Belgium 3-2 Senegal AET: Tielemans scores latest goal in World Cup history to complete the impossible comeback

Belgium trailed Senegal 2-0 with four minutes of normal time remaining. They won 3-2 after extra time. Youri Tielemans scored the winning penalty in the 125th minute - the latest goal in World Cup history.

It should not have happened. Habib Diarra opened the scoring inside 25 minutes and Ismaila Sarr doubled it just after the hour. Senegal were composed, dangerous on the counter and looked entirely capable of seeing it out. Belgium, for large stretches of the match at Seattle Stadium, looked like a team that had reached the end of a generation. Tedesco's side had possession but no conviction. Senegal's defensive block held and their transitions were sharp. At 2-0 with the clock past 85 minutes, the conversation had already shifted to what this early exit meant for Belgian football and whether the golden generation had finally, definitively ended.

Then Romelu Lukaku came on. With four minutes of normal time remaining, Thomas Meunier drove a low cross to the near post and Lukaku turned it in. The stadium was stunned into a different kind of noise. Two minutes later, Leandro Trossard played a ball deep into the box from a wide position and Tielemans arrived at the back post to head home. 2-2. The referee blew for full time. The Senegal dressing room must have felt like the ground had given way.

Extra time was tense and largely goalless. Neither side could find the breakthrough. Then, in the 124th minute, a VAR review determined that Lamine Camara had brought down Tielemans as the ball flashed across the penalty area. The decision was marginal. The penalty was given. Tielemans stepped up and picked out the top corner. Belgium were through.

Senegal have every right to feel aggrieved. The penalty call was the kind that gets given in some matches and waved away in others. They had controlled this game for 86 minutes, were the better team across large portions of the match, and were eliminated by a decision taken after video review in the dying seconds of extra time. There will be debate about whether the call was correct. There will be no replay.

For Belgium, the win sets up a last-16 tie against a USA side that beat Bosnia-Herzegovina 2-0 on the same night. Domineco Tedesco's team will need to play substantially better in that match. The Americans will bring intensity and the Seattle crowd will be split. Belgium's path to the quarter-finals runs directly through a US team with something to prove on home soil.

Tielemans' penalty was confirmed as the latest goal ever scored at a World Cup - 124 minutes and 44 seconds on the clock. No one in World Cup history has scored later. It is also, given what was at stake and how improbable the recovery was, among the most dramatic. Follow all the 2026 World Cup action in the football news.