Battle for Bronze: Belgium vs
England
After 1974 (Where Poland beat
Brazil 1-0) all 3rd place Playoff’s resulted in goals galore with
minimum 3 goals scored in the match. In fact if we go in History of the third
place playoff’s except 1974, 1970, 1962 and 1950, 1930 (Both 30 and 50 3rd
place playoffs were not played) all 3rd place playoffs match
witnessed minimum 3 goals and in cases this match decided the Golden Boot
winner like Mueller (10), Suker (98), Eusebio (66) and in today’s match too we
can expect Kane vs Lukaku. With tough luck for both the teams to be eliminated
in the Semifinals, third place will be a consolation which actually the teams
always hate to play after a lengthy tournament. First let us look at the
baseline data on how losing semifinalists fared.
After failing to bag the bronze
in the year 1990, England would want to bow out with something, at the same
time Belgium too would like to go back home with bronze at least living up to
expectations from Fans. England though has been exciting in their play as
basically dependent more on Set pieces from which they can create chances. Today
as well the game play depending will definitely pay dividends like what they
did against Croatia early, But Belgium being a creator team can counter from
set piece in faster pace which may threaten 3 men defense which would be caught
by surprise. Belgian Defense has been as good as English but again while Belgium
has not taken any of their matches to Extra time which is the key here. On the
other hand England took 2 of their 3 knockout stage matches to Extra time and
hence English defense and mid field should do extra work out to contain
Belgium.
Line ups of both the sides will
be filled with players who didn’t feature much in the tournament and there are
likely to be at least 4 changes in each team. This changes line up will give
both teams more freedom and license to go for kill and can expect a cracker
contest.
Prediction:
Belgium win
VenkatS
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