World Cup 2018: Can Belgium power through France?

In one of the best games of the World Cup, Belgium came out as surprise winners of their quarterfinals against a star-studded Brazil. However, the second Belgian golden generation cannot be considered a pushover too, with players such as De Bruyne, Hazard, Courtois, Mertens and more coming out of great league seasons with De Bruyne making his case to be considered one of the greatest passers.

One key fact which many don't consider relevant when talking about top class players is the competition they face on a regular basis. Of the starting 11, nearly all of the Belgian players play in the Premier League and in fact contest for the title since the beginning.

These players compete with tougher opponents day in and day out as it is widely accepted that EPL is way tougher than La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga or Ligue 1. On the other hand, out of the Brazilian starting 11, only 4 players play in the EPL. Not to say that players such as Neymar, Marcelo, Silva, and Coutinho don't deserve the highest of praises but their competitiveness does decrease.

So the main question to ask is can Belgium achieve the same feat against France and put on display another upset in this World Cup? One big negative for Belgium is the French goalkeeper and captain Hugo Lloris.

The Frenchman with his spectacular skill set also brings in a great analytical mind; having played with two of the Belgian defenders, he also brings in the knowledge of their weaknesses. This combined with the loss of Meunier, Martinez and Kompany will have to create a near foolproof plan to keep the likes of Griezmann, Mbappe and Giroud out of the defending third.

Further, to shed light on a few numbers from the Belgium-Brazil quarterfinal game, the team only shot the ball 9 times and shots on target were only a meagre 3 whereas Brazil shot 9 times on target out of a total 22 shots. This is why we observed Brazil so heavily dominating the second half of the game.

The saviours for Roberto Martinez's squad were Fellaini, Kompany and Alderweireld who blocked long-range shots. Also, credit to Courtois who managed some excellent saves. Coming back to the point, Lukaku and De Bruyne played a good game, but Lukaku's slow sprints affected the game a lot. De Bruyne proving himself as a great passer this year created lots of attempts for the forward, however, most were stolen by the defenders.

This further brings me to another interesting number. Belgium had zero offsides. How do you play a counterattacking game and have no offsides? De Bruyne tried so many passes in the attacking third but except a few all were for Lukaku. Hazard did so many excellent dribbles but there was no one for him to cross the ball to so, he had to slow the game down and the counterattack was finished.

Roberto Martinez did an excellent job by switching to 4-3-3 and moving De Bruyne forward, but if more midfielders don't come into the attack, Belgium will not be able to take many good shots. Also, they will be facing off against a brilliant centre-back pair of Samuel Umtiti and Raphael Varane.