Post-match: USA v Belgium knockout game

Should we remind them that FIFA gifted them a bogus penalty to win them their match against Senegal?

 

You mean the Hand of Egypt yanking of a jersey to win the ball to launch the attack? Turns out, that’s against the rules

 

Belgian prime minister suggests US World Cup loss hit Trump ‘hard’ https://t.co/wzT01IlXWx

— POLITICO (@politico) July 7, 2026

 

Italy has not lost a meaningful game to Belgium since 1972.

https://www.11v11.com/teams/italy/tab/opposingTeams/opposition/Belgium/

La calma è la virtù dei forti.

 

We'll always have Bosnia.

 

Not true. Wins over Paraguay, Australia, Bosnia at home. Subpar teams, not even close to the best competitive games.

 

Jones/Adams would be far behind Donovan.

 

We don't need any baseball players anyway. Hitting the ball is very a specific skill totally unrelated to other games. Any day spent on practicing that is a wasted day. I'd rather have sprinters, those guys at least consistentlty have right body type and also are quick and fast. Neither 10.3 sprinter has any chance to make money in his preffered sport. Think bigger Edlins who started earlier.

 

It's one of the bitterest pills of this. We could move on w/a tough loss with the Dutch, but knowing we did some things well, but were outcoached and exhausted, but we can't do that with this. This is walking away from 1998 and Couva, except the next study generation isn't really there to plug in yet, they're a bit too young, so its probably more like 1998, when the kids only started filtering in 3 years later, and Arena basically built a bridge, taking some vets, some new mlsers, some young guys, and then patching as he went before adding elements of those great youth teams in '99 and '01.

There are a few kids that may be ready now, but most won't be till '28 probably or '29. People want to punt the bulk of the team, but these guys aren't 29-36 like post Couva, they're 23-28.

 

Chiellini marking Lukaku
https://m.youtube.com/shorts/KgeuOetpWws

Belgium 0 x 1 Italy

 

Total bulshit. That was a poor team with a tactics designed to beat those who even worse than us.
Fully agree with LD and Timmy

 

Imagine someone paying 3k to see this spectacle in person.

 

He wore the same shirt the whole tournament.
He was pissed. He even kicked a bottle water that was in the ground.

 

There was no plan B without degrading the team. We don't have backups that can hold their own in a WC game. Poch was going to ride his starting 11 to the end.
This USA team can only do 3 or 4 games with the same players, anything after that, they check out mentally and physically.

 

Yeah, that Messi/Argentina favoritism is becoming less subtle. If Argentina faces England/Spain/France, they’re going to need to ramp it up even further.

 

FIFA would love a France-Argentina final, just saying.

 

I would love to see Mbappe clocked in the 40 against the best NFL safeties … bet he is near the top …

 

I wonder if any U.S. player will comment on how the locker room responded to Trump getting involved at all - others have speculated on whether that contributes to the team coming out flat. Have to wonder.

 

Dest can’t play right back against good teams. He’s a defensive liability. Freeman is the guy, add Trusty or McKenzie to back line.

 

at least Malik’s father was a serviceman (same as Wes btw as well as Jermaine Jones) … Flo’s parents were visiting NYC and she gave birth to him there on medical recommendation … birth place citizenship … we really need to expand these MLS academies so all our utes have a chance - independent of pay to play. We have the numbers interested - that is clear.

 

Though Tilman was amazing, is he really a second DM alongside Adams?

should have brought Tessman, and started Tilman in advanced role. Tilman and McKennie the attacking mid roles, and Pulisic out of the starting lineup.

 

Barca did not fight to keep him - just sayin.

 

We sure about that. Against Paraguay, France were kicked to death, we Gianni doesn't let anyone breathe on Messi wrong.

 

The team collectively suffered from misjudgements, inaccurate placements of passes, poor ball control, poor decision making, slow reaction times. Essentially, it was an team-wide epidemic for which the major symptom was degradation of their highly trained skills. Possible exceptions might be Berhalter and Tillman. Personally, I do not have the slightest idea what could have happened to cause the bottom to fall out in such a catastrophic and crazy manner unless everyone had been given a low dose of sedative before the game, just enough to slow brain function and increase the error rate. The team self-destructed. The suggestion that Belgium was better is actually irrelevant. The US simply did not show up and I'd like to know why. Discussion of individual error is a waste of time in the face of total team collapse.