Last night England and Belgium played to see who would top Group G at the World cup. Going into the game, both teams had already qualified for the knockout round, and they both decided to rest numerous players because of that. To add further confusion to the situation, whoever wont he game put themselves on the tough side of the draw, while the team finishing second in the group had a far easier path to the final.

Before kick off we had already seen France and Denmark play out a very dull 0-0 draw to end their group stages, and we also saw Japan earleir yesterday play out their last 20 minutes without any attacking intent at all. With those games fresh in the mind, many were expecting a poor game last night and that is exactly what we got. The two teams do deserve a little credit for trying to win the game, because they both wanted to do that. However, the pace of the game was very slow, and if anything it looked more like a preseason friendly rather than a World Cup game.

After their victory in the game, Belgium move onto to face Japan in the last 16 round, so they probably have the easiest game out of anyone in the next round. That will please them, but after that it gets much tougher for them. To reach the final, assuming the other games go to plan, Belgium will face Brazil and France after playing Japan, which would be a very tough run for them. This is exactly the reason why both teams didn’t mind losing yesterday, to avoid a run in like this.

England have the slightly tougher task at the last 16 stage when they take on Colombia next Tuesday. However, their potential opponents in the quarter finals and semi finals are Sweden or Switzerland and Spain or Croatia. While these teams deserve to be where they are, and have played well to get there, this is a much more favourable outlook than what Belgium have in front of them. With a fresh starting eleven set to go back in for the game against Colombia, and the draw set out as it is, many people will think that England can go far this summer.

Belgium are one of just three teams that won all three games at the group stage, along with Croatia and Uruguay. While they have landed in the tough side of the draw, they do have a good run and momentum behind them. This will help team morale going into the knockout phase, and one thing we have seen so far from Belgium has been goal scoring. They scored nine in the group stage, and with scoring like that they will fancy their chances against anyone.

Despite the tough draw, Belgium are strongly fancied by many to win the World Cup, and are now as low as 7.5 to win the tournament, a price which makes them third favourites behind Brazil and Spain at the moment.

 

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