Folarin Balogun: Will the USMNT Striker Challenge for the World Cup Golden Boot?

Anxiety? Fear? First-day jitters? Nope, all Folarin Balogun felt was the need to rip a hole through the back of the net.

The U.S. men’s national team striker handled his World Cup debut—the literal biggest match of his career to date—just like any other outing recently: with pure and utter domination. By the time he left SoFi Stadium last week, the Paraguayans were scratching their heads and the scoreboard read 4–1. Balogun had contributed half of the U.S.’s goals and nearly had a third, if not for being just a step offside.

Balogun entered the summer ablaze after his season with AS Monaco, notching 19 goals and five assists in 43 games across French Ligue 1, Coupe de France and the Champions League. He had a recent spell this spring that saw him score 11 goals in 11 consecutive games, proving himself as one of the best young attackers in all of Europe.

Yet the question remained, will his goal-scoring translate to soccer’s grandest stage? The 24-year-old brought doubters to a whisper in the USMNT’s pre-World Cup friendlies late last month, netting the game-winner against Senegal, and then he silenced them completely against Paraguay.

Now, a new question comes to the fore: could Balogun actually make a challenge for the 2026 World Cup Golden Boot?

Sure, no USMNT player has ever won the award, which is given to the tournament’s top goalscorer, but no USMNT player had ever scored a brace in a World Cup opener either, until Balogun took the pitch. In fact, no USMNT player had scored more than one goal in any World Cup match since 1930, the first edition of the World Cup, a small affair of just 13 teams split into four groups. Nearly 100 years ago, a 21-year-old Bert Patenaude scored a hat trick against, funnily enough, Paraguay for a 3–0 victory to advance to the semifinals, where the U.S. were promptly thumped by Argentina 6–1.

Clearly, history is ripe for Balogun’s making.

Folarin Balogun Firmly in Golden Boot Race

Balogun’s two goals currently ties him with eight others for second place in the Golden Boot race, yet he is only topped by two players: the almighty Lionel Messi, who put on a dazzling hat-trick performance in Argentina’s opening victory over Algeria on Tuesday, and Canada’s Jonathan David who sparked to life with a hat trick in the team’s second World Cup group stage match, a 6–0 win against Qatar on Thursday.

Among those who scored a brace in their nations’ openers are some of the greatest forwards in the world, including three-time Premier League Golden Boot winner Erling Haaland, who led Norway to a 4–1 blowout against Iraq on Tuesday, also in his World Cup debut. Kai Havertz, who led Arsenal to their first Premier League title in over two decades this season, scored twice in Germany’s 7–1 opener against minnows Curaçao. Harry Kane, the Bayern Munich superstar and winner of the 2018 World Cup Golden Boot, secured a brace in England’s 4–2 victory over Croatia; and Real Madrid talisman Kylian Mbappé—the winner of the 2022 World Cup boot—notched two in France’s 3–1 defeat of Senegal.

Golden Boot Race

Player	Goals
Lionel Messi (Argentina)	3 (across 84 total minutes played)
Jonathan David (Canada)	3 (170 minutes)
Johan Manzambi (Switzerland)	2 (58 minutes)
Folarin Balogun (USA)	2 (77 minutes)
Kai Havertz (Germany)	2 (100 minutes)
Yasin Ayari (Sweden)	2 (100 minutes)
Elijah Just (New Zealand)	2 (101 minutes)
Harry Kane (England)	2 (102 minutes)
Erling Haaland (Norway)	2 (103 minutes)
Kylian Mbappé (France)	2 (106 minutes)
Cyle Larin (Canada)	2 (126 minutes)

Safe to say Balogun is in good company. He will need the USMNT to make a deep run this summer for any chance of winning the Golden Boot—more matches means more chances to score. Mbappé won the 2022 award with eight total goals, including a hat trick in the World Cup final. Kane won it four years prior with six goals, en route to the semifinals.

Even if Balogun scores just a couple more times this entire summer, it will be the stuff of legends. Former star forward Landon Donovan, the joint all-time goal scorer for the U.S. (57), has the most World Cup goals of any USMNT player with five...achieved across three tournaments (2002, 2006, 2010). Balogun could realistically top that in his debut campaign alone.

“Balogun is the X factor for me. I mean, he got us two goals,” Donovan’s teammate, former USMNT star goalkeeper Tim Howard told Sports Illustrated. “If he can get another two goals in the group stage, he puts himself in another stratosphere, really. I’ve talked about him being a catalyst for this group. This group hasn’t had an out-and-out goalscorer. They sort of shared the goals around, but if Balogun can be that guy, then I think we will have a lot of success.”

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