There was something noticeably and disconcertingly different about the U.S. team that showed up — or didn’t show up, you might say — at Seattle’s Lumen Field on Monday night for its round of 16 match against Belgium. This version had little of the dynamism, intensity and confidence the Americans had shown over the previous three weeks, when they won three times and recalibrated expectations for what was possible for their nascent program.
There were any number of reasons why such a thing might have been so. A decidedly superior opponent — as the Belgians surely were in their thorough, surgical 4-1 takedown of the U.S. — has a way of making you look tentative and out of sorts. It might have been nothing more than that. Belgium pounded the U.S. early and pounded them late, the better team in every phase of the game.
As a result, the Red Devils move on to face Spain in Friday’s quarterfinals in Los Angeles, while the Americans, for all the promise and progress they showed across their first four matches, bow out in the same round they did in 2010, 2014 and 2022.