The U. S. Men’s National team is back in action.
With under three months remaining before the World Cup kicks off in June, the USMNT is set to test its mettle against two top European teams in key pre-tournament friendlies. It will take on Belgium on Saturday, March 28 at the Mercedez-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, GA.
The USMNT shares connection with Belgium: they’ve met it twice on the World Cup stage, and both games loom large in the minds of American and Belgian fans. Here’s the story of how the the two came to be global rivals, told through their famous World Cup meetings.
1930: USMNT 3-0 win in group stage
It all began here, at the inaugural FIFA World Cup in Uruguay in the summer of 1930. Just 13 teams made the trip to South America for the occasion, and most were strangers to one another; the European teams hadn’t seen much of anything from their North and South American peers and vice versa. All anyone really knew of the USMNT was this: it had fallen to Argentina 11-2 at the 1928 Olympics, so it probably wasn’t a serious threat.
The United States found itself in a group with Paraguay and Belgium and opened its tournament against the Belgians on a freezing cold day in Montevideo. Unprepared for the weather and exhausted from the transcontinental journey, Belgium struggled to keep up with the USMNT’s pace, and it quickly found itself in trouble. Scotland-born striker Bart McGhee opened the scoring for the USMNT in the 23rd minute and New Jersey native Tom Florie doubled the lead right before halftime. New England legend Bert Patenaude—who went on to score the first hat trick in World Cup history one game later—sealed the victory with a third goal midway through the second half.