The ball arrived with purpose, and Folarin Balogun met it with certainty.
He had room to run, beat one defender with a dancer’s grace, and sidestepped another like a man who had already rehearsed the choreography in his mind.
The finish was ruthless—a left-footed rocket that curled into the upper corner of the net and sent 70,492 roaring fans at Los Angeles Stadium into a frenzy.
It was the kind of play the United States men’s national team had spent years searching for: a striker who could turn the position from happenstance into a weapon.
It came from a young man who, by the logic of President Donald Trump’s immigration policy, should never have been eligible to represent this country at all.
The Quirk of Fate That Made Him American
Balogun was born in Brooklyn on July 3, 2001, not because his parents were American, but because an airline refused to let his heavily pregnant mother board a return flight to London.
His Nigerian parents had been living in England when they traveled to New York. His mother was seven months pregnant at the time. When she tried to fly home, airline attendants told her it was too dangerous. She stayed with her sister-in-law in a cramped two-bedroom apartment in New York until she and her son were healthy enough to travel.
“Sometimes you just have to see what God has in store for you,” Florence Balogun told ESPN in 2023, reflecting on the circumstances that delivered her son into the world in Brooklyn. “I don’t believe things happened by luck.”
The second of three children, Balogun was raised in London, enrolled in Arsenal’s Hale End academy at age eight, and seemed destined to wear England’s Three Lions.
He could also have chosen Nigeria, his parents’ homeland, but his Brooklyn birth gave him a third option, one that would prove fateful in ways no one could have predicted.
Under the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” Balogun was an American from the moment he drew his first breath in a New York hospital.
The irony is as sharp as a cut from a defender’s studs: the nation’s most dangerous attacking asset, the striker who scored twice in the World Cup opener and became the first American to score multiple goals in a World Cup match since 1930, is precisely the kind of person the Trump administration says should not qualify for citizenship.
The Supreme Court and the Future of Citizenship
President Trump signed an executive order on the first day of his second term directing federal agencies not to recognize the citizenship of babies born in the United States if neither parent is a citizen or lawful permanent resident. That would have rendered Balogun a foreigner in the country where he was born, his parents having been here only on a temporary visit.
The order is widely viewed as a legal long shot, and the Supreme Court has more than one way to stop it. During oral arguments in April, when the administration argued that the ease of modern travel necessitated reinterpreting the Constitution, Chief Justice John Roberts delivered a characteristically dry rejoinder: “It’s a new world. It’s the same constitution.”
Still, with a stacked 6-3 conservative majority, nothing is guaranteed. The high court is expected to rule within weeks. The outcome could fundamentally alter who qualifies as an American—and what it means to be “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States.
Legal scholars have expressed skepticism about the administration’s chances. Ilya Somin, a George Mason University law professor and chair in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute, believes the court will ultimately reject the executive order, given their skepticism during oral arguments.
But the uncertainty is already palpable. The administration has said it will not retroactively deprive birthright citizenship, but the logic of its argument—that these people were never citizens in the first place—casts a long shadow.
“Trump’s promises and guarantees often are not worth very much, but even if he were to stick to that resolution, a future administration might not,” Somin warned.
The Recruitment That Changed Everything
For Balogun, the decision to commit to the United States was framed less as a transaction than a return.
Until three years ago, there was no guarantee he would end up wearing the Stars and Stripes. He had appeared for both the United States and England at the Under-18 level and was a key part of England’s Under-21 plans, scoring seven goals in 13 appearances.
But his prolific 2022-23 loan season at Reims—which earned him a $46 million move to Monaco—had U.S. officials circling. The campaign to secure his commitment was relentless and, in its own way, deeply American.
Balogun withdrew from an England Under-21 camp and flew to Orlando, where the U.S. team was gathering for Nations League matches. What was meant to be a quiet rendezvous quickly became a spectacle. Fans spotted clues on his Instagram, tracked him to Florida, and flooded his social media with American flags and messages urging him to choose the United States.
Even in person, Balogun felt the push.
“There were so many fans motivating me and telling me how much they wanted me to represent [the U.S.] on my social media,” Balogun said. “And even when I was in Orlando, there were people recognizing me and saying, ‘We want you to play for the U.S.’ And that was motivating because it just shows, you know, how—people say soccer is not a big thing over here, but I do think it is.”
