La Belgique remonte un retard de 2-0 pour battre le Sénégal 3-2 après prolongation à la Coupe du monde

Belgium were five minutes from going out of the World Cup. Then came the wildest quarter of an hour — stretched, in the end, across three-quarters of an hour more football — that the Red Devils have produced in years.

Senegal had been the better side for most of the evening at Lumen Field in Seattle. Habib Diarra opened the scoring in the 25th minute, reacting quickest after Ismaila Sarr's header came back off the post. Six minutes into the second half, Sarr chested down a long ball and finished emphatically to make it 2-0, and Belgium looked flat, short of ideas and short of time.

The rescue began from the bench. Romelu Lukaku, introduced in the second half, steered home in the 86th minute to halve the deficit. Barely three minutes later, Youri Tielemans arrived at the far post to head in Leandro Trossard's cross, and a match Senegal had controlled was suddenly heading to extra time.

The decisive moment arrived deeper into added time than any World Cup goal before it. In the 117th minute, Tielemans went down under Lamine Camara's challenge in the box. A video review followed — seven minutes of it — before the referee pointed to the spot. Senegal's players protested the decision, and pundits were split on it afterwards, but the call stood. Tielemans, the captain, waited through it all and then converted, with the clock showing 124 minutes and 44 seconds — reported as the latest goal in World Cup history.

For Senegal, it is a brutal way to exit a tournament they were minutes from surviving. They created the better chances for long stretches and defended well until the final minutes of normal time, when Belgium's pressure finally told.

For Belgium, the reward is a last-16 meeting with the United States — co-hosts, and on home turf in every sense: the tie is in Seattle, at the same Lumen Field where this drama unfolded, on Tuesday 7 July. For the thousands following from Belgium, kick-off comes in the small hours — and after a night like this, few will want to miss it.