Thirty-two years after the USA last hosted a World Cup, America finally had its moment — and the home team delivered everything a partisan crowd of 70,492 at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles could have dreamed of.
The USMNT recorded their biggest ever World Cup victory, thumping Paraguay 4-1 in their Group D opener in a performance that was fluid, hungry, and at times genuinely beautiful. The Americans scored only three goals combined across all four matches at Qatar 2022 and had never scored more than three in a single World Cup game. On Friday night in Inglewood, under the Los Angeles lights, they did it in a first half alone.
The Match
The breakthrough came in the seventh minute in the most fortunate of fashions. Christian Pulisic split two defenders and slipped the ball to Weston McKennie, whose centring touch cannoned off Paraguay midfielder Damián Bobadilla’s outstretched foot and into his own net, setting off pandemonium in the SoFi Stadium stands.
Pulisic was everywhere in the opening period — sharp, direct, orchestrating everything from the left. Three minutes after an apparent goal from Balogun was erased by an offside call, Pulisic drove the left side again and got a deflected pass to the trailing Balogun, who banged it home for the second.
The stadium hadn’t settled before the third arrived. With first-half injury time winding down, Malik Tillman weighted a long pass to a streaking Balogun, who held up to create space and fired a brilliant shot into the far top corner. Three-nil at the break. The occasion had been seized.
Paraguay pulled one back in the 73rd minute through midfielder Mauricio, a close finish that briefly threatened to bring some tension back into the evening. It didn’t last. Gio Reyna — introduced as a late substitute for Tillman — added the exclamation point in stoppage time with a stunning trivela strike from the edge of the area, assist from Alex Freeman, rounding off the night in the manner the performance demanded.
The Balogun Story
The game’s central figure was a man who could have been playing against the United States rather than for them. Folarin Balogun was born in New York City to Nigerian parents and raised in London, making him eligible for all three national teams. He chose to join the United States in 2023. On Friday night, that decision looked like destiny. His World Cup brace was the first by a US player since the inaugural tournament in 1930. He called the win a statement. “A real dream. It was a dreamy night.”
His second goal in particular — the driven shot into the far top corner from a long ball — was a statement of a different kind: a striker at the peak of his confidence, in the biggest match of his career, producing precisely when it mattered.
The Bigger Picture
Under Mauricio Pochettino’s more creative system, this USMNT looked transformed from the side that ground out results in Qatar. Pulisic was electric for 45 minutes before being rested. McKennie controlled the midfield tempo. Reyna, whose career has been plagued by injury and inconsistency, showed in his cameo the kind of game-changing quality that Pochettino has always insisted he possesses.
Paraguay were not without their moments — Miguel Almirón, always dangerous, created several openings — but were overwhelmed by the occasion and the hosts’ intensity. The Guaraníes threw everything forward in the closing stages but never seriously threatened a comeback against a superior American side.
The United States sit top of Group D with three points. Their next match is against Australia on 19 June in Seattle. If Friday night is a template, that match will attract similar attention — because this USMNT, on this evidence, is capable of something more than the hosts simply making up the numbers.
The party in Los Angeles went long into the night. The football, for once, justified every bit of it.
Result: USA 4-1 Paraguay
Goals: Bobadilla OG (7′), Balogun (27′, 45+2′), Mauricio (73′), Reyna (90+4′)
Venue: SoFi Stadium, Inglewood, California
Attendance: 70,492
Read more – Edin Džeko: Bosnia’s Eternal Diamond
Also see – The most fitting World Cup opening match imaginable
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