{"id":70283,"date":"2026-03-28T17:01:58","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T22:01:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/28\/rampant-belgium-deliver-5-2-embarrassment-to-usmnt-in-worrying-world-cup-tune-up\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T17:01:58","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T22:01:58","slug":"rampant-belgium-deliver-5-2-embarrassment-to-usmnt-in-worrying-world-cup-tune-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/28\/rampant-belgium-deliver-5-2-embarrassment-to-usmnt-in-worrying-world-cup-tune-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Rampant Belgium deliver 5-2 embarrassment to USMNT in worrying World Cup tune-up"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>\n<p>Belgium scores four in second half, Ludebakio nets double<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>US faces Portugal on Tuesday night in Atlanta<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The US men\u2019s national team entered its matchup with Belgium at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta on Saturday riding a wave of momentum, needing a solid performance to continue to build excitement ahead of this Summer\u2019s World Cup, played in part on home soil.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, they struggled mightily against a talented Belgium side and left with more questions than answers. The 5-2 defeat, featuring five straight goals for the Belgians after a US opener, was an embarrassment and easily among the USMNT\u2019s worst losses of head coach Mauricio Pochettino\u2019s tenure. At times, it felt the margin of victory could\u2019ve been significantly wider.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/football\/2026\/mar\/28\/belgium-usmnt-friendly-match-report\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Belgium scores four in second half, Ludebakio nets double US faces Portugal on Tuesday night in Atlanta The US men\u2019s national team entered its matchup with Belgium at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta on Saturday riding a wave of momentum, needing a solid performance to continue to build excitement ahead of this Summer\u2019s World Cup, played &#8230; <a title=\"Rampant Belgium deliver 5-2 embarrassment to USMNT in worrying World Cup tune-up\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/28\/rampant-belgium-deliver-5-2-embarrassment-to-usmnt-in-worrying-world-cup-tune-up\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Rampant Belgium deliver 5-2 embarrassment to USMNT in worrying World Cup tune-up\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70283\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}