The Round of 32 is not done delivering. Two more matches on Wednesday produced a gut-check performance from a depleted American side and one of the most stunning comebacks in recent FIFA World Cup memory.
The United States and Belgium are meeting in the Round of 16 in Seattle—and after what both teams went through to get there, it promises to be a genuinely compelling match.
USA Survives Ten Men, Ends 24-Year Drought
The United States ended a 24-year wait for a knockout stage win on Wednesday at Levi’s Stadium in the San Francisco Bay Area, beating Bosnia-Herzegovina 2-0 in front of a raucous home crowd—and doing it the hard way.
Folarin Balogun broke the deadlock near halftime, finishing clinically to give the co-hosts the lead their early performance deserved. The Americans had been electric from the opening whistle—fast, direct, and full of the kind of urgent, one-touch combination play that had the crowd chanting U-S-A from the first minute. Balogun threatened repeatedly. Christian Pulisic ignited the building with his blazing runs.
Then Balogun was sent off.
His dismissal, for a serious foul on Tarik Muharemovic that appeared accidental, stunned the stadium and flipped the dynamics of the game entirely. Bosnia, who had been content sitting deep and clearing their lines, suddenly had a man advantage and pushed forward in search of an equalizer. The Americans were under the cosh.
They held. And then Malik Tillman made sure of it.
Eight minutes from time, Tillman stepped over a free kick and curled it into the net—a set piece he had clearly spent time on in training. That goal broke Bosnia’s spirit and sealed the result, sending Levi’s Stadium into the kind of scenes that co-host tournaments are built to produce.
“I felt we put on such a good performance and didn’t deserve the red card,” Pulisic said afterward. “But for us to dig in deep like that, to get another goal and defend the way we did—it took a real team effort.”
Tillman was equally composed in the aftermath. “You never know when it’s going to happen, but luckily today it happened. I was ready for it. I felt confident.”
The victory also ended a run of 10 consecutive US defeats against European opposition. In Seattle, they now face Belgium—who had a night of their own.
Belgium’s Miracle in Seattle
There is only one way to describe what happened at Lumen Field in Seattle on Wednesday evening: Belgium refused to die.
Rudi Garcia’s side trailed Senegal 2-0 with barely five minutes of regular time remaining, staring at elimination and a humiliating early exit that would have confirmed every concern about this aging generation’s inability to deliver when it mattered most. Habib Diarra and Ismaila Sarr had put Senegal in command, and Sarr’s goal took him to four for the tournament—a tally that put him level with some of the competition’s biggest names.
Then Belgium found something.
Romelu Lukaku—maligned, written off, perpetually underestimated—scored in the 86th minute to give his side a lifeline. Three minutes later, Youri Tielemans headed in an equalizer that stunned the Senegalese and sent the match to extra time. Senegal, so close to one of the great results in their World Cup history, were devastated.
The knockout blow came in the fifth minute of stoppage time at the end of extra time—the latest winning goal in World Cup history. A VAR review found a Lamine Camara challenge on Tielemans in the Senegal box, and the Aston Villa midfielder stepped up to convert the penalty himself. Belgium 3, Senegal 2.
The subplot inside the comeback made it stranger still. Garcia had substituted his star players—Jeremy Doku and Kevin De Bruyne—after 56 minutes while the team trailed 2-0. Doku was visibly unhappy leaving the pitch. De Bruyne appeared bewildered, as though he was taking in what seemed to be his international farewell. The substitutions looked like a white flag.
They were not. The tactical change breathed life into Belgium, and though the comeback remained nearly impossible until the final minutes, it happened anyway.
For De Bruyne, Lukaku, and goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois—a generation that has carried the tag of underachievers through so many near-misses—the comeback offered something rare: a second chance. Whether Belgium can sustain that kind of fightback in the Round of 16 is the question the tournament will now answer.
“The big question is whether Belgium’s comeback was a sign of things to come or one last flourish of their ability,” one correspondent wrote after the final whistle. It is the right question.
The United States will try to answer it first. The two sides meet in Seattle in the Round of 16—the co-hosts, riding emotional momentum from a gutsy ten-man win; Belgium, propelled by a miracle comeback that has either reignited a golden generation or given it the most improbable final act imaginable.
Either way, that match cannot come soon enough.
