SEATTLE — After a successful card trick that made Folarin Balogun’s suspension disappear, the United States will try to win back-to-back World Cup knockout games for the first time and reach its first quarterfinal since 2002.
Coach Mauricio Pochettino figures to have his top choice lineup available Monday when the Americans — ranked 17th in the world ahead of the tournament — face No. 9 Belgium in a rematch of the 2014 round of 16 game in Brazil, won 2-1 by the Red Devils in extra time.
“They have a lot of players that can hurt you, and we have to be ready,” Christian Pulisic, the top American star, said Sunday. “We have to be clinical in a lot ways.”
At stake is a quarterfinal berth against Spain or Portugal and the chance to play France or Morocco in a semifinal.
Belgium overcame a two-goal, 86th-minute deficit to defeat Senegal, 3-2, in extra time in the round of 32. The Red Devils beat the U.S. 12 years ago on goals by Kevin De Bruyne and Romelu Lukaku, and again 5-2 in a March friendly at Atlanta.
“We’re two very different teams now than we were in March,” U.S. captain Tim Ream said.
Belgium isn’t giving much weight to this year’s earlier meeting.
“That 2-5 against the U.S. in March gives a distorted picture,” defender Maxim De Cuyper said. “It could have ended differently.”
A sellout crowd of 66,000-plus is expected at Lumen Field, where the asking price Sunday for seats in the Hawks Nest triangle above the northern end ranged from $1,840 to $8,050 on FIFA’s resale site.
A huge, red-white-and-blue-clad, pro-American crowd serenaded the team with John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads” after the 2-0 group stage win over Australia on June 19. The fan base is known for supporters’ pregame march down Occidental Avenue to the stadium before Seattle Sounders games.
“The 12th men, how is called here,” Pochettino said.
After losing their group stage final to Turkey, 3-2, on a stoppage-time goal, the Americans entered the knockout rounds with a 10-game, four-year losing streak to European opponents. The U.S. beat Bosnia-Herzegovina, 2-0, on goals by Balogun and Malik Tillman for just its second World Cup knockout stage win.
Balogun is eligible to play after FIFA suspended his suspension for a red card against Bosnia — a decision that followed a phone call from U.S. President Donald Trump to FIFA president Gianni Infantino.
Reaching the quarterfinals would be a great leap for this group of players trying to boost a sport that lags in U.S. popularity compared to its supreme status in the rest of the world.
“We want to kind of leave our mark on the game and a legacy behind. I want it to be more than just what this moment has created and the hype around it,” midfielder Tyler Adams, the 2022 captain, said Friday. “We know the further that we go, the more success we’re going to have and the growth of the game is going to go.”
Belgium qualified for the 2014 World Cup after a 12-year absence and headed to the tournament with a roster that included goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois, De Bruyne and Eden Hazard in the midfield, and Lukaku and Divock Origi in the attack. The Red Devils were first in the FIFA rankings from November 2015 through March 2016 and again from September 2018 through February 2022 but were knocked out in the quarterfinals in 2014, the semifinals in 2018 and the group stage in 2022.
Four players remain from the 2014 roster: Courtois, De Bruyne, Lukaku and midfielder Axel Witsel.
“This is a new era for us. It’s true that there are some players from the golden era, as some would like to say,” Courtois said through a translator. “Now we have another generation with younger people, new people willing to do great things and writing a history page for Belgium.”
Pochettino already has become the first U.S. coach with three World Cup wins. American players are obsessed about elevating the sport’s American following much closer to the levels of the NFL, MLB and the NBA.
“We’ve all said in one way or another how opportunistic this tournament could be,” Ream explained, “if we have a good tournament and we do things the right way, that it could take us who knows where?”