Mauricio Pochettino has admitted he wishes he had played a bigger role in the process that saw Folarin Balogun's World Cup suspension overturned, a decision that came before the United States were beaten 4-1 by Belgium.
Balogun was sent off for a challenge on Bosnia and Herzegovina defender Tarik Muharemović, a red card that carried an automatic one-match ban. That suspension, which would have ruled him out against Belgium, was lifted after the US Soccer Federation and President Donald Trump lobbied FIFA. Trump has said he personally called FIFA president Gianni Infantino to request a review of the decision, though Infantino maintains the ruling to reinstate Balogun came independently from FIFA's disciplinary committee.
The episode overshadowed what had otherwise been a positive tournament for the US. Belgium's players and coaching staff said afterward that the controversy gave them extra motivation, and Balogun himself later said he had felt uncomfortable with the attention it brought him.
Speaking to broadcaster Andrés Cantor in a Spanish-language interview for Fútbol de Primera, Pochettino said he wasn't part of the decision-making process at the time, but with hindsight might have wanted to be.
"Maybe I regret not having been more involved," Pochettino said. "In the situation that later generated all of the negativity afterwards. Maybe I regret not having been more inside of that decision making process. I wasn't involved in that decision, to overturn the red card. As a football person, I understand everything ... Beyond whether we were right or not [about the call on the field], I think nobody understood how it happened."
A costly distraction against Belgium
The US were beaten badly in every phase of play in the 4-1 defeat to Belgium. Pochettino suggested the fallout from the Balogun situation had an effect on his team's performance that night.
"As a football person," said Pochettino, "where many times we have that emotional intelligence - [we know] that energy can change things. I think that energy changed the minute that happened. And by then, the game is played under different parameters, and that match was never a match where I believe the tactics, strategy, or selection of players would have changed the course of what happened during the game."
Pochettino also indicated that too many people may have been involved in the push to get Balogun cleared to play.
"That's something we've talked about internally," he said. "I think that these types of things have to be managed under a much more limited structure, a structure where decisions have to be made by very few people, where very few people manage these types of things. [Those decisions] should be strictly sporting and common sense, beyond whether a rule or a committee can say one thing or another."
Pochettino's USMNT will face Peru in Orlando on Saturday before playing Chile, Mexico and Canada during the rest of this extended international window.
