Congrats to Belgium

My country is now out of the World Cup after losing 2-1 to Belgium.  Congratulations to the Red Devils; they looked like the better team.  They just kept attacking and attacking until finally they broke through early in extra time.  Belgium would have scored a lot more had Tim Howard not played the game of his career.  He put on a clinic for how goalkeeping should be done.  His 16 saves set the World Cup record in the half century that that stat has been kept.  He was magnificent!

The goals by Kevin De Bruyne, who played a wonderful match, and Rmelu Lukaku were rife with top skill.  But I really love Julian Green's goal for the US.  He turned 19 just 25 days ago.  The image below shows his first World Cup touch (click on the image for a larger view).

Michael Bradley sent in a perfect through ball from 39 yards (36 m) out and Green nailed it with his swinging right leg from about 10 yards (9 m) out.  The ball had plenty of backspin to help its upward trajectory toward the right side of the goal.  It was a beautiful play from a player US soccer fans will surely get to know better in the future.

All eight group winners won their opening games in the knockout stage.  There have been some great matches so far!  Congrats to the US for making the knockout stage and providing fans like me with lots of thrills.  Congrats to Belgium for enduring a record-setting goal keeping performance and earning the win.