Талбайн эзэн АНУ-ын шигшээ баг 2026 оны Дэлхийн аваргын хасагдах шатанд Бельгид 4:1-ээр хожигдож, тэмцээнээ өндөрлүүллээ.
Маурисио Почеттиногийн удирдсан АНУ-ын баг хэсгийн шатанд үзүүлсэн тоглолтын хэмнэлээ энэ удаад хадгалж чадаагүй нь хожигдлын гол шалтгаан боллоо. Бельгийн баг өрсөлдөгчийнхөө даралтаас амархан гарч, талбайн хяналтыг гартаа авснаар тоглолтын санаачилгыг бүрэн эзэмшсэн юм. Хоёрдугаар хагаст Почеттино хамгаалалтын шугамаа өөрчилж, Антони Робинсон, Александр Фримен нарыг урагшлуулсан ч багийн тоглолтод дорвитой өөрчлөлт гарсангүй.
Тоглолтын хувь заяаг шийдсэн гол мөч 60 дахь минутад тохиов. Хаалгач Мэтт Фриз талбайн төвөөс ирсэн бөмбөгийг таслахаар торгуулийн талбайгаас гарч ирсэн ч бөмбөгөө тогтоож чадалгүй алдсан нь Шарль де Кетеларе болон Ханс Ванакен нарт боломж олгосон юм. Ванакений цохилт хамгаалагч Тим Римийг буруу тийш нь хөдөлгөж, бөмбөг хаалганд орсноор АНУ-ын багийн сэтгэл зүй бүрэн унав.
Тоглолтын төгсгөлд Крис Ричардсын гаргасан алдааг Ромелу Лукаку ашиглаж, Бельгийн дөрөв дэх гоолыг оруулснаар тоглолт эцсийн цэгтээ хүрсэн юм. Өмнөх тоглолтуудад тун найдвартай байсан АНУ-ын шигшээ баг энэхүү хасагдах шатны тоглолтод хувь хүний гаргасан алдаа болон тактикийн хувьд илт сул тоглосны улмаас тэмцээнээс хасагдлаа.
Дэлгэрэнгүй эх сурвалжийг харах
Эх сурвалжийг нээх ↓
The thrill of a dominant opening win over Paraguay. An assured follow-up against Australia. The guts and the grit to dig in, and see off Bosnia and Herzegovina despite Folarin Balogun’s red card. A dramatic decision to overturn it.
The USMNT’s dramatic summer deserved a fitting denouement; instead, it ended in calamity and disappointment against Belgium— a brutal twist of irony after all that had gone before.
Mauricio Pochettino’s team did not deserve to beat Belgium. They struggled to impose the pass-and-move soccer that had lit up their early group-stage games against higher-quality opposition. When they looked to counter-press, Belgium played their way out. It meant they failed to establish the territorial control that allowed them to dictate those previous games.
With less control, fewer opportunities, and much more riding on every pass, the pressure told.
Despite all of that, the U.S were still in it midway through the second half. Trailing 2-1, they came out with renewed energy in the second half, as Pochettino switched to a back four and pushed Antonee Robinson and Alexander Freeman further up the pitch. As the clock ticked towards 60 minutes, they were still in with a chance.
But then came the sucker-punch. The slapstick goal that will, unfortunately for Matt Freese, Tim Ream and the U.S, go down as the emblematic moment of an evening when the home World Cup unravelled before U.S. eyes.
It all began with what looked to be an aimless pass. Belgium’s Brandon Mechele punted a lofted ball over the top of a back-tracking U.S defence, chased down by Charles de Ketelaere. The striker’s pace, leaving Chris Richards behind, meant that Freese had to venture from his penalty area to sweep up, originally doing well to get to the bouncing ball first and bringing it down with his chest.
That wrong-footed De Ketelaere, and gave Freese time to clear his lines. But the 27-year-old seemed to hesitate, dragging his foot along the floor as he went to strike the ball. That allowed De Ketelaere to nip back in, poking the ball out to teammate Hans Vanaken 30 yards from goal.
From there, the lob was on. Freese was stranded, miles from his goal, with only Ream for cover in the penalty area.
But Vanaken went for a more unconventional finish, looking to curl the ball around the defender and into the far corner.
It looked as if the midfielder scuffed his shot, as it curled close to Ream in the penalty area. But it still managed to wrong-foot the veteran defender, who stabbed a left-boot at the ball to no avail.
It was a disastrous sequence of events, and one that didn’t look much better on the replay. Ream had time to readjust, but was carried too far wide by his momentum, his attempt at a recovery only adding to the sense of catastrophe.
In the end, it was a mistake that took the game away from Pochettino’s side. Though they rallied, they lacked conviction, not seeming to believe that they could recover from two goals down. Chris Richards’ error deep into stoppage time, helping Romelu Lukaku to make it 4-1 to Belgium, rounded off an abject end to the World Cup dream.
The goalkeeper position was an area for concern before the tournament began, the first time that the USMNT had entered a World Cup with a starting keeper who plays his club soccer in MLS. Freese had only been called into action five times across his three previous games, relatively untested before today’s crucial knockout tie.
There was more to this damning defeat than an individual error. But as the U.S. look back on this World Cup in years to come, 10 seconds of calamity will be the first thing that springs to mind.
