USMNT, Ronaldo both go down in generational hate watch

The haters said Cristiano Ronaldo and the USMNT couldn’t do it, and they were exactly right. Great call from the haters.

Portugal’s circus show ends at the hands of Spain

To this point, there have been two figures who’ve dominated Portugal’s run in the 2026 World Cup: Cristiano Ronaldo and Roberto Martinez. Ronaldo’s celebrity had been placated by Martinez ever since he got the coaching position over three years ago. Despite substantial evidence pointing to Portugal needing to turn the page from Ronaldo (at least as a nailed on starter), Martinez stuck by his guy until the bitter end.

As has been the case throughout the tournament, Ronaldo provided next to no value up top. He was once again a peripheral figure in attack. There weren’t the runs in behind needed to pin Spain’s backline back, nor did he have the capacity to do anything meaningful when coming deep to receive. It’s in stark contrast to the brief cameo Gonçalo Ramos had off the bench versus Croatia in the round of 32. Even still, only against Croatia did Ronaldo not play the full 90 minutes.

Martinez certainly deserves his portion of the blame, even outside handcuffing himself to the sinking Ronaldo ship. a team featuring João Neves, Vitinha, and Bruno Fernandes should be more dynamic through the middle than what we saw. So much of Portugal’s attack throughout the tournament, including today against Spain, was to play around rather than through.

Portugal fared a bit better out of possession, although a more crisper version of Spain could’ve found success. There were stretches in which Portugal’s backline would be relatively high in their position, but with no pressure among the forward line. As well, when defending deeper, there was almost a man-marking element to the block which had the potential to be manipulated. It took until the 90th minute, but Spain finally capitalized and found the late winner. Ferran Torres and Mikel Merino came on as substitutes to combine and break through Portugal’s low block. Torres received just in front of Rúben Dias, who stepped up to try and take away air space, but couldn’t quite do so as Merino was played through and calmly finished the chance.

A slight silver lining to Portugal’s early exit is they can start to turn the page towards a new era of the national team without either Ronaldo or Martinez. The shame of it though was having to sacrifice a World Cup when the rest of the squad was talented enough to go places. For Spain, they continue to trudge along despite not yet reaching the same levels seen in Euro 2024. So far, it’s been banking on defensive solidity and finding enough moments of attacking brilliance to get by. We’ll see if that can continue when they take on Belgium in the quarterfinals. —MM

USA can’t lobby their way out of losing every 50-50 duel

The United States managed to piss off the entire world heading into their round of 16 match by getting the suspension of Folarin Balogun cancelled in extremely arbitrary fashion, thanks to some lobbying from U.S. Soccer and the White House. Thankfully, this ended up not affecting the outcome of the match at all. The U.S. was bullied by Belgium in every other area of the pitch, and Balogun barely got a touch of the ball.

Through their first 4 games of the tournament, the most impressive thing about the United States was their press, as you might expect from a Mauricio Pochettino side. Given the aging nature of their team, Belgium were expected to struggle with this. But they came up with an interesting and surprising solution: Bypass the press with longer distribution and win physical duels for second balls.

Rudi Garcia controversially benched Kevin De Bruyne and Hans Vanaken to play the more physically robust duo of Nicolas Raskin and Andre Onana, while pushing Youri Tielemans higher up the pitch. This group — somewhat shockingly — managed to completely bully the U.S. in the center of the pitch. While the American midfield is not the most technically adept bunch, even the most ardent of America hate-watchers would not have expected Tyler Adams and Weston McKennie to consistently lose a contest of athleticism and work rate.

Belgium’s bully ball resulted in a 9th minute goal, with Charles De Ketelaere easily beating Tim Ream to head in a cross. The Americans equalized in the 31st minute off a free kick by Malik Tillman, but quickly conceded in similar fashion to the first goal, once again losing a series of physical battles en route to De Ketelaere’s second of the night.

The Americans took off Sergiño Dest — who was completely ineffective down the right flank — for the more creative Gio Reyna at halftime, and started the second half with much more possession and attacking impetus. But any belief that the hosts could get back into the game ended in the 57th minute with a series of comedic errors, leading to perhaps the most unprofessional moment of the tournament so far.

And things snowballed out of control from there. Christian Pulisic exited with an injury, the Americans had no source of creativity in attack, and while pushing more numbers forward in desperation, they conceded a 4th goal to substitute Romelu Lukaku.

Even though Belgium had just 44% possession, there’s no question about their superiority in this one. They bullied the hosts from start to finish.

There are no positives to take away from this performance from the United States. Every single player who stepped on the pitch played one of the worst games of their lives, the type that would get them benched for months if they’d played like that with their clubs.

If you’d asked Pochettino before the game if he’d back his team in a match where Belgium played direct and made the game about who could win more physical challenges to second balls, he’d have said that style played directly into their hands, and that Adams and McKennie are the exact players he’d want for that style of game. If you told him that Romelu Lukaku and Jeremy Doku didn’t start, he’d have expected his defenders to be able to deal with the players who did. The tactics and team selection were fine from the United States, but the execution was outrageously poor.

Belgium will head into their next match against Spain as significant underdogs, especially after Onana suffered a knee injury that will keep him out for the rest of the tournament. But Doku should be all the way back from his travel fatigue and virus, while Tielemans and Leandro Trossard appear to be rounding into form. Perhaps the aging golden generation has one last big tournament run in their legs. —KM

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