New Delhi, June 13 -- When Folarin Balogun told his family he had decided to play his international football for the United States, his mother's response was not the one he expected. "What took you so long?" she asked. On Friday night at SoFi Stadium, with two goals on his World Cup debut, the striker offered the most emphatic answer yet to anyone still wondering why he wears the red, white and blue.

The choice was never as simple as it now looks. Balogun was born in Brooklyn to Nigerian parents and moved to London barely a month into his life, a path that left him eligible for three national teams at once. He came through the youth ranks in England and impressed for the under 21 side, and could have committed to the country that raised ...