World Cup Daily: What might have been for Belgium

After each matchday of the 2018 FIFA World Cup, Sportsnet.ca’s World Cup Daily blog will recap the day’s events, and look ahead to the next day’s slate of games.

Here’s what happened on Saturday, in case you missed it…

THE RESULT

Belgium 2, England 0 in Saint Petersburg: Match report || match stats

MAIN TALKING POINT

What might have been for Belgium
A 2-0 victory over England in Saturday’s third-place match ensured Belgium its best-ever finish at the World Cup (it reached the semifinals and placed fourth in the 1986 tournament in Mexico). A bronze medal is nothing to turn your nose up at, but it’s not the colour Belgium expected, and you can’t help but think the Red Devils will feel as though they squandered their best chance to win a World Cup.

The Belgians routinely played the best soccer at this competition, sweeping aside all before them with a gorgeously entertaining style of play and a ruthlessly efficient counter-attack. Not even Neymar and mighty Brazil managed to get the better of Belgium, who have scored a tournament-high 16 goals. France, though, proved to be a bridge too far, the Belgians unable to negotiate their way past the magnificent midfield duo of N’Golo Kante and Paul Pogba to book their spot in Sunday’s final.

What now for Belgium’s “Golden Generation” of players? This was likely the last kick at the can at the World Cup for Toby Alderweireld (29), Dries Mertens (31), Jan Vertonghen (31), Thomas Vermaelen (32) and Vincent Kompany (32). Kevin De Bruyne and Eden Hazard will both be 31 by the time the 2020 World Cup in Qatar rolls around.

Never before has Belgium had such a talented group of players like this one, many of them of world-class calibre, and the overwhelming majority of them are still in the prime of their respective careers. This Belgian team should be proud of what it achieved in Russia, but surely they will also be haunted by their inability to finish the job.

BEST GOAL

In the fourth minute, Belgium hit out against England on the counter-attack as Romelu Lukaku sent the ball out to Nacer Chadli on the left flank. Chadli delivered a dangerous low cross into the box that Thomas Meunier beat England’s Danny Rose to before tucking it home past goalkeeper Jordan Pickford.

BEST SAVE

In the 70th minute, Marcus Rashford slipped England teammate Eric Dier in on goal. Dier chipped a shot over Belgian goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois, but defender Toby Alderweireld raced back to make a stupendous sliding, goal-line clearance to deny his Tottenham teammate of a sure goal.

BEST MOMENT

In the 80th minute, Belgium put together a sweeping move on the counter attack, featuring some lovely passing between Kevin De Bruyne, Eden Hazard and Dries Mertens. Meunier hit the final shot that England goalkeeper Jordan Pickford did well to parry away. It would have been the goal of the tournament had Meunier beat Pickford.

BEST TWEET

HE SAID IT

“In the second half we played really well. We had them on the ropes for the first half-hour of that and we just couldn’t get a goal. We had one cleared off the line and we put the pressure on. But the lads couldn’t give any more, it has been a tough tournament. Belgium are obviously a good team. I can’t fault the lads; we gave it everything.” – England’s Harry Kane

SIX PACK OF STATS

• Belgium and England are the first teams to face each other twice in the same World Cup since Turkey played Brazil twice at the 2002 tournament.

• 19 of the 22 players in the starting lineups on Saturday play for clubs in the English Premier League.

• Thomas Meunier is the 10th different player to score for Belgium at this World Cup, tying the single-tournament record held by France (in 1982) and Italy (2006).

• England has only won one of its last 22 World Cup games in which it conceded the first goal (with 16 losses). Its lone win came in the 1966 final against West Germany.

• Assuming Kylian Mbappé or Antoine Griezmann don’t score three goals on Sunday, Harry Kane is the first English player to finish as the top scorer at the World Cup since Gary Lineker in 1986.

• Saturday marked England’s 100th match at a major international tournament, with 69 of those coming at the World Cup (31 at the European Championships).

Stats courtesy of Opta

STAR OF THE MATCH

Eden Hazard, Belgium: Scored the goal the sealed the win for the Red Devils, and was a vital cog in Belgium’s blistering counter-attack that gave England plenty of problems.

LOOKING AHEAD TO SUNDAY

FINAL: France vs. Croatia in Moscow (11:00 a.m. ET) – It all comes down to this. France is looking to win its first World Cup since 1998 – and to make amends for its loss to Italy in the 2006 final, and its defeat at the hands of Portugal in the Euro 2016 final. Croatia is attempting to become the first “new” nation to win the World Cup since 2010 when Spain did it, and become only the ninth team ever to win the most prestigious and most important championship in sports.

ELSEWHERE ON THE WEB

Daniel Harris of The Ringer writes about the 1954 World Cup final between West Germany and Hungary, and how that one game changed soccer forever:

Modern life has rendered the imagination almost obsolete, the march of technology leaving us with little that requires a mind’s eye to be seen. As such, the things we love can no longer sustain our wonder according to how we hope they are; rather, we must rely instead on how they actually are, a terrifying standard in any context.

In 1954, television came for soccer: The Swiss World Cup was the first to be televised and the first to be immortalized in official film, a serious challenge for a competition still learning about itself. Typically, soccer obliged to an unfathomable extent, delivering a multitude of goalscoring records that still stand, including: highest per-game average (5.38!), highest team goal total and goal difference (Hungary, 27 and plus-17), and highest for and against total by a winner (West Germany, 25 and 14).

But no competition can be judged solely by such a standard, particularly when there were so many thrashings. Every World Cup is great, but a great World Cup — one that is great not just in the moment but for all time — is defined by great games, between great teams, starring great players. Switzerland ’54 supplied every last bit of that and more, particularly a final that might still be the most momentous match ever played.