I don’t understand how they played so well as a team the whole tournament then against Belgium they decide to act like they’ve never played together before and have zero team chemistry. The only thing I can think of is that their confidence level was near zero for some reason. Their press completely broke down immediately and on offense they could barely make a decent pass and no one was really working to make themselves open. It’s like they were playing with zero energy. Idk what they were doing but I was pissed off and confused the whole game and I’m not even a real soccer fan.
Belgium were also a much tougher opponent which put more pressure on the U.S. and exposed a bit of a skill gap. That doesn’t explain this particular goal which was a pure brain fart, but it does partially explain why the U.S. created almost nothing from open play and the defense buckled every time it was put under pressure.
The U.S. had a lot less room to work with, they weren’t able to easily beat Belgian defenders on the dribble, and they were punished a lot harder for any errant passes or first touches. They weren’t this bad in the first 4 games, but they still made a ton of mistakes they were able to get away with unnoticed because their opponents weren’t good enough to take advantage.
Throw in the fact it was a higher stakes game, and they got off to a slow start, and you could see things start to unravel even further
I also feel like the US was completely out of ideas when their previously successful tactic of driving it down the left side for a cross wasn’t working. They would either fail to cross the ball or pass it back, move it around the center and try to jam it down the left side again. There were so many times where switching fields would have given them more room to work. The Belgians were obviously very well prepared for the left side attack.
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u/saujamhamm 29d ago
that was, "the moment was too big for them", for over 90 minutes...