{"id":50829,"date":"2026-07-07T09:08:04","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T03:23:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/?p=50829"},"modified":"2026-07-07T09:08:04","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T03:23:04","slug":"belgium-end-us-world-cup-dreams-with-4-1-rout-amid-balogun-row","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/belgium-end-us-world-cup-dreams-with-4-1-rout-amid-balogun-row\/","title":{"rendered":"Belgium end US World Cup dreams with 4-1 rout amid Balogun row"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Reuters : The United States’ World Cup dreams came to a crashing halt in the last 16 against Belgium \u200bon Monday as Charles De Ketelaere scored twice in a 4-1 win overshadowed by FIFA’s controversial decision to suspend U.S. forward Folarin \u200cBalogun’s ban.<\/p>\n

De Ketelaere gave Belgium the lead in the ninth minute with a simple tap-in, taking full advantage of a nervous start by the U.S. to quickly deflate the partisan crowd.<\/p>\n

Malik Tillman equalised in the 31st minute with a deflected free kick which wrong-footed Thibaut Courtois, but De Ketelaere restored Belgium’s lead little more than a minute later with \u200ba back-post header.<\/p>\n

“From the beginning, we didn’t connect with the game,” U.S. coach Mauricio Pochettino said. “Even when we scored the goal, 1-1, we \u200bconceded in the next action.”<\/p>\n

The U.S. played with more authority after the break until a calamitous error from goalkeeper \u2060Matt Freese allowed substitute Hans Vanaken to score in the 57th minute, irreversibly shifting the momentum in a stunned Seattle Stadium.<\/p>\n

Romelu Lukaku then added a \u200bfourth in added time to send U.S. fans streaming for the exits and Belgium into the quarter-finals for the third time in the last four World \u200bCups. They will play European champions Spain in Los Angeles on Friday.<\/p>\n

The U.S. defeat means all three co-hosts are out of the tournament, after Canada and Mexico lost their last-16 games. “In the moments that we were doing well (in the tournament), we felt amazing,” U.S. midfielder Tyler Adams said.<\/p>\n

“And then obviously, an opportunity like today, we didn’t grasp it \u2013 and \u200bit’s gonna sting.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reuters : The United States’ World Cup dreams came to a crashing halt in the last 16 against Belgium \u200bon Monday as Charles De Ketelaere scored twice in a 4-1 win overshadowed by FIFA’s controversial decision to suspend U.S. forward Folarin \u200cBalogun’s ban. De Ketelaere gave Belgium the lead in the ninth minute with a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50831,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50829"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50829"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50829\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50832,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50829\/revisions\/50832"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}