The penultimate day of round of 16 play at the 2026 FIFA World Cup marked the end for two of the tournament’s biggest attractions: the United States men’s national team and Cristiano Ronaldo. However, for Spain and Belgium, the quarterfinals await.<\/p>\n
Here’s the best from Match Day 26 at the 2026 FIFA World Cup:<\/p>\n
BEST OF THE DAY<\/strong><\/p>\n Cristiano Ronaldo’s World Cup journey is over. The 41-year-old played in his final match at the tournament after 27 matches across six different World Cups, starting in 2006. Ronaldo didn’t find the back of the net in Portugal’s 1-0 loss, but he received a warm reception from the fans at Dallas Stadium as though he did. A fitting sendoff for a legend the game.\u00a0<\/p>\n Striker<\/p>\n Belgium<\/p>\n Romelu Lukaku might not be fit enough to be Belgium’s starting striker anymore, but it doesn’t matter. Even off of the bench, Lukaku continues to find the back of the net, bagging his 93rd career international goal for Belgium and second of the tournament.\u00a0<\/p>\n Goalkeeper<\/p>\n Portugal<\/p>\n Costa had a great tournament for Portugal, stepping up in both knockout-stage games against Croatia and Spain.<\/p>\n The FC Porto keeper’s best moment against Spain came early on when he saved a shot from Lamine Yamal and then was called right back into action. The initial save went out to Spanish winger Alex Baena, whose effort forced Costa to stretch fully so he could get a hand to it.<\/p>\n Midfielder<\/p>\n Belgium<\/p>\n With the ball in the air, headed toward the edge of the United States’ box, Belgium midfielder Nicolas Raskin had four defenders closing in on him. He beat the first two by splitting them with his first touch, and the other two watched as he whipped a grounded cross into Charles De Ketelaere to give Belgium the lead in the ninth minute.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" POPULAR SEARCHES BROWSE BY The penultimate day of round of 16 play at the 2026 FIFA World Cup marked the end for two of the tournament’s biggest attractions: the United States men’s national team and Cristiano Ronaldo. However, for Spain and Belgium, the quarterfinals await. Here’s the best from Match Day 26 at the 2026 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":6314,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soccer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}