The Pulse Newsletter 📣 | This is The Athletic’s daily sports newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Pulse directly in your inbox.Good morning! Don’t get caught too far from the net today. Coming up:
Disasters: The agony of a major letdownThe U.S. men’s national team’s 4-1 loss to Belgium last night is devastating enough to warrant conversation over the space of years, not just 24 hours. We will be dissecting what went wrong in Seattle, and in the program overall, until the 2030 Cup rolls around. It was that bad. For today, I think we need to look at this from three vantage points: 1. A 10-second disaster
It will be hard to forget the seconds I experienced between noticing that my phone had updated the score of last night’s game to 3-1 while my TV was a few seconds behind. Nothing seemed in danger. My phone was glitching, right? Then, U.S. goalie Matt Freese struggled with a routine ball. It escaped his feet. Hans Vanaken curled it around both Freese and American defender Tim Ream for an easy goal. Instead of an uphill-yet-manageable 2-1 game, any realistic chance of winning went poof just an hour in. Just look at this:
Another look at Belgium's third goal pic.twitter.com/71ldzuhbAk
— FOX Sports (@FOXSports) July 7, 2026We have a full accounting of the gaffe here. I won’t get over it for a while. 2. A week’s worth of shouting for nothing
