogun-cleared-to-play-for-usmnt-as-desperate-belgium-appeal-fails\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">decision to overturn his red card<\/a> that engulfed the World Cup in controversy, Folarin Balogun was indeed in the U.S. men\u2019s national team\u2019s lineup to face Belgium on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>The Royal Belgian Football Association, in one of <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/07\/06\/sports\/belgium-accuses-fifa-of-removing-suspension-language-in-folarin-balogun-appeal-chaos\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">two statements released Monday<\/a>, had said that it \u201chas informed the United States Soccer Federation that it contests the eligibility of the player [Balogun], should the player be listed on the referee\u2019s team sheet. This leaves all further options open.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Though it\u2019s not entirely clear, that would seem to refer to a potential appeal in the Court of Arbitration for Sport.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.50588235;display:block\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"39905725\" width=\"888\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/joe-scally-folarin-balogun-united-133181971.jpg\" alt=\"Joe Scally and Folarin Balogun participating in a training session for the 2026 World Cup.\" class=\"wp-image-39905725\"  \/>Joe Scally and Folarin Balogun of the United States participate during a training session. Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>After FIFA\u2019s initial reversal, though, any court decision now would seemingly be symbolic in nature, given that the quarterfinal will be played by the USMNT-Belgium winner on Friday in Los Angeles \u2014 presumably too little time to go through a legal process or to replay the game.<\/p>\n<p>Still, Balogun\u2019s inclusion will only continue to fan the flames.<\/p>\n<p>Mauricio Pochettino\u2019s lineup was completely unchanged from the 11 players who started against Bosnia-Herzegovina, as well as the opener against Paraguay.<\/p>\n<p>Rudi Garcia\u2019s lineup for Belgium, on the other hand, included a surprise as both Kevin De Bruyne and Jeremy Doku were on the bench, with Nicholas Raskin and Dodi Lukebakio starting instead.<\/p>\n<p>Both De Bruyne and Doku came off early in the second half of Belgium\u2019s Round of 32 win against Senegal, with the changes having a positive impact for the Red Devils.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SEATTLE \u2014 One day after the decision to overturn his red card that engulfed the World Cup in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27063,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,12799,3934,1176,4097,6273,1849,3206],"class_list":["post-27062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-belgium","tag-belgium","tag-belgium-soccer","tag-soccer","tag-sports","tag-us-mens-national-team","tag-us-soccer","tag-world-cup","tag-world-cup-2026"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@be\/116877011674079783","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27062","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=27062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}