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What happened to Belgium on Monday evening when they lost to Slovakia?
Your guess is as good as ours, but we were shocked by the Belgium performance.
There are an awful lot of questions that the Belgian players must answer regarding that match, but the beauty of tournament football is that players don’t have the time to stew in self-pity because the next game comes along so quickly.
We watched the match and think that for Belgium, it was just a bad day at the office and we expect a completely different attitude when they face Romania on Saturday night.
Romania must be on cloud nine after beating the Ukraine 3 – 0 and as a result, are sitting pretty at the top of the Group E table.
Odds and Predictions
Belgium are favourites for this game at odds of 1.45 and no matter which way we look at it, we just can’t see any further than a convincing Belgium win.
The odds for the Romania win are 7.0 and the draw is 4.5.
We are not big fans of skinny odds like these, but sometimes, when you can see no other alternative, backing Belgium at that price has to be the first one of our selections.
As for the scoreline, 3 – 0 to Belgium at 11.0 looks like a good bet to us.
Finally, in the ‘to score at any time’ market, Kevin De Bruyne has to be the last one of our predictions.
Comparison and Statistics from Past Meetings between the Teams
Belgium and Romania have played each other H2H twelve times in total.
The head-to-head record between these two teams is evenly matched, with each side winning 5 games and drawing 2.
Here are the last five H2H meetings between the two teams.
| Past Meetings | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13 Oct 2023 | netherlands | 1-2 | france | UEFA Euro 2024 Qualifiers |
| 24 Mar 2023 | france | 4-0 | netherlands | UEFA Euro 2024 Qualifiers |
| 16 Nov 2018 | netherlands | 2-0 | france | UEFA Nations League |
| 09 Sep 2018 | france | 2-1 | netherlands | UEFA Nations League |
| 31 Aug 2017 | france | 4-0 | netherlands | FIFA World Cup Qualifiers |
Expected Line Ups
If Belgium doesn’t win this match with these players, some serious questions will need to be answered.
Kevin De Bruyne in particular, will have something to prove, and we are looking forward to seeing Youri Tielemans reproduce some of his terrific form that was often evident in the last season in an Aston Villa shirt.
No disrespect to the Romanian team, but apart from Răzvan Marin, who plays for Empoli in Serie A, we are struggling to recognise any of their players, which just goes to show what a great result they pulled off against Ukraine.
Belgium (4-3-3): Matz Sels; Timothy Castagne, Wout Faes, Jan Vertonghen, Arthur Theate; Amadou Onana, Kevin De Bruyne, Youri Tielemans; Jeremy Doku, Romelu Lukaku, Leandro Trossard.
Romania (4-3-3): Florin Niță; Andrei Rațiu, Radu Drăgușin, Andrei Burcă, Nicușor Bancu; Marius Marin, Răzvan Marin, Nicolae Stanciu; Dennis Man, Andrei Ivan, Valentin Mihăilă.
How Far Will These Teams Progress in the Tournament?
We think Belgium will turn things around and progress to the last 16 of the competition.
As for Romania, it’s looking like they have an excellent chance of also progressing, but that depends on whether the other underperformer in the group, Ukraine, can get their act together.
It will be tight, that’s for sure, but the outcome will be clearer after the final whistle blows for this match on Saturday night.
