{"id":75814,"date":"2026-07-06T21:55:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T02:55:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/06\/ragged-usa-crash-out-of-world-cup-with-last-16-defeat-to-belgium\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T21:55:20","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T02:55:20","slug":"ragged-usa-crash-out-of-world-cup-with-last-16-defeat-to-belgium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/06\/ragged-usa-crash-out-of-world-cup-with-last-16-defeat-to-belgium\/","title":{"rendered":"Ragged USA crash out of World Cup with last-16 defeat to Belgium"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The United States\u2019 quest to get <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/football\/2026\/jul\/06\/belgium-appeal-fifa-lifting-folarin-balogun-red-card-ban-last-16-us-world-cup\">Folarin Balogun\u2019s red card overturned<\/a> may have opened a Pandora\u2019s box \u2013 one specifically designed to contain the national team\u2019s worst nightmares.<\/p>\n<p>With a country on the verge of falling in love with this team, and tens of millions eager for a reason to embrace the glory and pride this sport can provide, there were instead questions of fairness and propriety. A star striker, who made an honest, unintentional mistake \u2013 and said and did all the right things \u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/football\/2026\/jul\/06\/trump-fifa-balogun-red-card-review-intervention\">turned into a talking point<\/a>. And a day later, on an otherwise beautiful Monday evening in the Pacific Northwest \u2013 the United States\u2019 World Cup dream ended with a thud as Belgium\u2019s players mocked Donald Trump\u2019s signature dance.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/football\/2026\/jul\/06\/usa-belgium-world-cup-2026-match-report\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The United States\u2019 quest to get Folarin Balogun\u2019s red card overturned may have opened a Pandora\u2019s box \u2013 one specifically designed to contain the national team\u2019s worst nightmares. With a country on the verge of falling in love with this team, and tens of millions eager for a reason to embrace the glory and pride &#8230; <a title=\"Ragged USA crash out of World Cup with last-16 defeat to Belgium\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/06\/ragged-usa-crash-out-of-world-cup-with-last-16-defeat-to-belgium\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Ragged USA crash out of World Cup with last-16 defeat to Belgium\">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_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75814","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=75814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75814\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}