Eden hazard decides Belgium – Russia and is Man Of the Match even after 80 minutes of absence
With a decisive dribble at the end of the game, Eden passed to attacker Origi, who scored the only goal against Russia.
With 6 points in 2 matches, Belgium is qualified for the second round in the World cup 2014 in Brazil.
However, the demonstrated game play displayed by the whole team was poor, and the game once again not nice to watch.
In Brazil they call this type of game “Jogo Feio” or “Ugly Game”.
The lineup was better than against Algeria, but due to an injury of defender Vermaelen, Januzaj was not able to be brought into the game as a substitute. Furthermore, main attacker Romelu Lukaku had a really bad day – he had problems controlling the ball – and also refused to run at all, and make himself available.
But also Eden had an off-day.
But also Eden had an off-day. During almost 80 minutes, he was walking around, and limited his actions to some passing the ball back to one who gave it to him, without any risk. At times he did have 2 defenders on his tale, but nevertheless, he did not compensate that with commitment, speed or creating space for the other players.
Many viewers in the stadium or at home where wondering why Hazard is so under-performing. We believe he is – as we reported before – tired and not fully fit to play 90 minutes. He also seems to have saved his efforts for the last 10 minutes. In that case he should have been used as a substitute. Belgium was playing for 50 minutes with 9 versus 11 Russian players.
In those last 10 minutes, he started to show his skills, added more initiative and risk, and had several successful dribbles, of which one decided the game.
Very similar to the first game where he also gave the decisive assist and was voted Man Of the Match, according to whoscored.com.
Today Belgium plays South-Korea, and everyone hopes Belgium will adapt a more attacking play-style, and offensive players who are motivated to relentlessly attack the opponent.
Due to Hazard’s apparent tiredness we suggest to use him as a substitute in the second half.
Even after being absent throughout both games, he received good scores from Whoscored.com, a reputed analytics website.
The preferred line-up for South-Korea with focus of playing Football!
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