World Cup – England-Belgium

England faces Belgium at the Kaliningrad Stadium in the most interesting game from Group G of the FIFA World Cup. This is a direct clash for the first place in this group.

At this moment both teams are leading the group with the same record – 6 points each and a goal difference of +6. They have the same amount of goals scored – 8, and the same amount of goals conceded – 2. Right now England are leading the group only because of the fair play criteria. But this could change very fast when these two teams finally meet.

Both teams started the World Cup with two wins over Tunisia and Panama. We can say that England and Belgium got lucky during the draw, having opponents of this level. The fact that they already reached the 1/4-finals is not surprising at all. The only question now is this one – who is going to win the group?

We have a very interesting moment here. The facts are saying that the winner in this group could actually have a much worse draw for the 1/4-finals, eventually facing Brazil. This is why many journalists are discussing that it might be better to finish second in this group than first.

England’s manager Gareth Southage said that his team is not thinking about that. He’s determined that his team will play for the win and the first place in the group. “Our style of play won’t change”, promised the England ex-international.

And this English team plays really well. Gareth Southgate managed to build an young and competitive team, filled with hungry for success players. We can say that this is the most exciting team England have from years. The question is – how far they could go at the World Cup?

The same thing could be said about the Belgian team as well. As individuals, maybe the Belgian team is even more impressive than the English. Right now the Red Devils have world class players at almost every position. They also have a really capable manager like Roberto Martinez, who knows the English players very well from his time in the Premier League. You can be sure that Martinez will use his knowledge of English football in this game. He should do.

It’s difficult to make a prognosis how this match is going to end. Both teams are really exciting at this moment and they are hungry for success. Both teams proved that they know how to score a lot of goals. The World Cup’s leading goalscorer so far plays for England – Harry Kane. He has 5 goals. In the same time Belgium’s striker Romelu Lukaku has just one goal less – 4. When we add up to the mix players like Raheem Sterling, Jesse Lingard, Marcus Rashford, Eden Hazard and Mertens, we see how good and impressive these two teams are. We are sure that we are going to see some goals from these two teams on Thursday night. They proved in the last two weeks that they can score with an ease.