Former U.S. Women's National Team player Megan Rapinoe has attributed the U.S. Men's National Team's (USMNT) exit from the World Cup to a significant distraction stemming from the Folarin Balogun red card incident and President Donald Trump's involvement.
Rapinoe stated on her podcast, "A Touch More: The Beautiful Game," that the situation surrounding Balogun's suspension and the subsequent intervention by President Trump ultimately affected the team's performance in their match against Belgium. While the intervention, which allowed Balogun to play, mirrored a similar rule application for Cristiano Ronaldo, Rapinoe argued that the public discourse and "shenanigans and chaos" associated with the event proved to be too much for the team to overcome.
"I think the distraction got to the team for sure in some type of way," Rapinoe said. "Whether it was, you know, this red card situation, whether it was being in a public discourse with this president, all of the, you know, shenanigans and chaos that comes with the feelings on both sides of that."
Rapinoe, who has been vocal about off-field issues herself, suggested that the USMNT lacked players accustomed to navigating such public distractions. She noted that, in her view, many players in men's football do not often utilize their platforms to engage in broader public discourse or take on additional responsibility.
"So, not only does this team not have like a core of older players who are used to that, but none of these players talk about anything ever, like for the most part," Rapinoe stated. "I think in men's football, just like in general, there's not a lot of players who are choosing to use their platform or to, you know, broaden their scope of pressure and responsibility."
She implied that the team's loss was not solely due to the strength of the Belgian team or a poor performance on the day, but rather a consequence of their potential unpreparedness for the off-field controversy.
Amidst the post-mortems on the USMNT's World Cup performance, this perspective from Rapinoe adds another layer to the discussion, focusing on the psychological impact of external political involvement on athletic competition. The narrative has also drawn commentary from figures like Kellyanne Conway and Tomi Lahren, who have discussed the tendency to attribute national setbacks to Trump and critiqued what they describe as a left-leaning tendency to "root against America."