itsbeautifuloutside

Belgium v Russia

Rio De Janeiro, 22nd June 2014

Match Report

If I were to write a conventional report on this match, it would be very short. In truth, nothing much happened until about the 80th minute, when Belgium won a free kick just outside the Russian area. Mirallas, who had only just replaced Mertens, took the kick and hit the post. It seemed to galvanise the Belgians and having sleepwalked their way through the rest of the game, they suddenly laid siege to the Russian goal.

I am getting a bit ahead of myself there. Winding back to the first half, the Russians were all pretty approach work and zero threat in front of goal. The No.9, Korkorin should have scored just before half time when a glorious pass arrived and all he could do was meekly head wide. A dreadful miss.

The Belgians on the other hand were hopeless, playing like eleven random strangers, albeit ten very skilful strangers and Lukaku. He was playing on his own up front, wandering about aimlessly. I am not sure that was the manager, Marc Wilmots intention, but the Chelsea man seemed to have no idea what to do. Eventually he was replaced by the young Origi just before the 60th minute and he immediately started to put pressure on the Russian defence.

The early part of the second half was, if anything worse than the first and it was about this time that I started to look at other things. I liked the TV director showing some of the neutral Brazilian fans fast asleep. Around this time they started booing as well. Quite.

Skipping the rest of the dull bits (as opposed to the very dull bits!), there was a really good passage of play from the Belgians in the 88th minute, particularly from Eden Hazard, who raced down the left and cut back for Origi to sweep the ball into the net. 1-0

Hooray, some excitement!

The remaining two minutes of normal time and the four minutes of time added on passed without drama. Belgium have now had two wins out of two.

The problem with Belgium is that they are a collection of superstars, rather than a team, but don't underestimate the ability of Marc Wilmots to get the best out of them. He certainly knows when to substitute players. Both games have been won by the subs he has put on.

As for Russia, they will be lucky to get out of the group. You can't get far with no strikers.

channonite