Adnan Januzaj’s second half goal was enough for Belgium to overcome England and top Group G on Thursday night.
There was nothing to split the teams coming into the game, with doubts over which route through the World Cup knockout stages was better in the long run.
But England suffered their first defeat in a year and that is a blow in any context; here are four talking points from the Kaliningrad Stadium.
Mass changes didn’t impact the intensity as Belgium edged to victory.
They said this was the game both sides wanted to lose, even if Gareth Southgate vehemently denied his side did. He and Roberto Martinez made a huge number of changes; only Jordan Pickford, John Stones and Ruben Loftus-Cheek kept their places from the Panama mauling for England, while Thibaut Courtois and Dedryck Boyata were Belgium’s only survivors from the Tunisia game. That was to be expected, though; not only had it been heavily reported in the days prior, but it followed the trend set in the other matches earlier in the week. Despite suggestions finishing second in the group would actually play out better, and that deciding the winner could get rather complicated, there were no sign of any negative tactics. Even without Harry Kane and Romelu Lukaku, two strikers very much in the hunt for the Golden Boot, on the pitch, the game started at a good pace and Belgium had the best of it in the first half.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, given how many English-based players in the Belgium squad, the tempo was like that of a Premier League match. Marouane Fellaini and Mousa Dembele were running the game in the midfield, pinning England back quite often; while their best moments came on the break, which suited them perfectly. Young Monaco midfielder Youri Tielemans had their first effort, stinging the palms of Pickford, while Michy Batshuayi, who spent the second half of the season on loan at Borussia Dortmund from Chelsea, saw a scruffed shot cleared off the line by his club mate Gary Cahill. With the group so tight, discipline was all that separated the two sides, with one yellow card in England’s favour; Belgium picked up two more bookings before the break, giving the Three Lions an even stronger advantage in that regard. They took the lead early in the second half after a brilliant piece of skill by Januzaj bamboozled Danny Rose, leaving the former Manchester United winger to curl the ball past Pickford with great precision.
England lacked a link between midfield and attack
As a predominantly counter attacking team, the most impressive thing about England at the World Cup so far has been their ability to break down low defensive blocks. Tunisia and Panama are hardly the best teams in the world, but the ease in which they were broken through spoke volumes about the ability and the approach of the squad Southgate picked. Jesse Lingard missed a great chance in the first game and scored from distance expertly in the second; he and Dele Alli have made penetrative runs with and without the ball, offering England a much more potent threat. The absence of Kane’s all round game was also detrimental; Jamie Vardy is effective on the break, but he needs to be brought into the game by players like Lingard and Alli. Loftus-Cheek is not the same kind of player, and he struggled to replicate the others’ impact.
It was completely understandable that Southgate wanted to keep his better players fit for the knockout stages, but the pace, verve and energy on show in the earlier group matches was taken away without Lingard. To their credit, England reacted well to going behind and should have been level ten minutes later, but Marcus Rashford missed a golden opportunity when one-on-one with Courtois. The lack of chances in the closing stages suggested they were content with the outcome of the game.
Youri Tielemans has a bright future for Belgium
For all the solidity Dembele and Fellaini gave Belgium, the players who offered them the most in an attacking sense were Tielemans and, of course, Januzaj. Like England, they obviously looked a lot less potent without the likes of Kevin de Bruyne, Eden Hazard and Lukaku, but Tielemans in particular was looking comfortable on the ball, driving or passing the ball forward when he could. His first half effort was the first save Pickford has made in the tournament before another late on from substitute Dries Mertens; overall, the performance was one that suggested he has a bright future in a Belgium shirt.
There are some suggestions that Belgium are coming towards the end of an era, and that this summer is the last chance for this group of players to make an impact at a World Cup. That may be true to an extent, but it could be over-exaggerated with their major stars still all very much at their peak. In any case, Tielemans represents a brave new age and he could be a player worth building the team around in the future.
There weren’t too many lessons learnt about either side
When the group stage draw was made back in December, this may have been billed as the glamour tie, but in the end, there was a sense neither team really had it at the forefront of their minds. Belgium will now face Japan in the last 16, with the prospect of Brazil in the quarter finals, but Hazard et al will return to strengthen their chances of going on to possibly win the trophy.
For England, Colombia await in Moscow on Tuesday; Sweden or Switzerland could follow. Southgate has always said the next game is the most important; but just how much that defeat will sting remains to be seen over the next couple of weeks.
