{"id":9077,"date":"2026-03-28T22:57:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T22:57:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/9077\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T22:57:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T22:57:14","slug":"was-the-usmnts-5-2-loss-to-belgium-a-wake-up-call-or-reality-check","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/9077\/","title":{"rendered":"Was the USMNT\u2019s 5-2 loss to Belgium a wake-up call or reality check?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christian Polanco and Alexis Guerreros of The Cooligans react to the United States’ 5-2 loss to Belgium. Check out the full conversation on the \u201cThe Cooligans\u201d podcast – and subscribe on Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a>, YouTube<\/a>, or wherever you listen.<\/a><\/p>\n

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Video Transcript<\/p>\n

Right, so look, we gotta ask the question, is this a wake-up call or a reality check for the US?<\/p>\n

Because th- this was a, a very sobering game.<\/p>\n

I think we were really excited, especially with all the men’s national team players playing for their clubs, like, looking pretty good- Yeah pretty sharp, b- in between windows.<\/p>\n

even the Like, a, a Sebastian Berhalter, who got to the, the MLS Cup final.<\/p>\n

Weston McKennie doing amazing things in Champions League.<\/p>\n

We just And players coming back from injury.<\/p>\n

We- Yeah, man I was just in a place where I’m like, “Man, this…” I f- I feel like we’re gonna go toe-to-toe with Belgium, and we did not go toe-to- No, we went, we went toe-to-no.<\/p>\n

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I think at the end of the day, I will Okay, there’s a two-part answer here.<\/p>\n

One, I still believe that friendlies don’t matter.<\/p>\n

Like, the result, the result don’t matter.<\/p>\n

So, you know what?<\/p>\n

Now, friendlies matter- Everybody, turn off the show.<\/p>\n

You don’t even gotta watch this.<\/p>\n

Hear me, hear me out.<\/p>\n

Friendlies matter.<\/p>\n

Obviously, you need to play the games.<\/p>\n

The result itself, 5-2, shouldn’t necessarily matter.<\/p>\n

What matters is how you played the game, right?<\/p>\n

You can Both teams made five subs in the second half at one point, and, you know, those, those can change games.<\/p>\n

The difference is, all right, in those moments where you’re closest to A team is in, right?<\/p>\n

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And that was the beginning of the match.<\/p>\n

Yeah.<\/p>\n

Maybe not necessarily your A team, but that’s pretty close to what an A team will feel like in the World Cup.<\/p>\n

How did they play?<\/p>\n

In the first half, I walk away saying, “Yo, we stood toe-to-toe.”<\/p>\n

What bothers me is they made very small tactical changes, and it completely blew up our system.<\/p>\n

We had no way of handling that.<\/p>\n

That, to me, is where I sit there and say, “Okay, 5 to 2 doesn’t feel good,” but that’s necessarily, that’s not necessarily my takeaway.<\/p>\n

My takeaway is, “Hey, Team A, good job out there.”<\/p>\n

In fact, I would say probably up until the 35th minute, I thought USA were in control.<\/p>\n

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Yeah.<\/p>\n

It was a, it was a, a, a pretty, composed- But after that first half.<\/p>\n

But after that, even before the, McKennie goal, it was, the goal that was turned, you know, that was taken back because of the handball from Belgium.<\/p>\n

Yeah.<\/p>\n

r- right, but right then was, like, the moment where they started to get a little scary, but then Weston McKennie scores, and we’re like, “All right, we good.”<\/p>\n

Yeah.<\/p>\n

“We got no problems here.”<\/p>\n

And then, boom, we get this, I mean, the, the first goal, a, a goal from outside the box, from, what was his name?<\/p>\n

De Bast.<\/p>\n

De Bast.<\/p>\n

And it was, it was quite the fast, the shot, but We both get to pick the buttons on that one.<\/p>\n

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But you still feel like, somebody either gets, should get in the way of that shot, or, Matt Turner should, should get a hand on it.<\/p>\n

Matt Turner hesitated.<\/p>\n

It was just a, a m- I think there was a- It was a, it was a low-lying shot from outside the box that he had clear view of the entire way.<\/p>\n

He thought Tim Ream was going to deflect it, which is why- Yeah he hesitated.<\/p>\n

He got his hands to the ball.<\/p>\n

He did.<\/p>\n

If he would’ve not hesitated, that would’ve been a great save, but a save nonetheless.<\/p>\n

Yeah, uh-<\/p>\n

Close<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Christian Polanco and Alexis Guerreros of The Cooligans react to the United States’ 5-2 loss to Belgium. Check…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9078,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[6249,6251,7,6250,2023,6252],"class_list":{"0":"post-9077","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-belgium","8":"tag-alexis-guerreros","9":"tag-apple-podcasts","10":"tag-belgium","11":"tag-christian-polanco","12":"tag-the-united-states","13":"tag-youtube"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@be\/116309278329923067","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9077\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}