- Macdara Ferris
- Sat, Jul 14 2018
Belgium’s golden generation secured the World Cup bronze medal on Saturday afternoon in St. Petersburg with a 2-0 win over England who end up going home in fourth place.
An early goal from Thomas Meunier and a late counter-attack from Eden Hazard gave the Red Devils their second win over the Three Lions in Russia 2018.
Both teams had come through six games only to fall short of playing in the seventh match and the one that really mattered – Sunday’s World Cup final.
Instead of the main event in Moscow, they were playing a match in St. Petersburg that many would see as a dead rubber tie even if a third place was up for grabs. With the golden boot still available, Romelu Lukaku and England captain Harry Kane didn’t see it that way and it was Kane retaining his advantage by games end.
With just a bronze medal at stake, the Red Devils ‘golden generation’ wore gold taking on an English rose coloured clad team.
The countries had essentially played out a dead rubber game in Kaliningrad just over a fortnight ago. For that group match the two managers made 17 changes from their previous game. This time around there was only seven switches with five of them made by Gareth Southgate.
That probably reflected the fact that England had one day less recovery than Belgium for this game plus had played two matches that went to extra-time.
Roberto Martinez just made two changes to his team who lost their semi-final to France. Back into the team came Thomas Meunier who was suspended for the semi and on his return to the team he gave the Red Devils an early lead.
Belgium carved open England after just four minutes and scored through the PSG player. There was a great pass from central midfield out wide from Lukaku to his wing back Nacer Chadli.
The West Brom player whipped in a delightful cross towards the onrushing Meunier. He moved in front of Danny Rose and his touch took the ball by Jordan Pickford.
Neither Rose nor Chadli would be out for the second half. For Chadli it was a case of having picked up an injury, while Southgate made two half time changes including removing Rose for Jesse Lingard.
Kane did have a decent first half chance to add to his six goals. Raheem Sterling unselfishly, or maybe reflecting his lack of confidence in front of goal, set up the Spurs striker for a shot that he hit into the ground to take it wide of Thibaut Courtois.
Southgate looked to add attacking edge in the second half. With Sterling subbed at half-time, Marcos Rashford brought more fresh legs into the England team.
A couple of times Lukaku had sight of goal but his touch let him down – something often said about the Manchester United striker – and Martinez brought him off on the hour mark to leave him on four goals for the tournament.
Dier had captained England in the 1-0 defeat by Belgium earlier in the tournament and he seemed to have more of a goal threat than his Spurs teammate Kane who had excelled in the opening two group games.
Dier had three chances in close succession with 20 minutes remaining. Courtois saved Dier’s shot from distance and when Rashford slipped him in one-on-one and he lifted it over the ‘keeper Alderwireld’s wonderfully time slide allowed the defender to get back and lift the ball over his own crossbar to keep his team in the lead.
Dier soon followed that up with a wasteful header wide.
Belgium’s counter-attacking killed off Japan in the quarter-final and did for England in this match. There was a let off for England with 11 minutes remaining. A sweeping Red Devils moved ended with Pickford’s save to keep out a superb shot by Thomas Munier.
However the third place win was wrapped up eight minutes from time when a trademark Belgium counter-attack cut England apart. Kevin de Bruyne’s defence splitting pass sent his captain through in on goal and Eden Hazard was tidy with his finish.
Delight for Belgium as they secure their best ever finish at the World Cup. For many of the Belgium squad Qatar will be a World Cup tournament too far and so there will be huge satisfaction in securing their country’s best ever World Cup finish.
England will be left hurting and wondering just what might have been after all the talk of football coming home. However the expectation is of course that England will come back stronger at future tournaments – they had started the game with their youngest ever team at a World Cup - so maybe there won't be too many more years of hurt to come for them.
England: Jordan Pickford; Phil Jones, John Stones, Harry Maguire;Gary Cahill; Kieran Trippier, Ruben Loftus-Cheek (Delli Alli 84), Eric Dier, Fabian Delph,Danny Rose; Raheem Sterling, Harry Kane.
Subs not used: Jack Butland, Nick Pope, Trent Alexander-Arnold,Danny Welbeck, Ashley Young, Kyle Walker, Jesse Lingard, Jordan Henderson, Marcus Rashford, Jamie Vardy.
Booked:John Stones (52), Harry Maguire (77).
Belgium: Thibaut Courtois; Toby Alderweireld, Vincent Company, Jan Vertonghen; Thomas Meunier, Youri Tielemans (Mousa Dembele 78), Axel Witsel, Nacer Chadli (Thomas Vermaelen 39); Kevin de Bruyne, Romelu Lukaku (Dries Mertens 60), Eden Hazard.
Subs not used: Simon Mignolet, Koen Casteels, Leander Dendoncker, Dedryck Boyata, Marouane Fellaini, Thorgan Hazard, Adnan Januza, Michy Batshuayi, Yannick Carrasco.
Booked:None.
Referee: Alireza Faghani (Iran)
Attendance: 64,406
Extratime.ie Player of the Match: Eden Hazard (Belgium)
