Anchor’s Away: Folarin Balogun and the joy of global football

Folarin Balogun of the United States scores his team’s third goal against Paraguay during a World Cup Group D soccer match in Inglewood, Calif., near Los Angeles, Friday, June 12, 2026. (AP Photo) TOI reporter from Washington: America’s borders, immigration, and naturalization have been the subject of much heated debate in recent months. But one thing was clear at Los Angeles Stadium on Friday night during the United States’ 4-1 win over Paraguay to open the World Cup: no one in red, white and blue will be protesting a bureaucratic decision made nearly 25 years ago to prevent a pregnant woman from flying back to England.Folarin Balogun, who scored twice on his World Cup debut, was born in Brooklyn to Nigerian parents after his pregnant mother, who was visiting her sister in America, was reportedly advised not to fly back to Britain, where she was living at the time. In the more extreme corners of the MAGA world, this would make Balogun an “anchor child” – born to someone visiting the US. On Thursday night, he was simply called “Man of the Match” the undisputed hero of the team, who perfectly represents the beautiful, chaotic reality of modern football without borders. Balogun’s mother eventually returned to the UK when he was a month old. He then grew up in London, played youth football in England, represented Monaco, pulled Nigeria up one sleeve and England up the other before finally deciding to play for the United States.There are few institutions that better expose the absurdity of rigid nationalism than international football. The World Cup is a celebration of flags, anthems and tribal loyalties – hosted by teams drawn from the glorious mess of human migration. The American team is a case study in this phenomenon.While Balogun’s journey has already become part of soccer folklore, Gio Reyna, who scored the fourth goal, was born in England while his American parents, former US internationals Claudio Reyna and Danielle Egan Reyna, were playing there. Sergino Dest was born in the Netherlands to a Dutch mother and a Surinamese-American father. Yunus Musah represented England at youth level before moving to the United States.In other words, the American team looks suspiciously like America. This should come as no surprise. The nation has spent centuries importing scientists, doctors, dreamers, strivers, eccentrics, entrepreneurs and, on occasion, destructive raiders, attackers and hoopsters. This beautiful irony is not exclusive to the US. Turn on any European powerhouse and you’ll find teams absolutely brimming with talent of African descent. France’s squad sounds like a wonderful tribute to the sub-Saharan football pipeline, while half of Europe’s elite midfielders have their roots in Lagos, Dakar or Kinshasa.France won the 2018 World Cup with stars like Kylian Mbappe, whose father is from Cameroon and whose mother is from Algeria, and Paul Pogba, born to Guinean parents. The English troops featured Bukayo Saka, of Nigerian descent; Jude Bellingham with African ancestry on his mother’s side; and many players whose pedigrees span continents. Germany’s modern football identity was shaped by players with Turkish, Ghanaian and Tunisian roots. Football recruiters call it scouting. Anti-immigrant wingnuts call it… well, something rather less printable.Yet therein lies the delicious contradiction. Many companies are increasingly worried about immigration, even as they jump to their feet to applaud goals scored by immigrants and the children of immigrants. The attacker who buries the winner becomes “our boy”. A migrant who does not is an alien.Of course, football has never been completely immune to politics. The 2026 FIFA World Cup, co-hosted by the US, Canada and Mexico, has already served as a reminder that global tournaments do not exist in a diplomatic vacuum.Consider the ongoing, torturous saga of Iran’s national team. Bureaucrats subjected them to a grueling diplomatic war of words over visa approval, forcing the team to abandon its planned training base in Arizona for Tijuana, Mexico. Even worse, under their restrictive visa conditions, Iranians are reportedly required to enter and leave US soil on the exact same day as their matches – essentially treating elite international athletes like day laborers who must vacate before sundown.Meanwhile, Omar Artan, who was set to become the first Somali referee to officiate at the men’s World Cup, was denied entry to the US over unspecified background checks concerns, ruling him out of the tournament. FIFA has confirmed that it will skip the competition. It was not an ideal public relations campaign for a nation hosting what is arguably the world’s biggest sporting spectacle outside of the Olympics. The unofficial motto of the World Cup could also be: “Please continue with immigration control.”Then again, perhaps football’s greatest gift is its refusal to fit neatly into ideological boxes. Balogun’s goals against Paraguay were not scored by immigration policy. They were scored by a gifted footballer whose life story spanned Nigeria, America, Britain and France. The beautiful game has always thrived on such collisions of geography and identity. It’s a sport where a boy born in Brooklyn, raised in London and playing for Monaco can become the toast of Los Angeles.((Meanwhile, if the Americans suffer from over-aggressive security, the England team suffers from a complete lack of it. Before the Three Lions could even begin their campaign against Croatia, Thomas Tuchel’s squad fell victim to a classic Midwest highway robbery. The transport vehicle carrying the squad’s gear from their training camp in Florida to their base in Kansas City, custom-built by Thie Kan and Harry rans Kana Jude Bellingham, tactical boards, massage tables and practically every tournament ball in the inventory, leaving just one soccer ball behind.While local police have arrested two suspects, England are currently facing a frantic race to replace their customized gear. It’s an absurdly chaotic start for the tournament favourites, proving that at the 2026 World Cup, whether you’re trying to get a visa, a referee across the border or just a pair of boots to Missouri, navigating the host nation is the most challenging part of the plan.Ultimately, though, the World Cup remains a joyous rebuke to the idea that humanity can be neatly sorted into individual boxes. People move, families move, children are born on the move and careers cross oceans. Sometimes, as Balogun showed against Paraguay, they remind us that while borders can divide maps, football has a strange habit of bringing people together – one glorious goal after another.