Belgium have romped to a 5-2 win over Tunisia in the highest scoring match of this World Cup to date.
Braces to both Hazard and Lukaku, and a cherry on top from Batshuiyi, gave the Red Devils a comfortable victory in an attacking, entertaining game.
Bronn and Khazri were the scorers for the Desert Eagles.
Click here to re-live the match with The Roar’s live blog.
Tunisia knew they needed at least a point from this game – and possibly more – to have any chance to progressing to the next round, and appeared prepared to be aggressive from the outset.
But they were quickly forced to attack to get anything from the game, as the Belgians scored in just the sixth minute of play, after a slightly panicky foul on Hazard resulted in a penalty, and the Chelsea man completed the job from the spot.
The two sides then set about trying to create as many chances as possible. The plucky Tunisians repeatedly tried to play the ball out from their own area despite the attention of the pacey Belgian forwards, and it was a risky strategy as they gave up possession in dangerous areas.
It was on one such occasion that Belgium got their second goal, as Mertens’ intercept, run and pass put Lukaku through, and he coolly slid the ball past Ben Mustapha in Tunisia’s goal in the 16th minute.
Romelu Lukaku (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)
Almost immediately the North Africans had one back. A set piece from a fairly innocuous position was delivered beautifully for Bronn to run onto a header to open the scoring for Tunisia.
They continued to push forward, occasionally causing Belgium some worries on the wings, but unlike their opponents Tunisia didn’t quite have the cutting edge up forward.
That cutting edge was on full display for Belgium’s third of the half, as another mistake at the back for Tunisia allowed Kevin de Bruyne to feed Yannick Carrasco who in turn played it through to Lukaku, who lobbed the keeper just before half time.
At the break the game appeared to be more or less decided; not only did the adventurous Tunisians trail by two goals, but they’d already been forced into two substitutions due to injury.
Tunisia continued to press, but left a lot of space at the back. Hazard capitalised once more after elegantly controlling a long ball and rounding the keeper to score Belgium’s fourth and remove all doubt.
As Martinez began to withdraw his star players there was a brief period where Belgium didn’t appear to be quite such a potent attacking threat, but that quickly subsided as Michi Batshuiyi began to get involved off the bench, and as the Tunisians tired he eventually was able to capitalise on one of a number of chances to score a goal of his own.
In the final minute of the game the Europeans appeared to relax a little and allowed Tunisia to get a consolation game through the deserving Khazri.
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This result effectively puts Tunisia out of the tournament bar some extraordinary combination of results, and in turn Belgium are likely to be through and probably will only need a draw in their final group game to finish ahead of England and top the group.
Tunisia might have some reason to feel hard done by, after playing well against England and showing all the endeavour that could be asked of them today.
But ultimately they were undone by poor errors in the back half, certainly in this game and also in the marking that led to Harry Kane’s winner.
Roberto Martinez might be slightly concerned about his Belgium team’s defending that let in two goals in this game, but he’d be delighted at the form his attackers have built up. De Bruyne, Hazard, Lukaku, Mertens and Carrasco all revelled in the space they were allowed in this game.
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