On Saturday, June 23rd at 8am Eastern, Belgium will be taking on Tunisia in the 27th game of the 2018 World Cup in Russia. The game will be held in Spartak Stadium in Moscow. Belgium is the favorite to win. While they may not be among the teams expected to make the World Cup final, Belgium has the essential pieces in place for a deep run in this tournament. Tunisia, meanwhile, had a good run in qualifying and have a versatile squad that employs several attack strategies, but they do not have the overall depth and experience needed to beat the Belgians, who should win by a couple of goals.
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Belgium
Belgium tore through qualifying with a 10-0 record. They will be appearing at the World Cup for a second consecutive time, after having missed the tournament in 2010 and 2006. Their best showing ever was in 1986, when Belgium's golden generation finished in fourth place. This year's squad will be looking to improve on that mark, claiming its stake as the new golden generation. They should have an easy time getting through the group stage, but what happens after that could be anyone's guess. The Belgians only made it to the quarterfinals at both the 2014 world Cup and the 2016 Euro cup, raising questions about the team's desire to win. Former Everton manager Roberto Martinez was brought in to clean things up, and the team has looked promising ever since.
Tunisia
Tunisia had a golden era of soccer that began in the mid 90's and they became fixtures in the World Cup for three straight tournaments (1998, 2002, and 2006). This will be their first trip back since 06, and they have still yet to ever win a game or advance past the group stage. The group of players that got them here went undefeated in their qualifying group (4-3-0) and are young and mostly play in the region, with a few having contracts with clubs in France and Belgium. Yohan Benalouane, a 31- year old Center back is under contract with Leicester City, but usually plays on the reserve squad. Ali Maâloul , who has the second most caps on the team at 43 and is an offensively- minded defenseman, plays left back and will likely log a lot of minutes, as nobody else on the team has over 40 caps.
Match Overview
With talents like Romelu Lukaku, Eden Hazard and Kevin De Bruyne roaming the field for Belgium, it is almost impossible to think that a team like Tunisia has a chance to win this game. With strong players on all parts of the field from the goal out, Belgium should overpower this Tunisian team no matter how well the Tunisians prepare. Although Belgium has been underwhelming in prior tournaments and in the last round of friendlies, Belgium has come too far and has too much on the line to suffer an upset in this game.
