We're going to speed run these two games because two teams were not very good in them and lost and deservedly so.

SPAIN 1, PORTUGAL 0

Should La Furia Roja have been up long before stoppage time in this game? Probably, but Diogo Costa did have something to do with that and should get a lot of credit for keeping his team in this one.

Mikel Merino's winner in the first minute of stoppage time was a simple as it was elegant, a quick restart after a foul saw Ferran Torres slip a pass between two defenders and Merino darted in behind and slot home to the near post against an onrushing Costa.

Portugal's offense was just about non existent in this one, just 2-for-10 shooting and their best chances a 37th minute flick thing from Ronaldo that was awkward as heck but almost worked had Unai Simon not recovered in time to claim it and then a last gasp header by Bernardo Silva from fairly close range that went over the bar.

On a different day, Spain might have rued Mikel Oyarzabal early miss 1-vs-0 against Costa, flashing his shot just wide of the far post in the 8th minute.

BELGIUM 4, UNITED STATES 1

Sam already recapped this disaster so I am spared from having to do so again, but that flat out sucked.

The Most Controversial Round of 16 Match in U.S. Soccer History: After Balogun Red Card Reversal USA Still Loses 4-1
The home cooking comes to an end
The Blazing MusketSam Lattof

Right from the get go the USMNT looked bad and progressively got worse outside of Malik Tillman's free kick equalizer. The short version is everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong for the USA yesterday and the flaws that some absolutely brilliant play had been hiding were fully exposed.

Christian Pulisic got dispossessed in the double digits, Tim Ream got beat in the air, a defense that had been tremendously organized seemed stretched and late to step out to the ball, but most importantly the US' inability to hold the ball stranded Folarin Balogun up top and rarely saw the American attack threaten to do much of anything.

Yes, Matt Freese was bad but all his error on the third goal did was basically seal the USA's fate but I don't think they were scoring another goal regardless. The bigger mistake to me is retreating on the cross for the second goal instead of going to get the ball in his six like he did against Germany in the friendly before the World Cup.

Losing is acceptable. The USA did not simply just lose. Four years ago against the Netherlands I thought they got outcoached but they fought until the bitter end. There was no fight yesterday right from the jump and that's the part that really stings.

Getting into the Round of 16 as a Top 20 or so team in the world is expected. Making the leap into the quarterfinals means having to beat a Top 10 team, which is really, really hard especially when you pick the worst day to have your worst game in a few months.

UPCOMING MATCHES

Spain and Belgium will play their quarterfinal Friday July 10th Not SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, CA at 3pm (US Eastern).