Best of three? Not even FIFA can save USA now after capitulation against Belgium

And so there it is. Provisionally, pending presidential acceptance, the United States are out of their World Cup.

While Gianni Infantino no doubt has his top, independent men scouring the rulebook for an arcane clause that gives FIFA the discretion to make World Cup last-16 ties best of three if they deem that best and fairest, we have to at least for now proceed on the assumption that the US are indeed gone.

Given the absurdity of the Balogun Farrago, one has to ask: is that it? You did all that… for this? A humbling 4-1 paddling from a team that was incredibly fortunate to make it through the last 32?

The States were utterly rotten in Seattle, comfortably outclassed and effortlessly outplayed by a Belgium side that is a shadow of what it once was.

Perhaps Belgium were fired up by the injustice of facing a host team allowed to call in presidential favours. Perhaps, in a moment of self-awareness, the American team were embarrassed by it all.

Whatever the reason, the game started as the reverse of what one might have expected. Belgium roared out of the blocks against a timid, passive USA side. The occasion seemed just too big for them.

They stood stock still to allow Charles De Ketelaere to tap home his first goal of the tournament. When Malik Tillman’s deflected free-kick offered the USA an undeserved route back into the game, the US defence once again offered the resistance of training-ground cones to allow De Ketelaere a second from a delicious Leandro Trossard cross.

Remarkably, it got worse for the US after the break, with two defensive catastrophes giving the scoreline a horribly one-sided look that, frankly, the game deserved. And by game we mean both this specific 90 minutes and football in general.

Matt Freese got himself in a horrible tangle to allow Hans Vanaken to smack the ball past the stranded keeper into the empty net before a late Chris Richards error let in substitute Romelu Lukaku to whip home Belgium’s fourth and his third of a tournament where he is having an outsized impact from limited time on the pitch.

It’s easy – and fun and correct, too – to mock the US for the manner of their exit, going out so unbelievably meekly after the ludicrous damage to the sport in their name by opportunists and grifters in the build-up to this game.

The fallout from the decision to suspend Folarin Balogun’s suspension is really only just beginning and who knows what further unintended consequences may come of it. It is vital that this result, necessary as it was for everyone’s sanity and the wellbeing of the tournament, not allow anyone off the hook for the embarrassing and shameful antics of recent days.

FIFA must continue to be pressed and harried until they at least acknowledge they need to give a proper reason for why the decision to suspend Balogun’s suspension came about, instead of increasingly desperate attempts to retrofit an acceptable chain of events for how.

It was certainly hard not to enjoy the occasional cutaways to Infantino squirming in his padded seat as it all unfolded, carrying the unmistakable look of a man who knows he’s going to be fielding another awkward phone call.

But there’s a genuine sadness here too. This had, until this week, been a really quite likeable US team under a manager still fondly thought of over here. They played some of the most eye-catching and enterprising football seen anywhere in the group stage, even if the caveat that everyone else in their group was really quite cack has become more relevant as the competition has progressed.

They were young, they were fun, they were great to watch. They captured the imagination. They did everything you could want a host nation’s team from outside traditional football heartlands to do in a World Cup. This was a US team that could and did win hearts and minds.

That is now all lost, washed away by controversy and the fragile egos of the tiny little men in charge of both FIFA and this country, and now by a thrashing at the hands of a good-not-great Belgium side that will be relished across the rest of the football-playing world.

Balogun himself took the classy decision to quiet suspend himself, barely figuring in a game that passed him by. Again, none of the nonsense that has swirled around him this week is his fault. He has been placed in an impossible position by people who don’t really care about him using him as a pawn in their pitiful power games. It was, in truth, no surprise to see him perform so far below what we’ve seen previously in this tournament with all the extra unwanted attention.

He was far from alone. Christian Pulisic, the most experienced member of the US attack and someone who was desperately needed to carry them through the challenges of this tie, was entirely anonymous.

The whole US team was just deeply and disappointingly passive. After a week of off-field noise and distraction, when they finally got back on the pitch they just rather let the game happen to them.

Belgium’s injustice-fuelled Red Devils had no qualms in taking advantage. It was a big day in the career of De Ketelaere, who has looked lost at times in this tournament but bullied a static defence here.

Trossard was impish and waspish as he pulled the strings from the left. Belgium didn’t even need to turn to Kevin De Bruyne. The only spirit-dampener for a team that had looked down and out with five minutes left of their last-32 clash with Senegal was a serious-looking knee injury for Amadou Onana.

Lukaku held up Onana’s shirt in tribute after his late gloss-adder, and it seems certain Belgium will have to try and navigate the far trickier obstacle of Spain in the last eight without him.

That’s a worry for another day, though, after a result that football needed. The last remaining co-host has fallen, and their departure – and its ultimately humiliating nature – will be widely celebrated.

It really didn’t have to be this way.