Jeff CarlisleMar 28, 2026, 08:11 PM ET

CloseJeff Carlisle covers MLS and the U.S. national team for ESPN FC.

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ATLANTA — Christian Pulisic was among several players who said that the similarly colored jerseys worn by Belgium and the United States in Saturday’s friendly made it more difficult to pick out teammates, though insisted that it had no bearing on the Americans’ 5-2 defeat.

“It’s not an excuse at all because both teams deal with that, but that’s just … that can’t happen,” Pulisic said. “That was a bit strange.”

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He added, “It’s difficult. A lot of times you get the ball and you look up, you can’t really lock in on something. You only can base it off the color of the shirt. That’s how it works. And when it’s very similar, it’s difficult.”

Jerseys for the USMNT and Belgium were hard to distinguish at times during Saturday’s friendly. Omar Vega/USSF/Getty Images

Pulisic added that he didn’t realize that there was going to be an issue until everyone took off their pre-game warmup jerseys.

“Everyone was a bit shocked,” he said.

The Americans were debuting their World Cup jerseys, which consisted of red and white horizontal stripes and blue shorts. Belgium’s jerseys were also mostly white with hints of pink and light blue with white shorts.

A U.S. Soccer spokesperson told ESPN that a multi-layered process for checking to see if there was a conflict with jersey colors was undertaken before the match. This included the U.S. selecting its jersey, and then asking Belgium to use their non-contrasting jersey.

The pictures of both jerseys were then sent to match referees, and a match coordination meeting was then held in which the jerseys were seen. Then the jerseys were seen again by the referees on gameday. At no time did the referees indicate that they felt there was a conflict.

However, U.S. midfielder Weston McKennie echoed Pulisic’s sentiments.

“I won’t put that at all for an excuse of the game, but definitely it was a little bit difficult,” he said.

“Whenever you do a quick glance to tell which was which, it was almost like a fifty-fifty thing. So you definitely had to maybe take a little bit more time on the ball before you made a decision or play one-touch to a player.”

Belgium won the match, ending the Americans’ five-game unbeaten streak. After the first half ended 1-1, the Red Devils exploded for four goals in the second half, with substitute Dodi Lukebakio netting twice.

The U.S. will be back in action in Atlanta, against Portugal, on Tuesday. That will be the final game for head coach Mauricio Pochettino to assess his players before naming his roster for the World Cup at the end of May.

The U.S., which is co-hosting the tournament alongside Canada and Mexico, opens its World Cup campaign against Paraguay on June 12 in Inglewood, California.