sweeping aside the US in Seattle to reach \u200bthe \u200cquarterfinals<\/a>.<\/p>\n“I think there was always \u2026 justice somewhere in life and the fact that something can happen like that, you can put it \u2060all you want \u2026 we don’t think \u200cthat was fair,” Raskin told reporters.<\/p>\n
“And \u200ctoday, I think it just brings us a little bit of luck. We needed to \u200cwin the game and the message throughout.”<\/p>\n
‘Not his fault’<\/p>\n
Belgium’s Instagram account posted a photo of Romelu Lukaku celebrating after scoring his side’s fourth goal with \u200cthe caption: “Overturn \u200bthis.”<\/p>\n
Belgium coach Rudi Garcia, \u2060however, played down the row in his post-match media conference when asked if it had motivated his players.<\/p>\n
![\"Folarin](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/c93ace3f0e2adb6172e41e950318ac13.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Folarin Balogun (left) is consoled by Rudi Garcia. (Getty Images: David Ramos)<\/p>\n
“It wasn’t needed or necessary \u2026 what really mattered to us is our game plan,” Garcia said.<\/p>\n
Garcia said he spoke with Balogun after the final whistle.<\/p>\n
“He came to talk to me, I really like that,” Garcia said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“It’s \u200cnot his fault, \u200che’s not the one to blame and that’s what I told \u200bhim.”<\/p>\n
US coach Mauricio Pochettino refused to blame his side’s loss on the Balogun red card controversy.<\/p>\n
But he took personal issue \u200cwith those who questioned the motives behind the process that cleared Balogun to play.<\/p>\n
“I am so frustrated and disappointed with people who are supposed to understand the situation,” Pochettino told reporters.<\/p>\n
![\"Folarin](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/e717ea9c1adfbf78bc95f6f5b91e4f8b.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Folarin Balogun (left) was subbed off by US coach Mauricio Pochettino in the second half. (Getty Images: John Dorton)<\/p>\n
US midfielder Tyler Adams dismissed the suggestion the drama surrounding Balogun’s reinstatement was a distraction.<\/p>\n
“I don’t think that noise or anything \u200caffected us \u200bby any means. If anything, it \u2060probably uplifted us, in a sense,” Adams said.<\/p>\n
Pressed about whether the situation may have impacted Balogun’s performance, Adams said: “Was anyone a major presence on the field today? Do you know what I mean?”<\/p>\n
US defender Tim Ream said the Balogun situation had “no impact” on the home side.<\/p>\n
“We’ve done a good job with this group of allowing outside noise to be outside noise,” he said.<\/p>\n
“It’s got nothing to do \u200cwith us as players and \u200cgetting ready for games. It’s one of those things, that’s the world we live in.<\/p>\n
“We were \u200bfully focused on us as a group and as a team, and fully focused on the game and not really worrying about what was being said or debated in the outside world.”<\/p>\n
Belgium faces Spain in Los Angeles on Saturday morning AEST for a place in the semifinals.<\/p>\n
Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Belgium’s Nicolas Raskin says the 4-1 World Cup win over \u200bthe United States feels like a measure of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":784267,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,17652,2071,2490,91951,596,13202,30838,217131,370437,85,26605,1055,2489,2957,21418],"class_list":["post-784266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-ban","tag-belgium","tag-donald-trump","tag-folarin-balogun","tag-football","tag-gianni-infantino","tag-nicolas-raskin","tag-red-card","tag-rudi-garcia","tag-sports","tag-suspension","tag-united-states","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=784266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/784267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=784266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=784266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=784266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}