The recruitment had the feel of a college visit—and New York was involved at every turn. The Orlando Sports Commission provided courtside tickets to an Orlando Magic game and a VIP pass to Universal. The New York Yankees invited him to spring training. U.S. players, including Weston McKennie, Matt Turner, Yunus Musah, and Christian Pulisic, took him to dinner.
Weston McKennie, the Juventus midfielder, joked about the recruitment process: “I just remember having to take him out to a nice dinner, and I didn’t get that treatment. But I guess you can say he cashed in the chips and delivered in the game against Paraguay.”
The Performance That Delivered on the Promise
Against Paraguay, Balogun delivered.
His first goal came in the 31st minute. Antonee Robinson started the play with a vertical pass to Pulisic down the left side. Pulisic took one long dribble, advanced into the 18-yard box, and delivered a precise cross. Balogun timed his run perfectly, lined up a low left-footed shot from 10 yards out, and placed it beautifully into the lower right corner.
His second goal, deep into first-half stoppage time, was even more impressive. Malik Tillman located Balogun with a pass from the midline. Balogun stayed on his feet despite a sliding tackle, took one dribble centrally to evade another defender, and delivered a confident left-footed strike into the upper left corner.
The brace made history. Balogun became only the second player to record a multi-goal game for the USMNT in World Cup play, joining Bert Patenaude, who scored the first hat-trick in World Cup history in 1930—also, coincidentally, against Paraguay.
“He’s lethal right now in front of goal,” Pulisic said after the match. “Let’s just hope it keeps going like this.”
Kenny Cooper, a former USMNT player and club ambassador for FC Dallas, told the BBC: “He’s obviously a really special talent, and he showed that with two exceptional goals. He has been so impressive. I think there’s just so much confidence that I’m sure the players have in him playing with them, and us, his fans, have in him.”
A Nation’s Divided Mirror
Balogun is hardly the only player on Team USA with a blended identity. Tommy Marcos, the New York president of American Outlaws—the largest fan group for Team USA—told the BBC that supporters have been waiting decades for someone like Balogun, a striker playing at the highest level in Europe’s top-five leagues.
“We haven’t had that type of player—a top-five league striker that you can just put in there and know he’s going to score,” Marcos said. “That’s pretty hard to do in the current football environment, and we’re lucky to have him.”
He also noted that the team’s diversity is what makes it special. “I think that’s what makes the team really unique in terms of the football landscape,” Marcos said. “But it’s also what makes it special and it makes it very American.”
A Reuters poll from April found that a majority of Americans believe all babies born in the country should automatically be granted citizenship. But the split along party lines is stark: only 9% of Democrats agree with ending birthright citizenship, compared to 62% of Republicans.
It may be a coincidence that the World Cup, the Supreme Court decision on birthright, and the country’s 250th anniversary are all happening at the same time.
With international turmoil and domestic division on a range of polarizing issues, the confluence of events is holding up a mirror to the American people.
The Road Ahead
Balogun is already a third of the way to the Golden Boot—six goals would have won the award in 10 of the previous 12 World Cups. On Friday in Seattle, he’ll try to follow up on his breakout performance when the United States faces Australia in its second group-stage match.
It will be a test case for a larger idea: that the Americans might finally have the scoring threat they spent years trying to identify. He has the speed and positional awareness to stretch opposing back lines and the two-footed finishing prowess to turn half-chances into goals.
He also gives the Americans the kind of defensive pressure they want from the front, chasing immediately after turnovers and helping them win the ball back before opponents can break out.
“I think a lot of center backs think they can kind of get in a grappling match with him,” midfielder Tyler Adams said. “But he spins you and you’re not catching him after that.”
For Balogun, the decision has always been less about politics and more about belonging. When he committed to the USMNT, he called it a “no-brainer,” saying “it feels like I’m at home here.” When he told his family, his mother was overjoyed.
“When I broke the news to my family they were all just over the moon,” Balogun told U.S. Soccer’s website. “Especially my mom. She said, ‘What took you so long?'”
He may not be a household name across the country yet, but he’s well on his way to becoming a new talisman for American soccer fans—a Brooklyn-born striker who represents his country not because of where he grew up, but because of where he was born. The same country that, under this administration’s policies, would have turned him away at the gate.
Discover more from NJTODAY.NET
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.