Win puts spring in Belgium’s step – News

Speaking after that game Belgium coach Marc Wilmots defended De Bruyne, commenting: “If I had an explanation for Kevin’s performance I’d give you one”.

Manchester City playmaker De Bruyne looked jaded and struggled throughout in Lyon, while Lukaku missed a glorious chance to equalise before Graziano Pelle wrapped up the Azzurri’s with a late second.

“As a team, we had to give a response to everybody who watched the game against Italy”, Hazard said. We have to win the game.

We knew if they played in diamond, we would have opportunity to get full-backs up.

If you saw the training sessions and five-a-side matches we have in Ireland meet-ups, you would appreciate the quality we have in the group representing our country.

Many of these players perform in the Premier League, which is meant to be the most competitive in world football.

In the 70th minute, Belgium added a third in a delicious move that encapsulated the invention and panache that has always been expected from this talented squad.

Belgium now in the box seat to progress from Group E with a game to play against Sweden.

He said: “We take confidence even though we went 3-0 down, we kept the ball well and that’s what we have got to do for 90 minutes against Italy”.

The display against Sweden at the Stade de France on Monday backs up the points I am trying to highlight here.

But he was at the forefront of a recovery Saturday, finding the back of the net twice in a 3-0 win against the outclassed Ireland. “It didn t materialise but now we have to go and throw everything into the match to prevent Italy from scoring and try to win the game ourselves”.

“Then you start to chase the game a bit, get stretched, and of course very fine players can punish you, and that s what happened”. “I think we came up with the right strategy”.

“When you’re attacking, you’re sometimes at your most vulnerable”.

O’Neill did not see the incident before Lukaku’s opener when two Belgian players appeared to catch Shane Long in the head with high, flying boots in their own penalty area but he revealed that his players were adamant it should have been a penalty. “We felt that we could do something in this game but it didn’t materialise and now we just have to do everything we can to beat Italy”. I live with criticism. We knew that the first goal would be important.

Despite having only lost three competitive games in over four years as manager, Wilmots and his team were criticised heavily in the wake of a 2-0 loss against Italy in their opening Euro 2016 match.