What is post-Golden Generation Belgium like?
The regulation time of Ukraine-Belgium expired. Anthony Taylor assigns 4 minutes of injury time, 240 seconds which will prove to be very long for Domenico Tedesco’s Belgium. Two years of work are in danger of evaporating, overwhelmed by the anxieties of a group that seemed to be starting a cycle again but which is proving unfit to handle the pressure.
All fear boils down to Kevin De Bruyne: #7 approaches to take a corner, shouts for Bakayoko and asks him to keep the ball near the corner flag. Belgium chases away the ghosts of a premature elimination from Euro 2024 but it ends up like this, by finding a place in the group, to position itself in the most complicated part of the board. But it is this image that, in all likelihood, we will remember from Domenico Tedesco’s Belgium Euro 2024.
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A team full of ups and downs which, probably, the coach of Rossano Calabro was not able to shape in the best possible way. A selection that had to play the last seconds of the group stage near the corner flag to reach the minimum objective of the German expedition.
Belgium-Slovakia: Zero tactical certainties
Over the last two years, Domenico Tedesco has built a team that could control operations during the game. At the same time, the Red Devils imagined by the former Leipzig would have tried to make themselves dangerous by using positional principles in the opposing midfieldThe interpreters have always been different but the design has never changed: the renewed Belgian team has built its own identity and recognisability on a tactical level.
The plan included a construction made up of four men – the two central defenders plus a blocked full-back and one of the two central midfielders – with the second midfielder who splits his time between building and developing the game. Up front, however, Belgium relied on two external players capable of aiming in 1vs1 and create dangers with crosses into the area or by favoring internal and external overlaps.
Tedesco made his life difficult when, against the Slovakiahas decided to deploy in the construction quartet two central players like Faes and Debast together with two midfielders like Onana and Mangala, redundant as characteristics in that area of the pitch. The objective was to free Carrasconominally deployed as a left back, and try to exploit the wide deployment to open up the opposition lines, favouring central access towards De Bruyne and Trossard or open the game towards Doku in isolation on the right.
Transformation in the possession phase of the 4-2-3-1 against Slovakia: Castagne has the double task of preventively covering Doku’s area and overlapping the City player.
The great aggressiveness of Calzona’s team in the first half exposed the limits of the interpreters in the construction phase; when the opponents were in possession, moreover, the pressure exercised by the offensive elements was quite mixeasily freeing up vertical passing lines to Slovakia’s players who could exploit the Defensive weaknesses of Carrasco to attack on his side.
The recovery phase following a lost ball worked decidedly better, especially in the second half: the preventive marking system prepared by Tedesco who allowed the Red Devils to crush Slovakia in the final third, creating the conditions to generate the siege in the final half hour. Thanks to the little clarity under the doors and two goals disallowed by VAR, Belgium still failed to overturn the result.
Tielemans and Theate rebalance the situation
Against Romania, Tedesco decided to put it aside l’overthinking and reorganized Belgium with Theate (back from injury) deployed as a full-back blocked on the left flank of Vertonghen, with Onana completing the construction diamond. Above all, the presence of Tielemans in support of the construction has definitely improved quality of ball possessionmaking the best use of the ideas of Lukebakio and Doku on the outside and the central combinations between De Bruyne and Lukaku.
Against Iordanescu’s team, the presence of the Aston Villa midfielder optimized theoccupation of the field and, above all, it allowed the Belgian team to consolidate possession on the right side and then try to connect with the central pairing of De Bruyne and Lukaku and the possibility of turning the game over in isolation towards Doku.
Belgium was able to better exercise their dominance: the construction diamond was already able to take over, through preventive marking, the Romanian offensive references.
Certainly, the match against Romania was the demonstration of Domenico Tedesco’s plan A: an aggressive and dominant idea but facilitated by Tielemans’ initial goal, which gave the team the confidence to complete the game plan.
Ukraine-Belgium: the match of fear
Belgium reaches the final match of the group with certainties. Tedesco, giving up Lukebakio and inserting Trossard, chooses not to congest the right zone as happened against Romania. From how the team lines up on the pitch, the clear desire is to empty the center.
Source: Between the Posts
The first construction takes place with four defenders in width – also Theate, generally appointed to act alongside the two central defenders. The idea was to widen the first Ukrainian pressure to look for the central De Bruyne-Lukaku combinations.
This only worked once in the early stages of the match: the 5-3-2 di Rebrov allowed Ukraine to double up comfortably on the outside, forcing De Bruyne to open up as well to play balls in combination with his teammates. Tielemans is thus less involved, making Tedesco’s team’s possessions stale and predictable.
Once again, when Ukraine has the ball, the first Belgian pressure is exerted in a lazy: the yellow-blue selection can serve their attacking midfielders with ease, exposing the defensive line.
The midfield line is poorly positioned in positional defense, creating comfortable passing lanes in the finishing area.
Once again Domenico Tedesco’s Belgium loses tactical certainties; what seemed to be fixed in the match against Romania turns out to be problematic again. The Red Devils sense danger and begin to attack accept the goalless draw as the lesser evil. It would be too risky to try to increase the intensity and attack the opponent’s half with more men: better to retreat.
Even when lowering, the Red Devils show very little security: they give Ukraine several chances to take home the match and qualify. It takes a Casteels ready between the posts to prevent fear from turning into a sporting psychodrama.
A team (yet) not ready
Elimination from the group stage a Qatar 2022 it ended the cycle of the Belgian Golden Generation, which reached its peak with third place at the World Cup in Russia. In 2022, that group was spoken of as a unique of the history of Belgian football, but it was done with little awareness: a new class of talents was already emerging, some of which we are seeing at work at Euro 2024, who would find space in favor of players on a declining parable (Hazard and Alderweireld, to give just two examples).
Domenico Tedesco had the task of acting as Charon in this passage: building a national team capable of finding a gaming identity that maximizes emerging talent. The path of the German-school coach before Euro 2024 was promising: Belgium showed up at the German event undefeated.
The team’s performance in the group stage has cast doubt on his tactical approach: Tedesco gives the impression of wanting to amaze when it would be necessary to provide greater certainty. Belgium, for its part, has shown some cracks in terms of mental stability regardless of the presence of Tedesco on the bench: some situations in which De Bruyne and Lukaku have explicitly sent some comrades to hellguilty of having made bad choices, are a burning and worrying warning light.
Now, a round of 16 almost prohibitive against the France. It could be the match that unlock this project definitively, now that the team has freed itself from the burden of passing the groups? Or it could also certify the fact that the reconstruction is still far from complete, and that they may be necessary even stronger decisions to continue the journey?
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2024-07-01 12:00:00
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