Folarin Balogun was born in Brooklyn effectively by accident. Born to Nigerian parents, Florence and Ben Balogun, Folarin was raised in England. But while visiting family in New York, his mother found herself too far along in her pregnancy to board her originally planned return flight to England. Folarin, who also goes by “Flo,” was born on July 3, 2001—one day before Independence Day, a coincidence American soccer fans have been more than happy to highlight.
“My mum always told me the story growing up, but I never really paid it any mind,” Folarin says during an episode of the HBO documentary, U.S. Against the World: Four Years With the Men’s National Soccer Team. “She came to the U.S. to visit her sister, and she had her return ticket, but then they said that she was too pregnant. So, I was born in New York, but grew up in London.”
Balogun pursued soccer from an early age, coming through the Arsenal academy before becoming one of the most coveted young strikers in Europe. Fast forward a few decades, and he is now a top-rated forward for the U.S. Men’s National Team and, after his brace against Paraguay in the 2026 World Cup opener, he became the first American man to score twice in a World Cup match in nearly a century.
His mother believes it was fate.
Florence has spoken openly about viewing her son’s stateside birth as something more than coincidence. “I don’t believe things happened by luck,” she told ESPN. “I think for me to have gone to America and for me to have had him there, it is just something that has really stuck with me. Even when he wasn’t even thinking of making an international decision, I’d already made up my mind that he is going to play for America.”
Beyond what Balogun and his mother have shared in interviews, his parents have largely stayed out of the public eye.
Choosing a country was one of the hardest decisions of his career.
Folarin was granted U.S. citizenship at birth, making him eligible to represent the United States, England, or Nigeria internationally.
Folarin represented England from the Under-17 through Under-21 levels, earning 28 youth caps, but also made four appearances for the U.S. Under-18 side before the decision became unavoidable at the senior level. He has described the weight of it in stark terms. “Choosing to represent the men’s national team was something I thought about for a long time, because the difference between international football compared to club football is you can transfer clubs,” he says in the HBO series, “But once you choose who you represent internationally, that’s you in life, it’s fixed, you can’t change it.”
U.S. soccer fans made a difference.
Robin Alam/ISI Photos//Getty Images
Folarin, getting his first cap for the U.S. during the Concacaf Nations League Final against Canada in June 2023.
A visit to a USMNT training camp in Florida in March 2023 proved decisive. Fans who learned he was in the area urged him to commit to the United States in a recruitment campaign, which appears to have been effective. Folarin committed to the U.S. without even waiting for an England call-up, and made his senior level debut that summer. There was at least one person who was not surprised by his decision. “When I broke the news to my family they were all just over the moon, especially my mom,” Flo told ESPN. “She said, ‘What took you so long?’”
After his opening World Cup performance, he spoke directly to those same fans who wanted him to join the USMNT. “I’ve always said the fans gave me so much motivation and showed me so much support. The most important thing has always been to be able to repay that,” Balogun told reporters after the Paraguay match. “I just want to continue to show the fans I made the right decision.”
Rachel King (she/her) is a news writer at Town & Country. Before joining T&C, she spent nearly a decade as an editor at Fortune. Her work covering travel and lifestyle has appeared in Forbes, Observer, Robb Report, Cruise Critic, and Cool Hunting, among others. Originally from San Francisco, she lives in New York with her wife, their daughter, and a precocious labradoodle. Follow her on Instagram at @rk.passport.
