SEATTLE, July 5 -- Four months ago, Belgium beat the United States by three goals in a meaningless March friendly nobody outside the two federations much remembers now. On Monday night at Lumen Field, the two teams meet again, and this time a loss ends the tournament.

The stakes have changed enough to make the earlier result almost irrelevant, except as a data point nobody in the USMNT camp particularly wants to discuss. A win over ninth-ranked Belgium sends the United States to its first World Cup quarterfinal since 2002. A loss ends a tournament that has already produced the largest domestic soccer television audience in American history and put the co-host nation two wins from a final it has never sniffed.

Mauricio Pochettino spent S...