Courtois injury, substitute blunder cost Belgium World Cup exit

Analysis

By Tim Spiers July 10, 2026 | Updated July 11, 2026 Share article: 240

When Belgium defeated the United States in the World Cup Round of 16, they had to overcome FIFA, a host nation, and its President. It was quite a feat.

During their quarter-final against Spain, however, they came up against a force that proved impossible to surmount: fate.

• First, Belgium lost combative midfielder Amadou Onana to a torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) last week.
• Then, Youri Tielemans — the team's metronomic pace-setter in possession — limped out of the warm-up to the Spain game with a hamstring injury.

Belgium were still offering impressive resistance, drawing 1-1 in the 70th minute, when the final blow arrived: Thibaut Courtois, one of the world's finest goalkeepers, came off in tears with his own leg injury.

As a back-up, Manchester United's Senne Lammens looked a secure option. But asking a 24-year-old to make his World Cup debut in a quarter-final against Spain in front of 70,000 people proved a step too far.

With just two minutes remaining, Lammens parried Pau Cubarsí's awkward, bouncing 25-yard shot into the path of Mikel Merino, who gobbled up the rebound. Belgium were finally beaten.

U.S. readers watch here:

SPAIN TAKES THE LATE LEAD IN CHAOTIC FASHION 🤯 Mikel Merino is the super sub once again for La Roja! pic.twitter.com/oXE2gDVa14 — FOX Sports (@FOXSports) July 10, 2026

UK readers watch here:

MIKEL MERINO GIVES SPAIN THE LEAD! It's a costly mistake from Senne Lammens who replaced the injured Thibaut Courtois 😬 pic.twitter.com/l2rOjjSudg — BBC Sport (@BBCSport) July 10, 2026

It felt like fate had intervened decisively. But did it?

In a television interview, Courtois suggested — with as much equanimity as he could muster — that he could have stayed on the pitch longer, only for head coach Rudi Garcia to decide to bring him off.

"Ultimately, the team comes first," Courtois said. "I can understand it, because Senne is a good goalkeeper. I was willing to stay on for another five or 10 minutes, as long as I didn't have to kick the ball very far. I've had to do that a lot in recent weeks. At a certain point, your body has had enough of it."

Garcia, who has a reputation for impulsiveness, confirmed it was his decision to substitute Courtois, who had sat down on the turf after initially seeming to suffer the injury while saving a shot from Mikel Oyarzabal.

"From the beginning of the World Cup I didn't want players on the pitch who were not 100 per cent," Garcia said. "That was the case for Thibaut. We didn't want his injury to get worse and that's why I decided to sub him off. It's part and parcel of high-level sport, you need to be concentrated and 100 per cent focused."

Whether Lammens could possibly be 100 per cent focused himself in those circumstances is another question. But Garcia had plotted Belgium's winding route to the quarter-finals by taking unorthodox risks — he substituted off star players Kevin De Bruyne and Jérémy Doku with the team 2-0 down to Senegal in the last 32 and won 3-2 — and he wasn't going to stop now.

It was a cruel twist of, yes, fate.

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