12 Tweets 2 reads Nov 24, 2022
๐Ÿงต Thread: How did Canada cause Belgium big problems?๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ช
HIGH PRESS
Canada were really aggressive in spells particularly in the first half, winning the ball back high in the middle 3rd and Belgium's defensive third and then playing direct passes into the forwards.
This first image is from the 7th minute- Canada put lots of pressure onto Belgium's left-hand side and have SIX players within such a small area of the pitch. You can see the front 3 players already looking to make direct runs in between Belgium's lines.
This is the second image of this phase and you can see that one Canadian attacker has already strayed offside.
When Canada eventually do counter their attack is made up of 5 players and this proved their early intent in the first few minutes of the game.
This is the 13th minute, Thibaut Courtois is directly pressed and Canada cut off the majority of the passing angles for Belgium.
Eventually the ball is cleared by the GK, straight to a Canada player and thus they start an attack. I was really impressed with the aggression and intensity of the Canadian press early in the game.
This is in the second half, again the incentive is clear force Belgium into mistakes, with Canada's pressing numbers outnumbering Belgium's players during build-up. Belgium managed to beat the press on a few occasions but it was largely successful from a Canada point of view.
DIRECT RUNS in behind
Constantly throughout the 90, Canada were targeting Belgium's lack of intensity and even mobility at times, with really direct runs in behind Belgium's back line- who could not handle it.
Canada's front 3 of Hoilett, David and Buchanan were far too intense and aggressive for Belgium and runs between wing-back and centre-back, as well as movements between the Belgium back 3, were constant.
Canada really did set down a blueprint of how to target this Belgium team, but just did not have the quality with the final finish + decision making as well. If the quality was superior, Canada would have come away with a comfortable victory.
Thank you for reading this thread, I hope you enjoyed it. Please bear in mind I had to produce this quickly before the other World Cup matches are in the spotlight on Thursday. Please do LIKE, RETWEET AND FOLLOW @ThreadmanChaza for more threads like these.
*Apologies, should read Davies, David and Buchanan instead of Hoilett, David and Buchanan.

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