World Cup Round of 16: USA 1 Malik Tillman (31), Belgium 4 Charles De Ketelaere (9, 33) Hans Vanaken (57) Romelu Lukaku (90 +2:24)It was without question the most stunning moment in World Cup history: the game was poised for extra time when in the 88th minute Donald J. Trump – a late addition to the USA team bench – was sent in by Mauricio Pochettino. With his first and only touch in the entire match, the 47th president soared between the stunned Belgian centre halves, Ngoy and Mechele, to direct Christian Pulisic’s cross beyond the despairing dive of Courtois to propel a grateful nation into the World Cup quarter-finals. It was the 80-year-old president’s first goal for his country and one he suggested was worthy of the Golden Boot ...For a while on Monday, arguably the biggest match in USA football history teetered somewhere between absurd theatre and genuine outrage. The mood was set when Trump, speaking from the Oval Office, held court on his intervention to Fifa on the red-card reprieve issued to Folarin Balogun through a phone call to Gianni Infantino. Trump was out of the country by the time the national team took to the field in front of a rampantly expectant home crowd in Seattle, having flown to Ankara for the Nato summit. But he left in his trail considerable chaos: Belgian anger, condemnatory posts from Uefa and many international federations, and a mixed USA response of relief at Balogun’s availability and unease at the outraged international reaction.The controversy overshadowed what should have been a day of anticipation of both the evening game in Seattle and the afternoon meeting of Spain and Portugal in Dallas. But the actual games seemed a sideshow after Trump broke away from the business of the day to offer his reasons why Balogun’s suspension, following what was a dubious red-card tackle on Bosnia’s Tarik Muharemovic, should be lifted.“I’m a person that loves sport, who is a good athlete. I understand sports really well. That wasn’t a foul. That wasn’t even an infraction. These were two great athletes that got tangled up and this referee – who is a little bit suspect, if you check his past. I don’t like to say that because I don’t like to create controversy.”“I didn’t know what that meant,” he continued, speaking of the red card implications.Malik Tillman (L) of USA and teammates after their loss to Belgium in Seattle. Photograph: EPA “I didn’t think it meant much. Then I started hearing that he couldn’t play in the next game – at least in the next game. That’s very unfair. How do you penalise him for a game that hasn’t been played. So yes, I asked him for a review by Fifa. Because I didn’t think it was a foul. It was not a guy punching someone in the face. If they wouldn’t allow a top player – maybe among the best on the team – I think it would have had a big stain. I didn’t tell him [Infantino] what to do. I can’t tell him what to do. I think it was a committee that made the decision. How would it look if we took Messi out if he bumped into someone. Or Ronaldo?”All of this Trump delivered in blithe good humour. A president who has proposed acquiring Greenland by force or by purchase is not likely to be cowed by international condemnation over his views on card colours and football referees.In some ways, it was a minor miracle that the World Cup had advanced to this point without some element of meddling by Trump. But the sequence of thrilling games and full stadiums have caught his eye. “Each one is turning out to be a Superbowl,” he noted. The progress of the USA to the last 16 had captured the imagination of the sports-mad public: Trump ventured that some 50 million Americans might tune in for the Belgium game. He might well have reasoned that a historic run by the host team could help his ailing polling numbers. Even if he didn’t score the winner, it would be like he did.So, by game day, Pochettino had his free-scoring forward free to play. It placed Pochettino in an invidious position. He couldn’t – or at least wouldn’t – criticise both the head of Fifa and, by implication, the sitting president of the United States. In his initial interview, on Sunday, he sounded about as excited as someone who has been told he’s won 50 quid in the club raffle.“I think it’s a fair decision,” he said mutedly.“But not much time ... because we have to prepare the game. We know tomorrow is going to be a massive challenge for us. Belgium is a great team, with a great coach. The most important thing is that he [Balogun] was connected during the week training and feeling part of the team. And now our decision, being available, is to select or not to select.”Charles De Ketelaere (17) of Belgium heads to score his team's second goal past USA goalkeeper Matt Freese. Photograph: Alex Grimm/Getty Images The decision was to select. One can imagine Trump’s reaction after being informed in Ankara that his new favourite player was sitting on the US bench. But Pochettino is around football – and life – for long enough to know that no good can come of this. And he is not impervious to superstition. Difficult enough to play Belgium in a World Cup knock-out game without handing them an injustice to embrace. He knew no good karma could come of this. It took Belgium just nine minutes to score, a tap-in goal by Charles De Katalaere, and Poch, in his regulation proletariat garb, threw his hands up in frustration.The scenario now placed Balogun in a horrible place too. Already, the Monaco striker had found himself as the symbol of one of the many political arguments raging within the US: the administration’s push to abandon birthright citizenship. The executive order signed by Trump hours after his inauguration ending the right to citizenship was recently struck down by the Supreme Court, preserving what deputy White House adviser Stephen Miller described as “the gravest and most preposterous of all constitutional abominations”.Balogun, raised in London by his Nigerian parents, was born in Brooklyn because flight staff refused to allow his mother board a return flight from New York due to her advanced pregnancy. Immigrant rights groups have highlighted the point that if birthright citizenship did not apply back then, Balogun would not have been eligible to declare for the US national team.The broader pity is that the high-tempo honesty and organisation of Pochettino’s team had helped to attract the interest of US sports fans for whom football remains an exotic mystery. America is a sports-crazy country, and it has a growing number of season-in-season-out football fanatics. But the majority have always been a little baffled by the religious devotion with which the rest of the world follow football.Full-Time: 🇺🇸 1-4 🇧🇪Romelu Lukaku gets in on the act to make it three goals in his last threeThe United States crash out of the 2026 FIFA World Cup as Belgium progress to a quarter-final clash with Spain on FridayWatch all 104 games from the #FIFAWorldCup on RTÉ pic.twitter.com/r4uJPSjGH5— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) July 7, 2026