Benteke double seals win for Belgium in Cleveland

Two goals from substitute Aston Villa's Christian Benteke sealed an emphatic 4-2 win for Belgium in Cleveland this evening's Milenio Sports friendly 'A' International against USA in front of 27,721 fans at the home of the Cleveland Browns.

Kevin Mirallas opened the scoring on 6 minutes chipping Tim Howard inside the box after the Everton goal keeper had blocked Romelu Lukaku's intial effort. Somewhat against the run of play USA equalized on 22 minutes with a really well worked set piece corner where Clint Dempsey's headed from the back post across for Brent Cameron to head home. Lukaku scored on 26 mins but the goal was ruled out for offside.

Despite incessant pressure from Belgium, USA held their own really well until 56 minutes when an error from Omar Gonzalez failing to clear allowed Kevin De Bruyne to pounce and cross for Benteke's first goal which was a simple finish past Tim Howard. De Bruyne again provided the assist 8 minutes later with a lovely cross to the back post to the arriving Marouane Fellani who had a lot of work to do in guiding his header Tim Howard.

On 71 minutes Benteke scored his second latching on to a through ball in between Demarcus Beasley and Matt Besler to clip the ball over Tim Howard to make it 4-1. USA were awarded a penalty on 80 minutes to make it 4-2 which Clint Dempsey dispatched with ease.

For USA despite the disappointment of the result they will view it as excellent preparation for the forthcoming FIFA World Cup qualifications games against Jamaica, Panama and Honduras and for Belgium the full team building week was a great success from the training camp in Rutgers University in New Brunswick to the win in Cleveland in preparation for the crucial FIFA World Cup Qualifier against Serbia in Brussels on June 7th.