President Donald Trump’s meddling in the 2026 FIFA World Cup came back to haunt him on Monday after Belgium demolished the US Men’s National Team in a 4-1 rout.

On Sunday, multiple reports revealed that FIFA had overturned its one-game ban of top US player Folarin Balogun after Trump placed a phone call to FIFA President Gianni Infantino urging him to review referees’ decision to give Balogun a red card.

Trump’s interference with the World Cup’s disciplinary procedures and FIFA’s decision to suspend Balogun’s red card and allow him to play in the wake of Trump’s call both drew sharp condemnation from longtime sports journalists and professional footballers, who said it called the integrity of the entire competition into question.

Concerns about the US winning a tainted victory due to Trump were ultimately banished, however, when Belgium dominated the US and eliminated them from the tournament.

After Belgium scored its fourth goal of the night, its players ridiculed Trump by doing an impersonation of the dance the president often performs at campaign rallies.

La selección de #Belgica se burla de Trump y en su casa. pic.twitter.com/sQEwyKqM3L
— ZuritaCarpio (@ZuritaCarpio) July 7, 2026

The Belgian team’s social media accounts also took a shot at the president by posting images of victorious players alongside the caption, “Overturn this.”

Overturn this. 🧏♂️ #USABEL pic.twitter.com/KcBAJp3Z7d
— Belgian Red Devils (@BelRedDevils) July 7, 2026

Media outlet MeidasTouch observed after the US loss that there have now been multiple occasions where the president has injected himself into a major sporting event, only to see his preferred competitor come up short.

“Sports fans are calling it the Trump curse,” MeidasTouch wrote in a social media post. “He attended the Super Bowl and predicted a Chiefs win, but the Eagles blew them out… He sat in the owner’s suite when the Knicks snapped their huge playoff streak in NBA Finals Game 3. And he attended the Ryder Cup where Europe topped the US team.”

A Tuesday report in USA Today similarly examined the possibility of a “Trump curse” in sporting events, of which the US Men’s National Team’s “error-plagued, idea-less, and lackluster performance” was only the latest example.

In a Tuesday column in The Financial Times, Edward Luce linked Trump’s failed meddling in the World Cup with other disastrous initiatives such as his infamously botched renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

“Call it the anti-Midas touch,” Luce quipped. “Donald Trump loves gold. Yet so much of what he handles, from reflecting pools to US alliances, seems to turn into something else.”

French newspaper Le Monde also took a dig at the president in its report on the US-Belgium match, writing sarcastically that “we are being told that Donald Trump wants to launch a legal action against Gianni Infantino, accusing the Belgian national team of having played football this Tuesday.”

Writing in The Guardian on Tuesday, columnist Marina Hyde noted that Trump had turned global public opinion squarely against the US team in the tournament, and there was “joy” at seeing the president’s machinations flop.

“It really brought the world together,” Hyde remarked. “The last time this many people cheered on a Belgian resistance, it was 1914 and the Germans had just crossed the Meuse.”

In a Monday column published by The Globe and Mail in Canada, Cathal Kelly declared that Trump’s failed intervention had turned the US into a “laughingstock.”

“I can think of only one thing more satiric than the only country on Earth that still routinely makes fun of soccer fixing the world’s biggest soccer tournament in their own favor,” wrote Kelly. “That would be fixing it and losing anyway.”

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