Coach Mauricio Pochettino consoled defender Jeffrey Richards after Monday’s defeat
Coach Mauricio Pochettino consoled defender Jeffrey Richards after Monday’s defeat
After the thunder of some resounding wins early in the World Cup, the USA men’s team left the stage with a whimper, not a bang.
On Monday, they were well beaten by Belgium, 4-1, and never reached the heights of previous games.
For a few weeks, some pulsating performances by the men’s team seemed to lift the sport to new heights in the US. Now, the morning after the nightmare in Seattle, there is gratitude for all the excitement but also the sense of a missed opportunity.
The American squad was stacked with players performing in Europe’s top leagues, and in coach Mauricio Pochettino they had one of the world’s foremost coaches.
Yet they failed to match their best World Cup in the modern era, when they reached the last eight in 2002.
Afterwards, Pochettino said his team were never in the game and a learning process would begin to explore why.
One of the team’s star players, Tyler Adams, said it had been a bad day and they had come up short. “We didn’t go as far as we’d like.”
Here’s what pundits and fans have been saying.
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Watch: Fans react to US World Cup loss after Balogun red card drama
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Watch: Fans react to US World Cup loss after Balogun red card drama
Even before kick-off, there were mistakes made on the American side, some commentators noted. Many pointed to the actions of US President Donald Trump, who asked FIFA to review a red card ban imposed on the team’s main goalscorer. Folarin Balogun’s suspension was overturned and he played.
“When people remember this team decades from now, the milestone wins, record number of goals and Country Roads will come to mind first” sports columnist Nancy Armour wrote for USA Today, external. (John Denver’s song Take Me Home, Country Roads became an unofficial team anthem.)
“But Trump trying to put his finger on the scale on their behalf will be part of the memory, too. It’s inescapable. The US Men’s Team (USMNT) took the country on a heck of a ride at this World Cup,” Armour added. “It’s too bad it ended in this trainwreck. They deserved better.”
There were questions too about selection. BBC Sport correspondent Tim Vickery said Pochettino should have kept Balogun on the bench to diffuse the issue.
Looking at where the team came up short on the night, Andrew Greif of NBC News said the USA team entered, external the World Cup’s round of 16 looking as though they had an edge over the rest of the soccer world.
But, Greif added, that all came to an end on Monday “with another reminder [the USA] still is playing catch-up against the world’s elite teams”.
A shambolic end for the American dream – did Balogun saga play a part?
‘Overturn this’ – Belgium taunt US and say Trump move fired them up
Belgium’s players were technically sharper while the US were constantly undermined by their own mistakes, Greif observed. “What will sting the US is that it may never have a better opportunity for its breakthrough.” The US had a favourable draw, he noted, that kept it in the Pacific time zone for its first six matches.
The players will take some criticism. Some “terrible individual performances” from the big players happened at “the worst possible moment”, Herculez Gomez, a former USA player, said on ESPN, external. “It was one error after another that snowballed and sent the US Men’s National Team into a pysche that they could never overcome.”
How much the team’s exit will impact the longer-term enthusiasm of the nation for soccer is also being analysed.
“For all the hope, for all the dreams and for all the hype that the USMNT had built in the last month and in the years leading up to the World Cup, it all feels like it was for naught,” wrote Ben Steiner in Sports Illustrated, external. “When the team finally came up against a top-10-ranked side, it floundered.”
Pochettino gave the team a confidence that seemed perfect, Steiner added. “Yet, the parting message of this World Cup for the USMNT, instead of a glorious rendition of Country Roads with the Seattle faithful, is the controversy surrounding Balogun and an underwhelming performance against what many thought was a beatable Belgian team.”
The American tension in the stands was palpable as the USA trailed Belgium
The American tension in the stands was palpable as the USA trailed Belgium
Despite the pundits’ criticism, some fans found reasons to be cheerful.
“We’ve come a long way since 1994,” reflected Mohammed from California, referring to the last time the US hosted a World Cup.
Back then, Mohammed told BBC Sport, the US had “a 10-team domestic league playing in leased half-empty football stadiums [and] home national team games that felt like away games”. But now, he said, the country had “a thriving league, players in Europe, and stadiums like Seattle”.
He added: “The future is bright.”
Though dejected by Monday’s result, supporters in Seattle took a wider view of the tournament. They argued that that the US had demonstrated it was a serious footballing power by the way it had undertaken its co-hosting duties.
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World Cup fans in the US react to Balogun’s one-game ban suspension
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World Cup fans in the US react to Balogun’s one-game ban suspension
“It is an amazing event we have put on,” one of them told BBC reporter Gary Rose. “Everyone has been talking about the World Cup in this country.”
Another fan agreed that the quality of the spectacle would benefit the US men’s team in the long run, telling the New York Times that the country had to show patience with football: “It gains a little bit every year.”
Experts recently told the BBC there was a chance the 2026 World Cup could yet prove pivotal for American football fandom, suggesting that record-setting domestic TV ratings could build on other promising recent trends such as increased youth participation.
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