{"id":2877,"date":"2026-02-17T21:16:56","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T21:16:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/?p=2877"},"modified":"2026-02-17T21:16:56","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T21:16:56","slug":"usas-folarin-balogun-scores-first-half-brace-against-psg-in-champions-league","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/?p=2877","title":{"rendered":"USA&#039;s Folarin Balogun Scores First-Half Brace Against PSG In Champions League"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"subnav-title ff-ffc bold fs-23 lh-25 uc pd-b-10\">\n            POPULAR SEARCHES\n          <\/p>\n<p class=\"subnav-title ff-ffc bold fs-23 lh-25 uc pd-b-10\">\n            BROWSE BY\n          <\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-d04fc069>American forward Folarin Balogun took less than one minute to give Monaco the lead against Paris Saint-Germain in their Champions League playoff on Tuesday, and added a second goal less than midway through the first half.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-d04fc069>There was only 55 seconds on the clock at Stade Louis II when Balogun headed in a precise cross from the left by Aleksandr Golovin.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-d04fc069>Balogun scored again to make it 2-0 in the 18th when PSG lost the ball and Maghnes Akliouche threaded a fine pass behind the defense for Balogun to fire confidently past hesitant goalkeeper Matvei Safonov.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-d04fc069>PSG was under some pressure heading into the game after a sixth defeat of the season on Friday led to an outburst by star striker Ousmane Dembele questioning the attitude of his teammates.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-d04fc069>The return leg is next Wednesday at Parc des Princes, with the winner advancing to the last 16.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-d04fc069>PSG beat Brest 10-0 on aggregate in the playoffs last season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-d04fc069><i>Reporting by The Associated Press.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>POPULAR SEARCHES BROWSE BY American forward Folarin Balogun took less than one minute to give Monaco the lead against Paris Saint-Germain in their Champions League playoff on Tuesday, and added a second goal less than midway through the first half. There was only 55 seconds on the clock at Stade Louis II when Balogun headed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":2876,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soccer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2877\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}