Tielemans’ 120th-Minute Penalty Sinks Senegal, Sets Up USA Clash
Youri Tielemans converted a 120th-minute penalty to complete Belgium’s comeback from two goals down, booking a Round of 16 date with the United States in Seattle on Monday.
Youri Tielemans buried a penalty in the fifth minute of stoppage time at the end of extra time on Wednesday night — the latest winning goal in World Cup history — and with it, Belgium turned a Round of 32 scare into a ticket back to Seattle.
Belgium’s 3-2 win over Senegal, completed after trailing 2-0 with ten minutes of regulation left, sends the Red Devils into a Round of 16 meeting on Monday with a United States team that just posted its first World Cup knockout win in more than two decades.
For 86 minutes, this looked like Senegal’s night. Habib Diarra and Ismaïla Sarr put Senegal up 2-0 early in the second half, and Belgium coach Rudi Garcia made a call that looked, in the moment, like surrender: he substituted Jérémy Doku and Kevin De Bruyne with his team still chasing the game. Doku was visibly unhappy at the change. De Bruyne, playing what may have been his last match for the national team, looked bemused.
Then Romelu Lukaku scored in the 86th minute. Tielemans headed in an equalizer three minutes later to force extra time. And when Lamine Camara fouled Tielemans in the box, a VAR review awarded the penalty that finished the job — an outcome almost nobody expected from a Belgium side written off for most of the group stage.
A golden generation gets one more night
Sarr’s second-half goal was itself a landmark: it moved him to five career World Cup goals, one behind Ghana’s Asamoah Gyan on Africa’s all-time list at the tournament. His night still ended in elimination, and Senegal’s players called the collapse devastating.
For Belgium, the question now is whether Wednesday was the start of something or a last flourish. Doku, De Bruyne, Lukaku and Thibaut Courtois have chased a major trophy together for a decade without winning one. Belgium needed extra time and a controversial penalty just to get past a Senegal side that finished third in its group — hardly proof the gap to the tournament’s best has closed. But it is proof this group still has one more comeback in it.
| United States | Belgium | |
|---|---|---|
| Group stage | 2nd in Group D (4-1 Paraguay, 2-0 Australia, 2-3 Turkey) | 1st in Group G (1-1 Egypt, 0-0 Iran, 4-1 New Zealand) |
| Round of 32 | 2-0 vs. Bosnia and Herzegovina | 3-2 vs. Senegal (extra time) |
The United States advanced by beating Bosnia and Herzegovina 2-0 in Santa Clara, its first World Cup knockout win since 2002, after finishing second in Group D behind a 3-2 loss to Turkey. It’s a different route to the same city: Seattle Stadium, which has already hosted six matches this tournament, gets its finale on Monday at 5 p.m. local time, and organizers expect another sellout.
The Americans and Belgians have history here. Belgium eliminated the U.S. in the 2014 Round of 16, 2-1, in a match remembered mostly for Tim Howard’s 16 saves — still a World Cup record. Mauricio Pochettino’s team looked well behind Belgium when the sides met in a March friendly. After Wednesday, with Belgium needing everything it had just to survive Senegal, that gap looks smaller than it did four months ago — and the Americans, unlike in 2014, will be trying to do the eliminating this time. Their group stage was not always convincing, but a home crowd in Seattle against an aging, banged-up Belgium side is about as good a draw as the bracket could have handed them.
