124 minutes into the match, with a penalty that could decide life or death, the team's all time top scorer Lukaku passed the ball to Tielemans.

124 minutes and 44 seconds. The latest goal in men's World Cup history was born at Lumen Field in Seattle. Lukaku carried the ball to the penalty spot, his arms shielding it tightly, as if protecting a lost-and-found piece of junk. Then, he handed it over.

The team's all-time top scorer. He had just scored a goal in the match. In stoppage time of extra time, his team earned a penalty—score and advance, miss and go home. He handed the ball to Tielemans. After the match, facing French media cameras, Lukaku didn't mince words: "I wanted to take it. But I wasn't mentally ready to take such an important penalty. I'm still going through a tough time."

That "tough time" was no exaggeration. This season with Napoli, he has scored only one goal in all competitions. In September, his father Roger passed away. He kept playing, but couldn't find his scoring touch. When the national team call-up came, he boarded the plane carrying all this baggage. Standing before the penalty spot in a World Cup knockout match, the whole world was watching this striker.

He took a half-step back.

"You are HIM," he said to Tielemans. You are that guy. Tielemans scored the penalty, and Belgium won the Round of 32 match 3-2 against Senegal. A striker admitting his legs were weak at a life-or-death moment takes more guts than taking a wild swing with his eyes closed.

Belgium's survival to the penalty spot was half due to Senegal's foolishness and half because their own locker room hadn't completely exploded.

The first half in Seattle was absolutely unwatchable. In the 25th minute, Habib Diallo struck first, 1-0. In the 51st minute, Ismaïla Sarr added another, 2-0. At halftime, Belgium looked like a retirement tour group on vacation. Coach Rudi Garcia brought on Lukaku at halftime, but the situation didn't improve. During a water break in the second half, trailing 0-2, Trossard and Tielemans were publicly screaming at each other on the pitch, nearly coming to blows, with teammates desperately pulling them apart.

Over 10 million Belgians were watching you lose on screen, and your teammates were putting on a fistfight show for the cameras. For any other team, that locker room would have been destroyed after the game.

Yet it was these two who almost fought that made the final connection. In the 86th minute, Lukaku tapped in a low cross, 1-2. In the 89th minute, Trossard delivered a cross from the left, Tielemans headed it in, 2-2. Three minutes earlier, they were lying in a 0-2 pit; three minutes later, the scoreboard had flipped. After the match, Garcia told RTBF cameras that Senegal, trying to hold onto the 0-2 lead, had completely lost their defensive shape. Translating that into plain English: the African brothers thought they had it in the bag and started playing keep-away at the back, only to lose it all.

Belgium has worn the "Golden Generation" tag for over a decade, but it's long since become a painful curse. In this tournament's group stage, across three matches: a draw against Egypt, a narrow win over New Zealand, and almost going home against Senegal. Playing by the book, they simply can't win. This team survives only on comebacks and quarrels. The cracks in the locker room were barely welded shut once, on the edge of the cliff.

On Senegal's side, no one could explain what demon had possessed them in the final ten minutes.

Looking at the stats, Senegal's expected goals (xG) was 2.51, while Belgium's was just 2.02. Senegal created more and better chances. Possession was 47%, shots were 19 to 21, a tight contest. At the 86th minute, they were up 2-0. Four minutes later, the sky fell.

In extra time, VAR intervened. Tielemans was brought down in the box by Lamine Camara. The referee didn't call it initially, but after a video review, he awarded a penalty. The entire Senegal team mobbed the referee, interrupting the match for a while. Coach Pape Thiaw made a decision he would regret deeply after the match: he ordered his players to leave the field in protest.

Tielemans scored the penalty.

At the post-match press conference, Thiaw sat there, admitting he didn't like the decision to have his players walk off at all. "I apologize to football." The journalists responded with boos. He stood up and left. Senegal's World Cup was over. Pape Gueye had said before the match: "The game was in our control." Looking at it now, that statement seems like a joke.

Lukaku compared this comeback to the famous 3-2 victory over Japan in the 2018 World Cup. That time, too, they had been down 0-2 and scored three in a row. Eight years later, the same score, the same script. Only the 2018 team was at its peak; the 2026 version survives on substitutes and arguments.

Lukaku dedicated the win to his father, who passed away in September. This was his first goal of this World Cup, and that's where it ended. Next up is the USA. The hosts are waiting for them in Seattle. No one can guarantee that the substitutes and the arguments can weld the cracks shut once more.