By Eniola Olatunji reporting for Patmos Media Line
…Confirmed Quarterfinals Against Spain on July 10
Charles De Ketelaere brace and assist hushed the Yankees of USA world cup dreams as Belgium handed them a 4-1 bashing to advance to the quarterfinals of the 2026 World Cup tournament early Tuesday morning.
Charles scored the opener from the edge of the 6 yard box when Nicolas Raskin laced a pass to him in the 9th minute and his second goal in the match with a header when Leandro Trossard found him in the 33rd minute.
Controversial Folarin Balogun was fouled upon by Brandon Machele and Malik Tlllman scored the only goal for USA in the 31st minute from the set piece.
On resumption of the 2nd half the game became more challenging but Charles worked out Belgium’s 3rd goal when he assisted Hans Vanekan to score in the 57th minute.
Folarin gave flashes of his struggles to scare Belgium in the 82nd and 83rd minutes with his dreaded left footer and bullet header which was saved and blocked before he was pulled out of the game for Haji Wright in the 90+2 minute.
The Belgium Manager made two substitutions that caused more damage for USA when he brought in Romelu Lukaku for star boy Charles and Jeremy Doku for Dodi Lukebakio in the 87th minute.
Sebastian Berhalter fouled on new entrant Doku and in the process of the set pieces Hans Vanekan found Romelu Lukaku to score the 4th goal for Belgium in the 90+3rd minute.
USA did the playing dominating play in ball possession 57-43% and playing tiki-taka dribbles of 476-390 but Belgium knew that scoring goals does not only galvanise action, it wins a match as they put in 15-6 shots at goal with 7-2 on target and winning 5-3 corner kicks to pressurize the Yankees forcing the Americans to earn the only two yellow cards in the match from 10-9 foul calls.
Last time both teams met at the pre-world cup friendly on 28th March 2026, Belgium won 5-2.
Belgium has set up a quarterfinals schedule against Spain on Friday July 10 at 8pm in Los Angeles a day after Morocco would have tackled France at 9pm in Boston but Norway will face England also in the quarterfinals on Saturday 11th July in at 10pm at the Miami Gardens.
Two outstanding round of 16 games will be played today between Argentina and Egypt at 5pm today and Switzerland versus Columbia at 9pm.
#FIFA #2026WORLDCUP
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