World Cup 2018: Belgium Shocks Japan With Stunning Rally
ROSTOV-ON-DON,
Russia — Belgium arrived at the World Cup as dark horses, bringing both
a roster bulging with talent and question marks about its mental
toughness. Could this be the group to power through the knockout rounds
and avoid falling by the wayside like the talented yet ultimately doomed
Belgian teams of past World Cups?
The
Belgians went a long way in answering those doubts on Monday with a
stirring, come-from-behind, 3-2 victory, the likes of which haven’t been
seen at the knockout stage of the World Cup for almost 50 years. The
electrifying comeback, in a match with all five goals scored in the
second half and capped by the Red Devils’ 94th-minute winner, sent
Belgium to a quarterfinal matchup against the five-time World Cup
champion Brazil on Friday in Kazan.
Midway
through the second half, though, it looked like Belgium’s next
destination would be home. The Belgians trailed by 2-0 against Japan,
the only team from Asia to reach the knockout stage in this tournament
of surprises, and looked almost certain to join the ranks of big-name
casualties. Then, a fluke goal in the 69th minute followed by another
five minutes later suddenly tied the game, and Belgium snatched the win
with a stunning, sweeping play finished off by the substitute Nacer
Chadli, sending what was practically the final kick of the game into the
Japanese net.
The
comeback was complete, recalling West Germany’s rallying from two goals
down to beat England at the 1970 World Cup in Mexico — the last time
such a deficit had been overcome in the knockout stages.
“There
are not many games you can overcome 2-0,” Roberto Martínez, Belgium’s
Spanish coach, said with a smile surely borne of relief as much as joy.
“It’s down to the personality, focus, the never-give-up attitude of
players.”
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Exactly
what kind of threat the Belgian players posed was hard to determine
before Monday night’s game, played in sweltering conditions in a city
about 700 miles south of Moscow. The Red Devils had brushed aside Panama
and Tunisia in its first two games before edging England 1-0 in a World
Cup equivalent of an exhibition game, with both teams already qualified
for the knockout rounds.
Japan,
in contrast, stumbled into the second round by virtue of having
received fewer yellow cards than Senegal in Group H, a hitherto unseen
World Cup tiebreaker. But Russia 2018 has already proved to be a
tournament full of strange turns.
After
a soporific first 45 minutes ended scoreless, more than 40,000
spectators at the Rostov Arena had little reason to expect the
remarkable, rollicking second half that awaited them.
It
started quickly, just three minutes into the second period. Belgium
defender Jan Vertonghen, who plays with Tottenham in England,
uncharacteristically whiffed in trying to stop a through ball from Gaku
Shibasaki, and Genki Haraguchi collected it and arrowed a shot into the
bottom left corner of Thibault Courtois’s goal.
Belgium,
like a boxer who after a blow to the jaw, seemed stunned, and Japan
took advantage. Takashi Inui doubled the lead four minutes later,
thundering a shot into the right corner from outside the area.
It
seemed a devastating turn for Belgium. But those setbacks set the team
free, Martínez said. His team began to play as if it had nothing to
lose.
“We played our first half almost with a fear of not being able to fulfill the tag of being favorite,” he said.
Eden
Hazard, the mercurial forward who had pinged a shot off the post
minutes before Japan’s second goal, said his mind drifted back two
years, to Belgium’s shocking quarterfinal defeat to Wales at the 2016
European Championships — an upset in which Belgium squandered an early
lead.
“But
we were also thinking if we can score goals the game is on,” he said.
“We have players that can change a game, we brought players from the
bench who made the difference.”
And
that’s exactly what happened. First, Vertonghen atoned for his error
with a strange looping header that floated just over Japanese goalkeeper
Eiji Kawashima, and then the substitutes began to make their presence
felt.
Nine
minutes after entering the field, Marouane Fellaini, a skyscraper-like
midfielder with Manchester United, powered an unstoppable header off a
cross from Hazard to tie the game.
The
game continued to fluctuate wildly from end to end. Japan, still
pressing for a victory, forced two saves from Courtois in stoppage time —
including one that would eventually lead to Chadli’s winning goal.
Courtois
snatched a corner kick out of the air with 93:30 on the clock. He laid
it off to midfielder Kevin De Bruyne, who surged up field before feeding
a streaking Thomas Meunier to his right. Meunier sent a low pass into
the area that Romelu Lukaku, in an act of remarkable coolness, allowed
to roll through his legs and into the path of Chadli for a simple
finish.
The
remarkable comeback complete, Belgian players mobbed the goal scorer
while their Japanese opponents slumped to the ground, some to their
haunches and others flat on their backs.
Akira
Nishino, Japan’s coach, stood stunned on the sidelines in his shirt
sleeves, unable to comprehend what had happened to his team. He remained
that way for several seconds until Martínez walked over to break the
spell. It was real. Japan had somehow succumbed in the most painful way
possible.
Nishino
was still suffering the effects 30 minutes later. “When we conceded the
goal,” he said, before pausing for several seconds, “I was questioning
myself whether I had control of the game. We were 2-0 up, and still the
score was reversed. I don’t think it was the players’ fault, it was me
who might have lost control of the game.”
It
was Belgium that stayed in control, finding a way out of a crisis that
previous generations of gifted Belgium teams had not escaped. Perhaps
the “golden generation” tag that this team has carried around like a
lead weight may finally yield the kind of success that eluded the
Belgians in France two years ago and at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
There, it ultimately bowed out to Argentina
in the quarterfinals after defeating the United States in the round of
16. Star struck, it played within itself, its fluency strangled by
anxiety. But after overcoming Japan in the most outrageous of
circumstances here, perhaps Belgium will not find Brazil, with its
frightening record of success and its galaxy of talent-rich players, as
frightening as it might have before Monday. And Belgium gets to be the
underdog again, a status that Martínez revels in.
“I
don’t think anyone expects us to get to semifinals,” he said. “From our
point of view, we can really enjoy it from the first second.”
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