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Perhaps the signature moment of frustration for the USMNT in the knockout round game in the second half against Bosnia & Herzegovina when star forward Folarin Balogun was handed a red card. Plenty of controversy ensued and Balogun now admits that the red card saga was a bit of a distraction.
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Appearing on CBS Mornings, Balogun admitted that he was ultimately happy to see the red card overturned but found it tougher to focus as the Round of 16 game against Belgium approached. He said he found the outside noise “hard to avoid.”
“My initial reaction was I was happy to be back in the team, but when I kind of started to reflect, I knew it was going to cause a lot of controversy, and I could almost see within my teammates a bit of nerves, because it’s something that is so unique.
“But the closer we got to the game I tried to just focus as best as I could, but it was difficult. A lot of outside noise, and that’s hard to avoid.”
Balogun said that the support of his teammates helped him through what was a rather difficult situation for him.
“It wasn’t something I could change. It was just a situation that was unfortunate, which gave me confidence,” he said.
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The USMNT went on to lose the game against Belgium, with Balogun in the lineup, in a humiliating 4-1 defeat. Just about everyone including Balogun struggled in the game.
Addressing the Issue
As for the fateful moment where Balogun stepped on Bosnia’s Tarik Muharemovic, he said that he was left “in shock” by the decision to turn the accidental play into a red card foul.
“I was in shock. It wasn’t even a tackle. I was totally in shock, I think you could see my reaction, but I just had to accept the decision and just try to be there for my team,” he said.
“When something’s not intentional it should never be a red card, so it was just an unfortunate situation, and I think it put a lot more pressure on us than we needed.”
Ultimately, FIFA made the highly controversial decision to suspend the one-game suspension that Balogun would have served.
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It just didn’t do the USMNT much good in the end.
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