World Cup 2026: Spain v Belgium reaction, Kane confirms playing golf with Trump, Norway v England buildup

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Spain marched into the semi-finals of World Cup 2026 with a 2-0 win over Belgium in Dallas, a result built on the same suffocating control that has defined their tournament. Nico Williams struck early and Pedri sealed it after the break, but the story from the AT&T Stadium was Belgium’s undoing: a Senne Lammens error that gifted the opener and effectively ended a golden generation’s last realistic run at the trophy. Elsewhere, Harry Kane confirmed he spent his rest day playing golf with Donald Trump, and Thomas Tuchel’s England turned their attention to Norway and Erling Haaland with a blunt message from the manager: seize the day.

Spain’s ruthless efficiency ends Belgium’s golden generation

Spain did not need to be spectacular. They needed to be relentless, and they were. Belgium enjoyed 38% possession and mustered a single shot on target across 90 minutes, a damning line for a side that arrived carrying the hopes of Kevin De Bruyne’s last major tournament. The decisive moment came in the 14th minute, when Lammens hesitated on a routine back-pass and Williams pounced to roll into an empty net. Pedri’s second, a clipped finish after a 21-pass move, was the more emblematic goal — the sort of patient, geometric build-up that no team at this tournament has solved.

For Spain, this is a fourth clean sheet in five matches and confirmation that Luis de la Fuente’s rebuild has produced something more durable than the possession-for-possession’s-sake sides of the past. They have now scored in every knockout tie without ever looking hurried. For Belgium, it is the end of an era. De Bruyne, 34, cut a disconsolate figure at full time, and the questions about a squad that never converted its talent into a final will only sharpen. A generation that reached a World Cup semi-final in 2018 leaves this one having won a single knockout match in eight years.

Kane’s golf with Trump becomes the day’s talking point

Away from the pitch, Kane confirmed the rumour that had bounced around Philadelphia all morning: England’s captain spent his day off on a golf course with President Trump. “He invited a few of us, and it was a good way to switch off,” Kane said, playing down the political theatre. “You spend so much of a tournament in the bubble. A few hours outside it does you good.”

The optics will not please everyone, and the FA will be conscious of the scrutiny that attaches to any player photographed alongside a sitting president in an election-charged summer. But Tuchel was untroubled, framing it as a squad that is relaxed rather than distracted. Kane, who has four goals at the tournament and sits level in the Golden Boot race, insisted the round changed nothing about his focus. “The only thing on my mind is Saturday,” he said. “Everything else is noise.”

Norway v England: Haaland the obstacle standing in Tuchel’s path

England’s reward for topping their group and edging past DR Congo is a quarter-final against a Norway side that has ridden Erling Haaland to a first World Cup knockout stage. Haaland has five goals in five games and represents the most direct threat England have faced. Marc Guehi’s fitness — the defender has been battling a hamstring complaint — is central to how Tuchel sets up, with the manager’s back line likely to be built around containing Haaland’s runs in behind rather than engaging him in the air.

Tuchel, in his most expansive briefing of the tournament, refused to indulge caution. “Seize the day — that is the message,” he said. “We do not talk about one player. We talk about how we impose ourselves.” The German has quietly reshaped England’s midfield around Declan Rice and given Anthony Gordon a licence to stretch defences, and the sense in camp is of a team that believes it can win the whole thing.

History offers England little comfort and little fear: the sides have met rarely at this level, and Norway’s presence in a World Cup quarter-final is itself unprecedented. What is clear is that whoever wins in Boston on Saturday will fancy their chances of going all the way, with Spain waiting in the semi-final on the other side of a bracket that has lost France’s grip on its favourites tag. For England, a first major men’s trophy since 1966 has rarely felt closer — or more dependent on stopping one man.

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