Balogun's red card hands Ricardo Pepi a World Cup starting chance he has waited years for

Ricardo Pepi is set to be the leading candidate to start for the United States against Belgium in the World Cup round of 16 at Seattle Stadium on Monday, after striker Folarin Balogun was ruled out through suspension following a controversial red card in last week’s win over Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The story of how Pepi arrived at this moment carries its own weight. When former USMNT coach Gregg Berhalter left him off the 2022 World Cup squad, Pepi reportedly hung up the phone. Less than four years later, he was in the car with his father when a WhatsApp message from Mauricio Pochettino confirmed his place in the 26-man squad for this summer’s tournament on home soil.

“I showed it to him and he immediately started crying a little bit,” Pepi said ahead of the tournament. “Being left off is obviously not nice, but I’ve been using that in a good way to be able to be in this World Cup. I felt like it helped me grow. It matured me a little bit. So it was part of the process.”

Pepi has featured in all four of the USA’s group-stage matches, starting two. Pochettino has options to cover Balogun’s absence — the most straightforward being to hand the start to either Pepi or Haji Wright. Alternatively, the coach could deploy a more creative arrangement, as he did when he paired Pepi and Balogun together against Australia following Christian Pulisic’s calf injury.

Teammates have spoken openly about their belief in Pepi. “His tenacity and energy has been unreal to be honest,” Tyler Adams told reporters at the University of Washington this week. “I’ve played with Pepi quite a bit, but what he’s done against the ball has been huge for us and also for our wingers so they don’t have to do necessarily as much work. He’s holding the ball up really well and when he gets in front of goal, we know he can score. Obviously he hasn’t done it yet, but we know that he’s a good finisher in and around the goal.”

Pepi’s output at club level supports that confidence. The 23-year-old from Texas finished the season at PSV Eindhoven with 19 goals in 34 appearances across all competitions, helping the Dutch club claim a third consecutive Eredivisie title — and that came despite missing most of January and February with a broken arm. Before the injury, he had scored in six consecutive matches.

His tournament form has been quieter — a half-chance against Paraguay his most notable contribution — but the platform against Belgium could hardly be bigger. For a player who channelled the pain of 2022 into four years of development, Monday represents exactly the kind of stage he has been building towards.