All 3 hosts out in the R16

[championsclub]

I do not really buy the idea that Belgium were somehow miles better than the hosts overall, because the game was there for the USA if they had kept their heads and defended properly, they just made a mess of it and that is the real issue

 

[StrikerLegend]

North America really said same round same vibes lol

 

[BetOnIt23]

The BBC probably loved this because it meant they could move on to other highlights lol

 

[HaalandGoal97]

this club man

 

[teno88]

There is a decent argument that the hosts have all shown enough to be encouraged, even if the round of 16 is the ceiling for now. The USA will take the most criticism because the performance was so poor, but the tournament still gave these sides a useful benchmark imo

 

[Liam_Footy]

absolutely gutting that none of them made the quarters

 

[VARcheck]

People are being way too harsh on the side that lost because it is very easy to say they were terrible when the other team has just finished them off, but the USA were carrying the whole weight of expectation and still had to deal with the pressure of being the last host standing and that stuff matters more than people admit, they were not perfect but they were not some joke side either, they were just a bit stretched and a bit tired and once the game got away from them the whole thing snowballed, which happens to plenty of teams in knockouts, and the constant pile on makes it sound like they should have rolled Belgium aside when that was never the reality

 

[SoccerWizard]

ratio

 

[TopScorer88]

people acting like the us were supposed to walk this is mad to me they werent even that bad across the tournament they just got punished when it mattered and now everyones acting like the whole thing was a disgrace

 

[MatchDayHero]

The officials were part of the whole mess too because once the game started getting stretched they seemed to let everything become a free for all and the players ended up doing bits and pieces without any real control from the referee, which only added to the chaos and made the USA look even more rattled than they already were, and I am not saying the referee lost them the game because that would be nonsense, but the game management was poor enough that it fed into the frustration and the panic and by the end it felt like nobody was in charge of anything and that is exactly the sort of thing that annoys you when you are watching a knockout tie go sideways and everyone is pretending it is just one team being bad when the whole environment was messy from start to finish

 

[OliverPicks]

The USA’s collapse made the hosts’ exits feel more dramatic than they probably were overall.

 

[James212]

america got humbled hard