NEW HAVEN — There was some hope that the USA would get through their last-16 tie against Belgium in Seattle, perhaps even with Folarin Balogun playing a starring role. If this was the only way to shame Fifa into a full explanation, not just for the decision they made but how they got there and whether it establishes new precedent, why not? The USA’s exit allows this rotten case to be quickly brushed under the rug before the quarter-finals.
Maybe, but this was the appropriate end. You pulled all those levers. You left a sour taste. You slipped a viper into the tent of football’s governance and started a civil war between Fifa and Uefa, the two houses of the sport. And you did it all so that you could lose 4-1 to a barely functional Belgium team. Also-rans don’t usually come with asterisks.
There will be bitter disappointment at the manner of the exit, not least the calamitous third goal that clinched defeat. Goalkeeper Matt Freese may feel that he was fouled, but really it was just two athletes that got tangled up. That’s how it works now, right.
Was it all worth it? Over the course of this tournament, Mauricio Pochettino and the USMNT had made friends amongst travelling supporters and earned admirers for the courage and intensity of their play.
They had also gained new fans amongst their own soccer-sceptic population, thus evaporating a degree of the insularity and exceptionalism that can blow through US sport. They were, to be blunt and a little surprised, a pure good news story.
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That has changed over the last three days. Firstly, unless the USA actually reached the World Cup final, this controversy promised to be the overriding legacy of their tournament. Sorry, but we will forget Balogun twisting and turning against Paraguay. We won’t forget President Trump talking of his intervention and Senator Cruz thanking him for changing Fifa’s mind.
That may sound unfair. It certainly tars many innocent parties with the same brush, not least Balogun himself. But then that is the unfortunate nature of geopolitical collateral damage. And when your sitting President boasts of maximising the extent of his relationship with football’s governing body to aid the USA’s cause, reality is reality even if it’s bleak.
International managers and national associations play a good game of avoiding political issues. You can see their point: if governments are prepared to deal with grisly nation states then asking a bloke who has some coaching qualifications to take the stand is a bit much. It’s the guardians of the game who should be better.
Even that moral escape route is blocked here. For all that Trump played his role, we can be sure from Balogun’s place in the starting XI that US Soccer and Pochettino were at least willing conspirators. For all the hollering and deliberate moral selectivism of some in the US soccer community over the last 48 hours, everybody reasonable knows that Balogun should not have been playing. That includes Pochettino.
In 2019, after winning the Women’s World Cup, the United States Women’s National Team (USWNT) declined an invitation to visit President Trump’s White House because they did not want their success to be co-opted by a regime that had worked against their fight for equal pay and LGBTQ+ rights. That meant something.
In 2026, the USMNT relied upon the same President to personally intervene in their own cause and were then immediately knocked out of their host tournament. That means something too. A legacy has been soured. Memories will last for the wrong reasons. A reputation has been torched.
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Daniel Storey: England’s gladiators have proven every single one of us wrong Kat Lucas: I didn’t think Fifa could stoop any lower for Trump – but this is astonishingHence then, the article about donald trump has single handedly torched america s world cup legacy was published today ( ) and is available on inews ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
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