A slight interruption stole a loud night in Cardiff. At 63 minutes, everything paused for a whiskered cameo. A rat cut across the grass at Cardiff City Stadium, the crowd laughed, and play stopped for a moment before the match carried on.
Thibaut Courtois reached for the rat, missed, and Brennan Johnson coolly guided it toward the line to a huge cheer. The intruder slipped past a ball boy and vanished near the referee review monitor, and the game restarted without fuss.
“It’s something I’ve not seen in my 36 years at Cardiff City,” said Wayne Nash, the stadium’s head of operations, who explained that the club works closely with pest-control partners because rodents are common near the railway bankings around the ground.
Belgium’s edge came from the spot twice through Kevin De Bruyne, with Thomas Meunier and Leandro Trossard finishing the job late. Wales scored through Joe Rodon and Nathan Broadhead. Final score, Belgium 4–2.
What it means for Wales
The defeat tightens the path ahead. Wales needed a statement win to keep control of qualification and instead chased the game after the first penalty went in. Jérémy Doku stretched them with his pace, and late pressure only produced a brief lift before Trossard closed it out. The viral moment will live on, but the math matters more for the home side.
Even so, the scene will stick. Johnson grinned as he steered the intruder away, Courtois had a rare miss that had nothing to do with saves, and the stadium exhaled. For Real Madrid, the clip joins a blooper reel that will follow their keeper for a while. Belgium left with the points, and the jokes left with the rat.
