Folarin Balogun Was Born American by Accident and Chose the USA Over England

Folarin Balogun scored twice in the United States’ opening World Cup win over Paraguay, and very nearly had a hat-trick, with a third goal wiped out by review. He looked, in that moment, like exactly what the Americans had been missing for years: a quick, clever center forward who could lead the line at the highest level. And the strangest part of the whole thing is that he was only American because an airline once refused to let his pregnant mother get on a plane.

Balogun could have played for England. He could have played for Nigeria. He spent his entire childhood in London and came up through the Arsenal academy, and both of his parents were born in Nigeria. By every measure of where he was raised and shaped as a footballer, he is not American. He is American on a technicality, born in Brooklyn by accident, and that accident has handed the United States one of the most exciting strikers it has ever fielded.

Born in Brooklyn by accident

The story, as The Guardian laid it out in its World Cup squad profile, is almost too neat. Balogun was still in the womb when his mother visited New York on vacation. When it came time to fly home to London, the airline would not let her board. She was too far along in her pregnancy, her due date too close for the carrier’s comfort. So she stayed. And Folarin was born in Brooklyn, a New Yorker for the few months before the family returned to London, where he would grow up and fall in love with the game.

“Give the assist for this roster selection to the US commercial airline industry,” The Guardian wrote, only half joking. That single scheduling decision, made by an airline employee who will never know what they set in motion, is the reason Balogun was eligible to wear the United States shirt at all. Everything else about his footballing identity pointed across the Atlantic.

His mother, for her part, seems to have understood the significance long before her son did. “It is just something that has really stuck with me,” she has said of his American birth. “Even when he wasn’t even thinking of making an international decision, I’d already made up my mind that he is going to play for America.”

Three countries, one choice

By the time Balogun emerged as one of the brightest young strikers in Europe, he had a decision few players ever face. He was eligible for the United States by birth, for England through his upbringing and youth international appearances, and for Nigeria through his parents. Three national teams, all of whom would have happily taken him.

He had already represented England at youth level, which meant switching to the United States required FIFA to approve a one-time change of association. The governing body signed off, and on May 16, 2023, Balogun made it official. The choice ran against the grain. Players in his position almost always pick the established power, and England, a perennial contender, was right there. Instead he looked across the ocean to a program still trying to prove it belonged.

How the United States won him over

The recruitment of Folarin Balogun was not a quiet, federation-to-agent affair. It was loud, and a lot of it came from the fans. When word got out that Balogun might be open to the United States, supporters flooded his Instagram comments with American flags and turned up with homemade “we want Flo” signs.

“I just remember an immense amount of appreciation from the fans,” Balogun told The Athletic. “I didn’t realize at that moment how big football-soccer was out here in America. To really feel that in full force was something that was inspirational for me. It made my decision easier.”

The players and staff did their part too. United States interim manager Anthony Hudson met with him in Florida. Balogun went to dinner with Christian Pulisic, Weston McKennie, his former Arsenal youth teammate Yunus Musah, Tim Ream and then Arsenal goalkeeper Matt Turner, a table full of internationals selling him on the project. The pitch spilled outside soccer entirely. The New York Yankees invited him to a spring training game in Tampa. The Orlando Magic arranged courtside seats. An entire sporting culture was, in effect, courting him.

It worked. “So proud to be apart of this,” Balogun wrote when he announced his commitment in May 2023. “It has been a long journey to reach this point but it is with great pride I can now represent these colours at the highest level. I am tied-in and fully committed.” When he finally broke the news to his family, he has said, his mother’s response was perfect. “What took you so long?”

Vindication against Paraguay

Three years later, the decision looked inspired. In the United States’ World Cup opener, Balogun was the difference, scoring twice and seeing a third goal overturned by review in a dominant win, a performance we covered in our report on the co-hosts cruising past Paraguay. He instantly became one of the team’s biggest stars, the focal point of an attack that suddenly looked capable of hurting anyone.

For a striker who had endured a frustrating club season, finishing a long stretch without a goal before the tournament, the timing could hardly have been better. He had broken his scoreless run with the national team weeks earlier, and on the biggest stage of his life he delivered the kind of clinical, two-goal showing that announces a player to a country that may not have fully known him yet.

The bigger picture

Balogun’s path is the modern American soccer story in miniature. This is a team built in part on players who came to the shirt through complicated, transnational routes, dual nationals who chose the United States from a menu of options. Six of the players on the roster are immigrants, a fact the team’s supporters have worn with pride, especially in a tournament shadowed by debates over borders and who gets to belong.

That makes Balogun more than a goal scorer. He is a symbol of how the United States now competes for talent, not by producing every player at home but by being a place that footballers from elsewhere choose, sometimes for emotional reasons, sometimes for the energy of the fans, sometimes simply because they happened to be born here. The federation cannot manufacture an accidental Brooklyn birth. What it can do is build a program compelling enough that the player decides the accident was meant to be.

So when Balogun wheels away to celebrate at this World Cup, remember the chain of events behind it. A vacation. A pregnancy. An airline that said no. A mother who never doubted. And a young man who, given the pick of three nations, chose the one he had barely lived in, and made it feel like home.

WRITTEN BY

Jarrod

Jarrod Partridge is the Founder of Futbol Chronicle and an accredited journalist with over 30 years of experience following international football. A member of the AIPS International Sports Press Association, Jarrod has covered matches at stadiums around the world, bringing first-hand insight to every match report, player profile, and tactical analysis he writes.

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