"I'm getting older, so I want to spend my last few years showing young players what to do as a player and a leader. I hope this helps the boys because they will be the ones to lead the team in the future. Just like we have done for the past 12 years,â this is what Belgium captain De Bruyne said after his team defeated Romania 2-0. For "Ding Ding", he has achieved the ultimate in single-core combat, but the team's performance still seems to be far behind expectations.
Is De Bruyne being modest when he says he is old? Yes and no. In terms of age alone, De Bruyne, who was born in 1991, can indeed be classified as a veteran, but judging from his overall performance, in addition to the fact that the number of goals has indeed dropped significantly compared with previous seasons. , his performance in passing is still the best in the world, and can even be said to be one of the two or three best people. At the club level, Manchester City struggled without him, but after he returned from injury, everything changed, and the team finally defended the Premier League title.
At the national team level, this situation is even more obvious. With Hazard withdrawing from the national team and Lukaku's goals basically relying on luck, the Belgian team can almost only rely on Deb if it wants to perform well. Laone's performance as a person, "being a father and being a mother at the same time" is not an exaggeration to describe his current situation. After all, in addition to passing the ball, he must also have the ability to score goals, otherwise the team will struggle.
In this game, facing the Romanian team that had performed well before, the Belgians were a little scared. Although the opponent's reputation and overall strength on paper were not on an equal footing with the "European Red Devils", it has to be said that this team The Eastern European teams are in much better shape than Belgium. If they cannot win, another wave of verbal criticism will await the Belgian team.
Fortunately, Tielemans' goal in the first 2 minutes relieved the team's pressure, but to completely put the team at ease, De Bruyne's goal in the 80th minute must be mentioned. At that time, the Romanian defender's header went over the head, and De Bruyne suddenly got a solo shot, holding on to Dragusin's shovel and scoring, sealing the victory.
Data shows that the Belgian captain tried his best in both offense and defense in this campaign, and many statistics ranked highest in the game. Specifically, he made 23 passes in the offensive third, winning 12 of them. In addition, he shot 5 times in the game (tied for first place), shot 3 times on target (tied for first place), successfully passed people 3 times, and also completed 4 steals. After
scored 3 points, the Belgian temporarily raised his ranking to second in the standings. Since Ukraine won Slovakia 2-1 in this round, after the 2 rounds, the four teams in Group E all scored 3 points with 1 win and 1 loss. This is also the first time in the history of the European Cup that 4 teams have the same points after two rounds of the group stage. Case. And because of this, all four teams may qualify first in the group, or they may all be eliminated at the bottom of the group. In the final round, Ukraine will play Belgium and Slovakia will play Romania.
There is no doubt that the next game is another critical moment of "life and death". Of course, Belgium still relies on De Bruyne's performance, but others cannot fall too far behind.
Text/Beijing Youth Daily reporter Zhang Kunlong
editor/Wang Haozhou
