Long Island soccer fans show pride at Mulcahy's to watch Team USA chase World Cup history
Fans at a watch party at Mulcahy's in Wantagh celebrate after Team USA scored during a World Cup round of 16 game against Belgium on Monday. Credit: Howard Simmons
Merrick’s Ed Vettere arrived at Wantagh’s Mulcahy's well over an hour before kickoff, the first to do so. Wearing a red U.S. Olympic soccer jersey, he sat at the bar ready to watch one of the most pivotal soccer games in the United States men’s national team’s history.
He knows what Monday night meant as the USMNT took on Belgium, seeking its first World Cup quarterfinal since 2002.
“If we win against Belgium, I think we can beat Spain in the [quarterfinals],” Vettere said. “I watch the team; these guys are competitors. They play with heart.”
The USMNT already set a program record when it scored four goals against Paraguay, its most in a World Cup contest. John Dominguez of North Babylon, grew up playing soccer at MacArthur High School and said he’s watched nearly every World Cup game thus far.
“I think they’ve been playing really good team soccer, which I haven’t seen in a long time from the United States,” Dominguez said.
The USMNT welcomed back Folarin Balogun for Monday’s contest after the forward received a red card for stepping on the ankle of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s Tarik Muharemovic in a 2-0 win Wednesday in the round of 32.
A red card automatically results in a one-game suspension, with no route to appeal. For the first time for an incident that occurred during the World Cup since 1962, however, FIFA announced in a statement Sunday that Balogun’s one-match ban would be suspended in favor of a one-year probationary period.
The decision to allow Balogun, who leads the USMNT with three goals in four games, to play came after President Donald Trump called FIFA president Gianni Infantino and asked him to reconsider the ban, as first reported by The New York Times. Both Trump and Infantino confirmed the call Monday, with Infantino reaffirming in a statement that FIFA’s judicial bodies are “independent” and “operate autonomously.”
The Royal Belgian Football Association’s appeal Monday was deemed “inadmissible” by FIFA’s Appeal Committee. Vettere said he thought Balogun should’ve been “benched.”
“The rules are the rules. They should’ve went to VAR and called it a yellow card at most,” Vettere said. “Now it’s a red card. There’s always going to be a little asterisk.”
Balogun started in his usual spot up top, with the 25-year-old being one goal away from tying Bert Patenaude’s record — set in 1930 — for the most goals by an American in a single World Cup (four).
Patenaude was the first American to score multiple goals in a World Cup game. Balogun became the second when he scored twice against Paraguay in the group stage.
“Hopefully, we start strong with Balogun back in the lineup,” Wantagh’s Steven O’Meara said. “We want to press early and try to avoid a slow start.”
The two countries last World Cup meeting came in an unforgettable round of 16 match in the 2014 World Cup, when Tim Howard made a record 16 saves in a 2-1 loss in which all three goals came in extra time.
“I didn’t have high hopes for them back then,” Joe Barberio, of East Meadow, said. “They did their best. But what they’re doing this year in this World Cup is amazing.”
Barberio has been watching the USMNT since the early 1990s and expressed pride at watching the team’s growth.”
“Before, it was more like kick and run,” Barberio said. “Now, they’re like other countries. They’re more laid back, they do more plays, more passing, more thinking, more elegant. You got to have that. Twelve years ago, it was all over the place.”
Michael Sicoli covers high school sports for Newsday. He graduated from Quinnipiac in 2022 and left with a master’s degree in sports journalism in 2023.
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