Folarin Balogun turns 25 today, July 3 - and instead of a celebration, he's dealing with confirmation that his World Cup is on pause.
The USMNT's leading scorer was shown a straight red card in the 64th minute of Wednesday's 2-0 win over Bosnia and Herzegovina, triggering an automatic one-game suspension that FIFA has confirmed cannot be appealed.
He'll miss Monday's Round of 16 match against Belgium.
The card came from a challenge where Balogun's foot landed on defender Tarik Muharemovic's ankle during a 50/50 ball battle. Referee Raphael Claus initially waved it off before VAR intervened.
Head coach Mauricio Pochettino disagreed strongly with the call afterward, saying, "For me, never it's a red card... it was a normal action of football." Teammate Weston McKennie called the lack of an appeals process "bogus." Under FIFA's rules, a straight red card carries an automatic ban with no route to overturn it - only an extension to three games is subject to review, and sources say that's unlikely here.
It's a hard way to turn 25, especially in the middle of a tournament Balogun has dominated.
He's tied Landon Donovan's mark for the second-most USMNT goals in a single World Cup, and his path to this moment carries its own story: he was born in Brooklyn only because his mother, Florence, was too far into her pregnancy to fly home to London as planned. Raised in England to Nigerian parents, Balogun had the option to represent England or Nigeria and chose the U.S. instead.
His mother has said she never saw his American birth as coincidence: "I don't believe things happened by luck... it is just something that has really stuck with me."
Balogun and the USMNT will now have to figure out life without him against Belgium - Ricardo Pepi is the likely replacement in attack. Whatever happens next, his 25th birthday will be remembered less for what he couldn't control on the pitch, and more for a story of purpose that started before he ever kicked a ball for this country.
