"I think the distraction got to the team for sure in some type of way." Megan Rapinoe didn't hedge when she said it, and she's probably right.
Speaking on her podcast A Touch More: The Beautiful Game, the former USWNT star broke down why she believes the circus surrounding Donald Trump's intervention in Folarin Balogun's red-card suspension contributed to the U.S. men's team getting dismantled 4-1 by Belgium in the Round of 16. Not as an excuse. More as a diagnosis.
A team that had never been here before
Rapinoe's core argument is about experience — specifically, the lack of it. The 2019 Women's World Cup team had already been through the equal-pay lawsuit firestorm before a ball was kicked in France. When Trump started criticizing them mid-tournament, they had a framework for it. Emotional scar tissue, if you like.
This USMNT squad had none of that. "I feel like this is the first time that most, if not all, of these players are having to even think about something off of the field that is controversial," she said. And when you've never had to compartmentalize that kind of pressure, it doesn't stay in its box. It leaks into everything — your sleep, your meetings, your head before kickoff.
There's also a cultural dimension she raised that's harder to dismiss. Men's football, she noted, doesn't produce many players who actively engage with anything beyond the sport. That's not a criticism. It just means when the noise hits, there's no muscle memory for handling it.
Belgium were good, but the U.S. made it easier
Rapinoe was clear that Belgium deserved full credit — "a really, really, really good team" with "legends sitting on the bench." A 4-1 scoreline in a knockout game is a statement, whatever the opponent's state of mind.
But she also pointed out something worth sitting with: Pochettino's teams tend to over-perform when underestimated, and she floated the idea that playing without Balogun might not have been the disadvantage everyone assumed. Whether that's revisionism or genuine tactical thinking is another debate.
- FIFA rescinded Balogun's red-card suspension after Trump pushed for a review
- The USWNT faced similar political scrutiny during their 2019 World Cup win
- The U.S. men have been inconsistent in recent years, and the Belgium defeat extended that trend
"I don't think they handled just all of the circus that was around their team very well," she said. That's a fair read. Belgium exposed it. The scoreboard confirmed it.
