3 Flaws Belgium Need To Iron Out In Order To Win The World Cup

3. Play out from the back cautiously

Belgium have started with a back three of Alderweireld, Boyata, and Vertonghen in both their games. Boyata plays at the centre of the three and is usually the spare man when Belgium build play from the back. While Boyata is an established defender, he has shown signs of being erratic, when on the ball. Against Tunisia, he misplaced two passes within the space of a minute and a team better at finishing would surely have capitalized on these errors.

Hazard and Mertens like to drift inside while attacking. The wing-backs are then tasked with providing the width. When they play out from the back, the wing backs are too wide to make any meaningful contribution to the build-up. This leaves the Central defenders with no option but to pass it ‘between the lines’ to the midfielders.

Belgium face a potential Round of 16 tie against Senegal, a team that employs an intense press and has enough stamina to ‘press’ for the majority of the match. Against such a team, even a single stray pass can result in Belgium being put under pressure. Belgium have the luxury of calling upon Romelu Lukaku and they can use his height and strength to control ‘long balls’. This will provide them with a different avenue. Though Martinez likes his side to play out from the back, mixing things up, every once in a while, would keep the opposition guessing and work to Belgium’s advantage.

The last thing the ‘Golden Generation’ of Belgium would want is to see their World cup dreams get shattered due to their stubbornness to play out from the back.