The horror of Folarin Balogun's ejection will linger, but so will the beauty of USMNT's World Cup advancement

In describing the most compelling moments of the sport they invented, the English commonly will declare what they’ve just observed is “absolute cinema!”

In fact, it’s become so ubiquitous throughout soccer that as I typed that sentence, the fine folks with the Fox Sports social team posted on Twitter a quick shot of United States men’s national team coach Mauricio Pochettino leaping in celebration and labeled it exactly that.

There was the moment of absolute cinema as directed by Wes Craven, the slow-motion piece of horror that got star striker Folarin Balogun ejected from this game – and, most unfortunately, the next – for a foul that almost certainly was not his fault.

There was the moment of absolute cinema as directed by Steven Spielberg, the feel-good floating free kick launched by midfielder Malik Tillman that provided the clinching score, so breathtaking it might have been E.T. and the kids flying on bikes.

Balogun was shown a red card for an inadvertent foul in the 64th minute, and the USMNT were forced to play through all that remained with 10 men. The ejection was the result of a VAR review, and it almost certainly was the product of the slow-motion replays repeatedly shown that exaggerated the villainy of the foul.

“For me, never is this a red card,” head coach Mauricio Pochettino said in his postgame press conference. “Watching after on TV, never was it intentional. The step of the player, that was a normal action in football that happened by accident. It was never intentional. That is why for me, it is never a red card.

The USMNT stood up for roughly 45 minutes against Bosnia’s desperate attack, with occasional breaks for hydration and on-field injuries. What had been a defense-first-and-last starting lineup for Bosnia and Herzegovina was transformed through five substitutions into a run-and-shoot offense, and the Americans stood against that siege.

“We had to dig deep for that one,” star winger Christian Pulisic told Fox Sports. “Obviously, I felt we put on such a good performance and didn’t deserve the red card.

“It took a real team effort. We’re really proud of it.”

Only once were they seriously threatened, when goalkeeper Matt Freese misjudged a ball in the 90th minute and failed to punch clear a floated cross. Bosnia midfielder Amar Memic seized the ball on the right side of the end line, but he was quickly covered by Antonee Robinson, with his weakened shot blocked by defender Chris Richards and then the ball cleared with an overhead kick by Tillman,

And even that only would have cut the USMNT lead in half because of Tillman’s magnificent free-kick goal in the 82nd minute. After Sergino Dest earned a foul with a sudden cut beyond the top of the box that convinced defender Stjepan Radeljic to grab him from behind, Tillman stepped forward and launched a soft, curling free kick over a Bosnia wall and into the upper left-hand corner of the net,.

Malik Tillman gives the 10-man USMNT some breathing room with an incredible free kick to make it 2-0!pic.twitter.com/nAjiPatRga

“I’m more like the quiet guy,” Tillman said after being named Superior Player of the Match. “Other guys would take this and saying something, but for me … No we deserved this as a group. We showed great character. And we deserved a win."

The red card assigned to Balogun was not entirely unjust in the moment, but it was the product of an evening of gratuitous contact permitted by referee Raphael Claus of Brazil. If anyone should have been ejected from this game, it ought to have been the referee who ignored that Bosnia defenders were pulling on USMNT jerseys as if they were playing middle linebacker for the San Francisco 49ers and trying to tackle ballcarriers short of the first-down marker. And that was just the start of it.

I have complimented the refs in this tournament for ignoring players trying to draw fouls that weren’t legitimate, but Claus went a step beyond that and ignored everything. Despite persistent bulldozing from Bosnian defenders, the ref issued just a single yellow to a player, and one to Bosnia and Herzegovina head coach Sergej Barbarez.

Initially, the referee even saw little disconcerting about the collision between Balogun and Bosnia central defender Tarik Muharemovic. And that was the problem. Indeed the landing spot for Balogun’s right cleat, across the right achilles of Muharemovic, could have produced serious injury. It was ghastly, especially as replayed in slow-motion, lacking only some fake blood to increase the gore quotient.

And the USMNT is the team that winds up being penalized for this.

That punishment will linger in the Round of 16 against Belgium in Seattle. A red-card ejection carries an automatic one-game suspension, and reportedly there is no avenue for appeal.

Balogun has been devastating in this tournament. His goal through multiple defenders and the Bosnia keeper in the 45th minute gave his team a lead it would not relinquish, despite extraordinary obstacles. It was his third of this tournament. He has presented the greatest World Cup performance by a USMNT striker, ever.

That is not the most difficult standard to achieve, given that Jozy Altidore didn’t last even a half-hour at the 2014 World Cup and such national team greats as Landon Donovan and Clint Dempsey occasionally wound up playing there instead of preferred positions because it was such a lean spot in the lineup for the U.S.. Maybe it would be more flattering to say Balogun has been one of the best at this World Cup, worthy of at least being in the same paragraph as England’s Harry Kane and Norway’s Erling Haaland.

It is the sporting version of tragic that he will not be allowed to participate in the next game, given his importance to the USMNT and how much obvious effort he’s invested in their success. And there is a lack of justice given that the great Lionel Messi of Argentina had no available excuse when he scraped his left cleat across the whole of an Algeria defender Aissa Mandi’s right calf muscle in the first half of their group game. There was no video review. There was no foul call.

Messi has played on.

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