Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS
The United States got its wish. Folarin Balogun was back, restored to the squad after a suspension saga dramatic enough to drag in an intervention from U.S. President Donald Trump.
Belgium’s response? A shrug, a smirk, and a 4-1 mauling.
Rudi Garcia’s side turned the entire Balogun circus into a footnote in Seattle on Tuesday, outplaying the co-hosts with a sharp, controlled display from start to finish. The United States’ home World Cup run comes to an end. Belgium’s continues, and now they’ve got European champions Spain waiting in the quarter-finals.
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For days, every camera, headline and radio phone-in had been fixed on one question: was the decision to ban the suspension of Balogun right? The moment the whistle blew, Belgium made sure nobody cared about that. Aggressive without the ball, silky with it, and clinical when it mattered, the Red Devils delivered arguably their best 90 minutes of the tournament, and did it with half their star power starting on the bench.
USA vs Belgium, FIFA World Cup 2026 Round of 16: Highlights
GARCIA’S BIG GAMBLE
The first shock arrived before a ball was even kicked.
Kevin De Bruyne. Romelu Lukaku. Jeremy Doku. All benched. In a knockout game. Eyebrows shot up the second the team sheets landed. This was either inspired or insane, and there was no in-between.
By full time, it read like genius as Belgium came flying out of the traps and simply never let the hosts breathe. Timothy Castagne forced a fingertip save out of Matt Freese, and Dodi Lukebakio was already skinning defenders down the right, squaring for Youri Tielemans, who somehow managed to miss an open net.
Consider it a warning shot, but the USA didn’t duck. Moments later, a scrambled American clearance fell straight to Nicolas Raskin, who squared for Charles De Ketelaere to walk the ball into an empty net. Seattle, seconds earlier bouncing, went silent.
The hosts hit back, briefly. Malik Tillman’s free kick took a wicked nick off Hans Vanaken, wrong-footed Thibaut Courtois, and levelled things in the 31st minute.
However, it just lasted sixty seconds. Leandro Trossard floated a cross to the back post, De Ketelaere out-muscled Tim Ream in the air, and Belgium were back in front. It was his second of the night, and the U.S. barely had time to catch its breath, let alone build momentum.
Mauricio Pochettino’s side came out swinging after the break, but the game, and maybe the tournament, died just before the hour.
Freese rushed off his line to mop up a long ball, hesitated, and paid for it. De Ketelaere blocked the panicked clearance, the ball rolled loose to Vanaken with the goal gaping, and Ream, scrambling back in horror, somehow made the situation worse, turning a bad moment into a 3-1 disaster.
Lukaku, summoned from the bench for the final act, added the cherry on top in stoppage time: a calm, almost boring finish for career goal number 93, as the Seattle crowd started heading for the exits before the whistle even blew.
THE TRUMP CARD FAILS
All that fuss, and here’s the punchline: the man at the centre of the storm barely got a kick.
Balogun’s suspension had been overturned in dramatic fashion after his red card against Bosnia and Herzegovina, with the political noise around it reaching all the way to the White House. This was supposed to be his stage.
Instead, Belgium’s press swallowed him whole.
The 25-year-old spent the night chasing shadows, starved of time and space as the visitors dominated the ball and pinned the hosts back. His single moment of relevance came when he won the free kick that led to Tillman’s equaliser, and that’s about it. One flicker, then nothing.
The gap between the pre-match hype and the actual match could not have been wider.
Belgium, for all the chatter about their golden generation ageing out, looked like genuine title contenders: young, sharp, composed, and smart enough that Garcia could rest three superstars and still win by three goals.
For the United States, it’s a brutal way to bow out of a World Cup they hosted, on a night they’d built up for weeks. Pochettino’s team were second-best almost everywhere, individual errors piled on top of tactical ones, and captain Christian Pulisic limping off injured in the second half was just the final indignity.
In the end, Belgium didn’t need to say a word about Balogun, Trump, or the noise. They just played. And they played so well that by the final whistle, nobody was talking about anything else, except the scoreline, and a mouth-watering quarter-final with Spain still to come.
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SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA
