Andrew Giuliani claims actions of referee Raphael Claus over US player Folarin Balogun ‘very, very highly suspicious’

Andrew Giuliani, head of the White House’s World Cup taskforce, has defended Donald Trump’s lobbying of Fifa to lift the suspension of US player Folarin Balogun for Monday’s game against Belgium.

The US president claimed that Brazilian referee Raphael Claus, who showed Balogun a red card in the match against Bosnia and Herzegovina, was “a little bit suspect, if you check his past”. This was apparently a reference to a match-fixing investigation by Brazil’s senate in 2024 that examined how referees were assigned to games but did not accuse Claus of wrongdoing.

Who is winning the battle to be top scorer at the World Cup? Live and updated throughout the tournament

All-time World Cup goalscorers

The Golden Boot is awarded to the World Cup’s top goalscorer, with assists used as a tie-breaker if two or more players finish level. The 2026 tournament has three former Golden Boot winners taking part: Kylian Mbappé of France (eight goals in 2022), England’s Harry Kane (six goals in 2018) and James Rodríguez of Colombia (six goals in 2014).

Mbappé and Kane are among the pre-tournament favourites to finish top scorer in North America, alongside Norway’s Erling Haaland – making his World Cup debut – and Argentina’s Lionel Messi.

• Team manager and security member missed match

• Incident may have been related to Balogun controversy

Two US Soccer staff members were suspended by Fifa for their team’s World ⁠Cup defeat to Belgium on Monday.

Team manager Sam Zapatka and US ⁠Soccer vice-⁠president ​of security Frank Pannell weren’t allowed at the match. Fifa has not given a specific reason for the suspensions.

The Frenchman is a footballer, flautist and a thespian. There’s no question he is the most thrilling and compelling figure at this year’s tournament

This has been the World Cup of characters, bold fashion statements, and bantz: we’ve had Thomas Tuchel rubber-banding around the England dressing room like a teen at his first all-ages rave, and Iván Barton booting Miguel Almirón from the field as if sentencing him to death. Mauricio Pochettino and his $500 overshirt have brought fresh energy and inspiration to the wardrobes of convex middle-aged men the world over. Jokester Javier Aguirre’s avuncular “fuck you” at Anthony Gordon has pushed bilateral relations between Mexico and England to their warmest point since the British-brokered peace that ended the Pastry War of 1839.

Erling Haaland has shown it’s possible to be Jaws in front of goal and Scooby Doo once the ball is in the back of the net, that there’s nothing about football so important that it can’t make way for some silly bit of online comedy. Even Harry Kane, a man who often seems like he was media trained in the womb, has squeaked thrillingly, if briefly, to life.

The Australian superstar returns to the US after a seven-year absence – and will find a vastly changed landscape

When Sam Kerr last played for the National Women’s Soccer League’s Big Apple-adjacent club, it was called Sky Blue, and the playing conditions were comparatively abysmal. The Australian striker spent three years (from 2015-17) accruing accolades for a team infamously bereft of locker rooms or running water at its training facility. This July, she returned to a vastly evolved franchise that has won two NWSL Championships in three seasons while implementing a comprehensive overhaul of its players, personnel and prioritization of player conditions.

Kerr’s return, called “a landmark moment for our club” by the president of soccer operations, Yael Averbuch West – whose role was intrinsic to Gotham’s progress – feels like an exciting moment of nostos for one of the greatest to ever play women’s professional soccer in the United States, and a sign of continued ambition for a program that has worked hard to overhaul its operations.

The Americans crashed out in disappointing fashion, but there were positives from the tournament on the whole. We look at how the roster performed

Stats from fotmob.com, Opta and Fifa; players listed in order of minutes played.

Weston McKennie, center/attacking midfield (Juventus)

We assess the teams who played in the tournament’s last 16 before the next round of games begins

A very different side of France came to the fore, proving they are not mere showboaters, there is plenty of steel, grit and determination among the ranks. It was a brutal encounter as they became targets for Paraguay, who added menace to the low block. No one in blue retreated to the shadows, instead taking the overaggression head on, using it as fuel. “To anyone who wants to go to war with us, this is what you should expect,” Rayan Cherki said. It was the biggest test they have faced this far but intimidation tactics do not work, it transpires, leaving everyone else wondering how to stop them.

Egypt complained about the officials in their defeat to Argentina and Henderson underwent surgery

Perhaps Lionel Messi could do with a look at this video – our own Nikhita Chulani sifts the data in search of the perfect penalty.

Just in, from AP.