ATLANTA — Leg 1 of this critical two-match World Cup warmup for the U.S. men’s national team is in the books, in the form of the 5-2 loss to Belgium on Saturday at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
It was a game in which the superior European side erased a feel-good first half for the Americans, who scored first, by scoring five unanswered goals and turning the match into a clinic that exposed alarming cracks in the U.S. back line.
Now comes the hard part: Somehow, some way, the Americans must come out of this camp feeling good about themselves.
It’s imperative that they erase the terrible taste in their mouths after Belgium toyed with them in the second half Saturday.