The Belgian team missed the open goal

The tournament in Group F of the World Football Championship ended with his farewell to, as it turned out, the Belgian national team, which had really passed its peak, which in the decisive match for reaching the playoffs could not defeat another prize-winner of the previous championship – the Croatian team, having played with it – 0: 0, and who goes home with bitter memories of Romelu Lukaku’s few 100% ending moments. The Croatians got into the 1/8 finals along with the Moroccans, who sensationally took first place in the quartet. In the final round, they defeated – 2: 1 – Canadians.

Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium watched the match between two rapidly leaving natures. It was impossible to argue with the fact that they are leaving, that these variants of the Croatian and Belgian teams, approximately in the same form in which they arrived in Qatar, who had been performing for many, many years, had a future, it was impossible to argue. On the field, even despite the fact that the Belgian coach Roberto Martinez finally seated, for example, the completely sour Eden Hazard on the bench, there are 12 people aged 30 years and more. You can make a whole team, and there will still be a necessary spare player: veterans get tired quickly. In the history of the world championships, there were only two cases when a little more of them participated in a match – a damn dozen: in 1998 in a meeting between the Brazilians and the Scots and in 2018, when the Argentines played with the Icelanders.

The reality was brutal: one of those aged but still highly rated, still full of class, still beloved by millions of national teams must face a dire future right now, not even making it to the opening round of the playoffs.

On Canadians, outsiders of group F, there was little hope. And it became even less when, already at the beginning of their match against the Moroccans, who were on a par with the Croats at the head of the table, a point ahead of the Belgians, they conceded after a terrible mistake by goalkeeper Milan Boryan, who presented the ball to Hakim Ziyech. We had to survive on our own.

They survived the best they could. The Belgian national team, presumably, immediately sent those who were sweet, those who, despite all their problems, highlighted, like a bright spotlight, matches with the Canadian and Moroccan teams, into a state of shock. No, she didn’t concede an early goal, but she seems to have done her best to concede it. On a segment lasting a couple of minutes, such a panic arose twice in her penalty area that it is even surprising how the Croats did not take advantage of it. Ivan Perisic, having missed the wide-open far corner, muttered something under his breath, apparently cursing his own ill-luck.

Then a chill of anxiety must have felt the Croatian fans. Just now, their team was similar to the one that recently confidently dealt with the Canadians, hinting that it would definitely be enough for one more top tournament, that, unlike the Belgians, it definitely did not lose all the supply of freshness and positive emotions.

And suddenly – breakdown after breakdown: loss of the ball, holes in the rear. But composure was not the Belgian ally that evening either. Yannick Carrasco did not understand how to cope with the wall that appeared in front of him from goalkeeper Dominik Livakovic and defender Josip Yuranovich, and wasted the seconds allotted for making a decision. And Dries Mertens, after a very subtle pass from Kevin de Bruyne, finding that there was no one on the way except Livakovich, for some reason tried to fool him with a beautiful, but complex “parachute” in touch. “Parachutik” flew somewhere into the sky.

The retribution for ill-luck promised to be cruel. After the standard, the ball bounced around the Belgian penalty area, and Carrasco, who was awkwardly taming it, stepped on Andrei Kramaric’s foot, and referee Anthony Taylor appointed an exciting attraction – a fight between the two leaders of Real Madrid, the Croatian penalty taker Luka Modric and the Belgian goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois, two heroes who know their habits very well each other.

But the duel of dreams was not destined to take place. The inclusion of VAR seemed like a mere formality, but Taylor suddenly rushed to the screen with the face of a man who was told that he would see aliens landing on it in the arena where he works. He saw offside, which arose during the execution of the standard. Tiny, such that only electronics can see. So the attraction had to be canceled, returning to a slightly boring game after that.

And the parallel game was fun. Hakim Ziyech scored again, now with an assist to Yousef En-Nesiri. And the Canadians did not want to leave Qatar with three defeats in a row and forced the Moroccans to send the ball into their own net.

In the main match of the group, the fun began after the break. It didn’t take a deep knowledge of football tactics and strategy to guess who Martinez would seem to be the last hope to pull his team out of the swamp. Well, of course he threw Romelu Lukaku into the fight. And everything immediately spun, spun.

The Belgian attack came to life: Lukaku hit the target, which none of his partners managed to do in the entire first half. Wound up, feeling that it is dangerous to play in a calm mode, the Croats. In response to Lukaku’s blow, they delivered three of their own. Thibaut Courtois checked each of the three pivotal Croatian midfielders – Mateo Kovacic, Marcelo Brozovic and Luka Modric. Courtois handled everything.

And then Romelu Lukaku was back in the spotlight. Kevin de Bruyne threw another amazing pass to Yannick Carrasco. He hesitated, ran into the Croatian defenders, but from this the Belgian chance, oddly enough, turned into a chance – gigantic, one hundred percent. Lukaku picked up the rebound, and in front of him were – no, not inviting, but literally demanding to send the ball to them gates. It was easier to score than from a penalty kick. Lukaku managed to put the ball into the post, making this moment-long episode remember everything that happened to him, once a devastatingly effective striker, in the seasons leading up to the World Cup – about the unsuccessful transfer to Chelsea, about the injury after returning to ” Inter, which completely spoiled the preparation for the championship.

Smearing from a position from which it is unthinkable to miss, Romelu Lukaku symbolized the entire Belgian national team – for years holding on to the top of the football rating and not noticing how those same glorious years eventually devoured all its power with giblets.

However, this miss in vain seemed to be the culmination and quintessence of the match, the culmination and quintessence of collective Belgian troubles and personal troubles of Romelu Lukaku, because after the period of Croatian pressure there was still an ending – with the pressure of the Belgian team, which nevertheless found reserves in itself to fall on opponents. Lukaku came close to the goal three times – and blundered three times. In one case, when the ball had to be sent into the goal from two meters. He sent it into the hands of Dominik Livakovich – gently, comfortably. If Lukaku were a Croatian defender, he should have been applauded for such a discount. But he was the last hope to deceive the fate of Roberto Martinez, who immediately after the end of the match announced that he was retiring, and the Belgian team leaving the stage.

The Croatians, silver medalists of the 2018 World Cup, remained on the stage – at least in Qatar – having entered the playoffs from second place in the group, as the Moroccans did not miss the victory in the meeting with the Canadians. Their rivals in the 1/8 finals were determined late in the evening Moscow time after the end of the final round matches in group E, in which all teams could both advance to the play-offs and fly out of the championship. The Spaniards played with the Japanese, and the Germans played with the Costa Ricans.

Alexey Dospekhov