Key Points
- The USMNT faces Belgium on Monday, July 6 at Seattle Stadium, 8 p.m. ET.
- A quarterfinal berth is at stake; the U.S. last reached the last eight in 2002.
- Folarin Balogun is suspended after his red card in the 2-0 win over Bosnia.
- Belgium advanced by scoring twice late to beat Senegal 3-2 in extra time.
The United States men's national team plays its biggest match in a generation on Monday, when it meets Belgium in the Round of 16 of the 2026 World Cup. Kickoff is 8 p.m. ET at Seattle Stadium, and the winner advances to the quarterfinals — a stage the U.S. has reached only once in the modern era, in 2002.
The Americans got here by beating Bosnia and Herzegovina 2-0 with ten men in the Round of 32, and the win came at a price. Folarin Balogun was sent off in the 64th minute and is suspended for Belgium, so Mauricio Pochettino loses a starting striker and leans harder on Christian Pulisic and the midfield to create. That calculus has since changed: FIFA has suspended Balogun's red-card ban, making him available for Belgium after all.
Belgium reached this stage the hard way. Trailing Senegal 2-0 with four minutes left, the Red Devils scored in the 86th and 89th minutes to force extra time, then won 3-2 on a penalty. It was their third match in Seattle, so the venue and the travel are familiar to them — the crowd will not be.
Seattle Stadium is the loudest building the U.S. could have drawn for a knockout game, and the home draw shows up in the odds: oddsmakers opened the Americans as narrow favorites to advance, even without Balogun. A U.S. team is favored to win a World Cup knockout match, and that reads as ordinary only because the tournament is on home soil. For a program that has spent two decades stuck at the Round of 16 ceiling, Monday is the test of whether the Pochettino era is built for the moment or merely seeded well. The bracket beyond Belgium opens up for whoever survives.
Source: U.S. Soccer, NBC Sports, Yahoo Sports.
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