The United States won a knockout tie, beating Bosnia and Herzegovina 2-0 in Santa Clara despite playing the entire final half-hour with ten. It sealed the USMNT's first World Cup knockout win since they beat Mexico in 2002, and the first delivered on home soil in front of their own crowd.
Balogun gave the hosts the lead shortly before the break. It was his third goal of the tournament, and for a while it looked like the easy part. Then, the hero became the villain. In the 64th minute, Balogun caught Muharemović's ankle and the referee reached for a red card. The man who had scored left his teammates to defend the score in ten players.
Rather than dig a trench, the Americans went and killed the game. Tillman curled a free kick beyond Nikola Vasilj in the 82nd minute.
Pochettino disputed the dismissal that made the night so nervy. "For me, never is it a red card," he said. "Never was there intention to step on the player." His verdict on the bigger picture was warmer: "You feel part of something bigger, things that we are building here."
After Pochettino's rotation against Turkey Matt Freese reclaimed the gloves for this knockout tie. He made four saves against a Bosnian front line led by Edin Džeko.
For all the tension, the number that matters is the one on the calendar. Not since the 2002 win over Mexico had the United States won a World Cup knockout match, and they had never done it at home. Their last home knockout tie was that narrow loss to Brazil at the 1994 World Cup, staged in this same corner of California. In front of more than 68,000 in the Bay Area, a generation of supporters finally got the result the fixture had denied them for so long.
The reward is a heavyweight. The USA meet Belgium in the Round of 16 in Seattle on Monday, the same opponent who knocked them out at the 2014 World Cup, and a side fresh off their own extra-time escape against Senegal. Balogun's red card rules him out, so Pochettino must find a way through without his in-form striker.
