{"id":678051,"date":"2026-07-07T07:12:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T07:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/678051\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T07:12:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T07:12:11","slug":"world-cup-2026-reaction-as-the-usmnt-lose-to-belgium-at-the-last-16-stage-and-cristiano-ronaldos-portugal-are-knocked-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/678051\/","title":{"rendered":"World Cup 2026: Reaction as the USMNT lose to Belgium at the last-16 stage and Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal are knocked out"},"content":{"rendered":"

Belgium say ‘injustice’ fired them uppublished at 07:10 BST<\/p>\n

07:10 BST<\/p>\n

USA 1-4 Belgium<\/p>\n

\"\"Joe Rindl
BBC Sport<\/p>\n

\"AlexImage source, Getty Images<\/p>\n

Belgium midfielder Nicolas Raskin said his team felt a “sense of injustice” over United States striker Folarin Balogun’s one-match ban being suspended by Fifa shortly before their World Cup last-16 match.<\/p>\n

Balogun, 25, appeared certain to miss the tie in Seattle after being shown a straight red card for a foul on Bosnia-Herzegovina defender Tarik Muharemovic in the previous round.<\/p>\n

But on Sunday Fifa suspended the automatic one-match ban for 12 months, leading to widespread criticism, with Uefa, Belgium and England boss Thomas Tuchel among those speaking out against the ruling.<\/p>\n

On Monday US President Donald Trump said he asked Fifa <\/a>to review Balogun’s ban, which he said would have left a “big stain” on the tournament.<\/p>\n

But, despite the American’s star striker being cleared to play and starting the match, Belgium convincingly beat the tournament co-hosts 4-1.<\/a><\/p>\n

“A lot has happened off the pitch over the last two days,”said Belgium and Rangers midfielder Raskin.<\/p>\n

“There was a sense of injustice within the squad, and we were determined to respond on the field.”<\/p>\n

Belgium captain Youri Tielemans insisted the affair had boosted his side.<\/p>\n

“We told ourselves we had to respond on the pitch. That’s what we did,” he said.<\/p>\n

After Belgium scored their fourth goal several of their players were pictured dancing in a style similar to the ‘Trump dance’ – where he rocks his hips and slowly pumps his arms – which gained notoriety during the 2024 US presidential campaign.<\/p>\n

The official Instagram account for the Belgium national team also appeared to mock the debacle, posting a picture of striker Romelu Lukaku cupping his ear with the caption “overturn this”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Belgium say ‘injustice’ fired them uppublished at 07:10 BST 07:10 BST USA 1-4 Belgium Joe RindlBBC Sport Image…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":678052,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-678051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=678051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/678052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}