Belgium 1-0 Canada Dominant Maple Leafs Suffer Frustrating Defeat in World Cup Opener
- last year
In many ways, it was the most captivating of all the surprises which the past few days have delivered up here.
Not the score-line, which maintains Belgium’s record as one of the most clinical World Cup group stage performances of the past 12 years.
But in the exquisite, sometimes breathtaking football of a Canadian side determined to make up for lost years.
Perhaps the Canadian spirit was to be expected, given that the ethos of this team was forged in Leeds.
Manager John Herdman coached four times a week as a student in the city, setting up an offshoot of the city’s Brazilian Soccer Schools, where the watchword was energy.
That was the overwhelming quality of his Canada team, too, when they returned to this stage for the first time in 36 years. .
Belgium, who had won seven World Cup group stage matches in a row heading into this tournament and had not lost one since 1994, were steamrollered by a team intent on pressing the life out of them.
Their athleticism was giddying to watch: one of the most refreshing 45 minutes of football at this World Cup, jet-propelled by the step-overs and slalom runs of Alphonso Davies, Junior Hoilett. Stephen Eustaquio was the technician, stringing the enterprise together.
The enormous moment arrived early, 10 minutes in, when Tajon Buchanan’s half volley was judged by VAR officials to have struck Yannick Carrasco on the arm and Canada were presented with a penalty.
Davies did not strike it well and Thibaut Courtois dived to his right to save his fifth penalty of nine he has faced in 2022.
If Davies was affected by this, he certainly didn’t show it. He played in dancing shoes, running into the box and leaving Youri Tielemans on the seat of his pants.
Canada might not have the most distinctive choral repertoires – ‘Ooh, ah Canada’ to the tune of ’We are staying up’ - but they had the same joyous support that Wales got from the same sections of seating here earlier this week.
Carrasco, who was eviscerated by the Canadian pace, and Tielemans, who struggled, didn’t make it out for the second half, though by the time the interval arrived, Belgian had a lead that only the most fervent of their compatriots would have thought justified.
It was hardly a goal in the Roberto Martinez mould – a lumped ball bisecting the central defenders which the otherwise ineffectual Michy Batshuayi half-volleyed home.
Martinez has brushed off the notion that he has failed to bring through a new group, though this was a brutal exposition of the damage exuberant youth can cause an ageing group.
There was no answer to the questions that the wing-backs posed. Davies, down the right, was unplayable - humiliating this stellar opposition.
Kevin De Bruyne briefly crackled into life, looking to find Eden Hazard. Neither star set the house on fire.
The expectation was that Canada would wilt in the second half, though this didn’t happen.
As they continue to press and threaten, Eustaquio lifted a ball Jonathan David at the back
Not the score-line, which maintains Belgium’s record as one of the most clinical World Cup group stage performances of the past 12 years.
But in the exquisite, sometimes breathtaking football of a Canadian side determined to make up for lost years.
Perhaps the Canadian spirit was to be expected, given that the ethos of this team was forged in Leeds.
Manager John Herdman coached four times a week as a student in the city, setting up an offshoot of the city’s Brazilian Soccer Schools, where the watchword was energy.
That was the overwhelming quality of his Canada team, too, when they returned to this stage for the first time in 36 years. .
Belgium, who had won seven World Cup group stage matches in a row heading into this tournament and had not lost one since 1994, were steamrollered by a team intent on pressing the life out of them.
Their athleticism was giddying to watch: one of the most refreshing 45 minutes of football at this World Cup, jet-propelled by the step-overs and slalom runs of Alphonso Davies, Junior Hoilett. Stephen Eustaquio was the technician, stringing the enterprise together.
The enormous moment arrived early, 10 minutes in, when Tajon Buchanan’s half volley was judged by VAR officials to have struck Yannick Carrasco on the arm and Canada were presented with a penalty.
Davies did not strike it well and Thibaut Courtois dived to his right to save his fifth penalty of nine he has faced in 2022.
If Davies was affected by this, he certainly didn’t show it. He played in dancing shoes, running into the box and leaving Youri Tielemans on the seat of his pants.
Canada might not have the most distinctive choral repertoires – ‘Ooh, ah Canada’ to the tune of ’We are staying up’ - but they had the same joyous support that Wales got from the same sections of seating here earlier this week.
Carrasco, who was eviscerated by the Canadian pace, and Tielemans, who struggled, didn’t make it out for the second half, though by the time the interval arrived, Belgian had a lead that only the most fervent of their compatriots would have thought justified.
It was hardly a goal in the Roberto Martinez mould – a lumped ball bisecting the central defenders which the otherwise ineffectual Michy Batshuayi half-volleyed home.
Martinez has brushed off the notion that he has failed to bring through a new group, though this was a brutal exposition of the damage exuberant youth can cause an ageing group.
There was no answer to the questions that the wing-backs posed. Davies, down the right, was unplayable - humiliating this stellar opposition.
Kevin De Bruyne briefly crackled into life, looking to find Eden Hazard. Neither star set the house on fire.
The expectation was that Canada would wilt in the second half, though this didn’t happen.
As they continue to press and threaten, Eustaquio lifted a ball Jonathan David at the back