Former Gunner Folarin Balogun starred in the USA’s opening-game World Cup win over Paraguay on Friday night, keeping up his excellent form in 2026 so far.
Former Arsenal academy striker Folarin Balogun made a start in the USA’s first game of the 2026 World Cup on Friday night, with the tournament hosts playing against Paraguay.
Paraguay got an early warning of the dangers Balogun posed when he had a goal disallowed for offside in the 28th minute, but it wasn’t a warning they heeded.
Three minutes later, Balogun pounced on a low deflected cross for fire home a first-time finish for 2-0, before curling home another finish later in the half for his second goal and 3-0. The USA ended up winning the match 4-1.
Arsenal sold Balogun to AS Monaco for around £35m in August 2023, with approximately £26m guaranteed and the rest in potential add-ons.
The striker had a somewhat underwhelming first campaign, only scoring eight goals in 2023/24, and an injury-hit season in 2024/25 halved that tally to just four goals.
But after a stop-start beginning to 2025/26, Balogun finally began to find his stride in the second half of the campaign.
Since the start of 2026, Balogun has scored 12 goals and assisted three in 24 matches for Monaco, as well as now scoring three in five games for the USA. At one point, the striker went on an eight-game scoring streak in Ligue 1.
It was generally a disappointing season for Monaco, who only scraped into the Europa Conference League qualifiers with their seventh-place finish, despite being in the Champions League race in April. They were ultimately lucky not to miss out on Europe entirely.
The team will also be disappointed to have taken a 2-0 first-leg lead in their Champions League tie against PSG, with Balogun scoring both goals, only to go on to lose both the game and the tie.
If Balogun continues to impress at the World Cup, perhaps there might be some interested buyers. Arsenal will be keeping an eye on things, due to their 17.5% sell-on clause in the player’s contract.
- Former Gunner with sell-on clause scores World Cup braceFormer Gunner Folarin Balogun starred in the USA’s opening-game World Cup win over Paraguay on Friday night, keeping up his excellent form in 2026 so far.
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