{"id":388830,"date":"2026-07-07T04:34:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T04:34:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/388830\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T04:34:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T04:34:18","slug":"u-s-hopes-of-a-historic-world-cup-run-shattered-in-loss-to-belgium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/388830\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. hopes of a historic World Cup run shattered in loss to Belgium"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

SEATTLE\u00a0\u2014\u00a0For three weeks, it was the best World Cup<\/a> ever for the U.S.<\/p>\n

The Americans scored more goals, won more games and generated more interest than any U.S. team in history. But all that glory gave way to grief Monday when a 4-1 loss<\/a> to Belgium brought the U.S. crashing back to Earth.<\/p>\n

Belgium never trailed, getting two first-half goals from Charles De Ketelaere and two in the second half from Hans Vanaken and Romelu Lukaku to clinch a spot in the tournament quarterfinals, where it will face Spain on Friday at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood. For the U.S., whose lone goal came from Malik Tillman<\/a>, its World Cup ended in the round of 16 for a fourth straight time.<\/p>\n

\"U.S. <\/p>\n

U.S. players Tim Ream, center, Malik Tillman, left, and Folarin Balogun react after Belgium\u2019s third goal on Monday.<\/p>\n

(Robert Gauthier \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

The U.S. did win a knockout round game<\/a> in the tournament for just the second time, but that came in a round of 32 necessitated by the World Cup\u2019s expansion to 48 teams. All three tournament hosts, the U.S., Canada<\/a> and Mexico<\/a>, were eliminated in the round of 16.<\/p>\n

The run-up to Monday\u2019s game was clouded by the controversy surrounding U.S. striker Folarin Balogun<\/a>, the Americans\u2019 leading scorer, who wasn\u2019t officially cleared to play until about seven hours before kickoff after FIFA rejected an appeal from the Royal Belgium Football Assn. The association was seeking to overturn an unusual ruling from the FIFA disciplinary committee, which on Sunday made Balogun eligible to play<\/a> despite the fact he was shown a red card and expelled from his team\u2019s previous game.<\/p>\n

The red card also carried with it a ban from the team\u2019s next game \u2014 in this case, the Belgium match \u2014 but FIFA suspended that penalty and imposed a one-year probation instead. It was just the second time in World Cup history \u2014 and the first since 1962 \u2014 that FIFA has held a red-card suspension in abeyance and allowed a player to participate in his team\u2019s next game.<\/p>\n

Balogun was active Monday, going the full 90 minutes, but Belgium kept him from getting on the scoreboard.<\/p>\n

Belgium, in fact, was on the front foot from the start, taking six shots and putting two on target in the first eight minutes before going ahead on De Ketelaere\u2019s first goal in the ninth minute. De Ketelaere, starting over the more physical Lukaku, Belgium\u2019s all-time leading scorer, got free on the edge of the six-yard box and ran onto a centering pass from Nicolas Raskin, then made the easy tap-in for his first World Cup goal.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

The sequence followed Sergi\u00f1o Dest\u2019s decision to let a headed clearance attempt from Chris Richards bounce inside the penalty area, allowing Raskin to scoop up the loose ball and send it on to De Ketelaere, whose goal marked the first time the U.S. trailed in the first half hour of a game in this tournament. It was also the earliest goal the U.S. had allowed in a World Cup game since Nani scored for Portugal in the fifth minute of the second group stage game in Brazil in 2014.<\/p>\n

The U.S. matched that in the 31st minute when Tillman deflected a free kick in off the head of Vanaken following a foul on Balogun. It was Tillman\u2019s second free-kick goal in as many games, making him the second player since 1966 to score twice off direct free-kick goals in the same World Cup.<\/p>\n

But the draw was short-lived, with De Ketelaere putting Belgium in front, where they would stay, two minutes later with his second score of the first half, this one a header over the back of U.S. captain Tim Ream. Leandro Trossard got the assist, bending a perfect back-post cross from the end line to his waiting teammate.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

Belgium dominated the opening half, outshooting the Americans 11-3 and putting five of those tries on goal, an edge U.S. coach Mauricio Pochettino tried to address by subbing Dest off at halftime for Gio Reyna. It didn\u2019t work, however, with Belgium expanding its lead on a major gaffe from U.S. keeper Matt Freese in the 57th minute.<\/p>\n

Freese, who had given up just one goal in his first three starts, came well off his line to beat De Ketelaere to a loose ball, chesting it to the turf. But De Ketelaere poked a toe out to knock the ball back to Vanaken, who skipped a shot from about 30 yards past a retreating Ream and into the vacant goal.<\/p>\n

After the goal, U.S. star Christian Pulisic was subbed out after sustaining an apparent leg injury while attempting a shot. He was limping on the field before being replaced by Sebastian Berhalter.<\/p>\n

Lukaku, who came on in the 67th minute, closed out the scoring with a goal in stoppage time.<\/p>\n

The U.S., which was eliminated by Belgium in the round of 16 of the 2014 World Cup, hasn\u2019t beaten the Red Devils since its opening match of the first World Cup in 1930.<\/p>\n

\"U.S. <\/p>\n

U.S. goalkeeper Matt Freese reacts after Belgium midfielder Hans Vanaken (not shown) scored against him in the second half of Belgium\u2019s 4-1 win at the World Cup on Monday.<\/p>\n

(Allen J. Schaben \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SEATTLE\u00a0\u2014\u00a0For three weeks, it was the best World Cup ever for the U.S. The Americans scored more goals,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":388831,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[11432,61169,108428,8862,2194,156698,156700,154735,48,52,51,47,50,49,156701,5463,156702,16408,427,2281,156699],"class_list":["post-388830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-americans","tag-belgium","tag-charles-de-ketelaere","tag-fifa","tag-goal","tag-good-world-cup","tag-hans-vanaken","tag-knockout-round-game","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-malik-tillman","tag-minute","tag-next-game","tag-round","tag-team","tag-u-s","tag-u-s-hope"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388830\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}