Belgium left Dedryck Boyata out of their team tonight and turned in their shakiest defensive performance of the tournament so far.
I thought their central defence was all over the place.
They were caught out by Japan’s pace time and time again.
Neither of their two at the back looked particularly confident, despite both being top class stars.
Dedryck has had a superb tournament thus far, but I wasn’t surprised that they left him out. As far as I’m concerned this game has done his reputation as much good as those in which he didn’t take part. Would he have made a difference to the way the game looked to be going? Perhaps not, but he has a no-nonsense attitude about him these days which the Belgian central defence tonight just didn’t have. They were caught on the ball time and again.
Dedryck has suffered from that at Celtic too; I said on this blog that I prefer him when he focusses on defending and not trying to be too much like a footballer, and that was part of the trouble with the two on the park tonight. Kompany looked like a guy who was still getting up to speed, but his counterpart Vertonghen was caught time and again.
Ironically, he scored the goal that got Belgium back into the game, a superb looping header that beat the keeper from an acute angle.
Tomorrow I’m going to do a piece on the playing systems tonight and how they show Celtic a possible path forward for the new campaign. I don’t presume to tell Brendan Rodgers his business, but I can write about what I see.
And tonight I saw a Belgian team come perilously close to exiting a tournament many believe they can win. It wasn’t just because they left Celtic’s big centre back on the bench, but I do think they’d have been better off had he played.