On Friday and Saturday, the quarter-finals of the World Cup will take place, where it will be clear who will advance to the semi-finals and get closer to the champions' cup. You can watch all the tournament matches on the official broadcaster LRT.
Will France's attacking machine crush Uruguay's defense?
In the first quarter-final in Nizhny Novgorod, two teams that have not tasted defeat in the tournament yet - Uruguay and France - will meet. The statistics of these teams in the tournament are impressive, and their path to the quarter-final was secured, making it difficult to predict which one will reach the semi-final.
Uruguay easily collected points in the group stage, but their opponents were not the toughest. Victories against Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and hosts Russia did not show the true face of the South Americans. "La Celeste" revealed all their cards in the round of 16, where they defeated Portugal led by C. Ronaldo 2-1 and sent a serious signal to future opponents that defeating them will not be easy.
France's performance in the tournament group stage was also stable - they secured two victories against Australia and Peru. It was only in the last matches that the first goalless draw of the tournament was recorded against the Danish team when both teams were criticized for their sluggish performance. In the quarter-final, the stands had no complaints when 19-year-old Frenchman Kylian Mbappe simply destroyed Argentina's defense, ending the match with a 4-3 triumph for the Europeans.
Interesting fact is that Uruguay has only conceded one goal so far, while the French have already scored seven, so Didier Deschamps will have to decode the South Americans' defense schemes, which no team has defeated yet.
This task for the Europeans is more challenging than it seems. In the World Cup, Uruguay has not experienced defeats against "Les Bleus". From the last eight encounters between these teams, "La Celeste" has only lost once. What's even more interesting is that Uruguay has only failed to reach the semi-finals once in the last six encounters.
France's team promises good statistics - they have not lost to South American teams in nine consecutive matches at the World Cup. Interestingly, the French national team includes three of the five most expensive players in the tournament.
The Europeans can be happy because there are no injury reports in their team, but their opponents suffered a serious loss. In the match against Portugal, one of the main players of the team, Edinson Cavani, got injured and will reportedly not play in the match against France.
Possible line-ups:
Uruguay: Fernando Muslera; Martin Caceres, Jose Maria Gimenez, Diego Godin, Diego Laxalt; Nahitan Nandez, Lucas Torreira, Matias Vecino, Rodrigo Bentancur, Luis Suarez, Edinson Cavani/Cristhian Stuani.
France: Hugo Lloris, Benjamin Pavard, Raphael Varane, Samuel Umtiti, Lucas Hernandez, N'Golo Kante, Paul Pogba, Kylian Mbappe, Antoine Griezmann, Corentin Tolisso, Olivier Giroud.
Watch these matches on July 6 at 16:45 on LRT CULTURE and on the news portal LRT.lt.
Will Belgium show mercy to England?
The Belgium national football team is considered one of the 'stronger' teams in the tournament and they will face Brazil in the quarter-finals, one of the favorites. Will the Belgians still regret winning against the English in the last group stage match?
The "Red Devils" are truly ambitious. In the group stage, they dominated their opponents. First, they crushed Panama's footballers 3-0, and then they breezed past Tunisia's footballers 5-2. In the last group match, the Belgians only narrowly defeated the English 1-0, but the match in Kaliningrad did not feature the main line-ups of both teams.
The Belgians seemed to believe they were unbeatable, but in the round of 16, they had to swallow a bitter pill and barely escape from the match with Japan. Only in the last minute did an inspired goal save the Belgians and open the way to the next stage, while the Japanese footballers were sunk in tears. Belgium has not lost in 23 consecutive matches.
On the other hand, Tite's squad started the tournament disappointingly. The first match ended in a 1-1 draw against Switzerland, and in the next match, they only managed to win 2-0 against Costa Rica at the end of the game, so the fate of this team was decided in the last match against Serbia.
Here the South Americans finally rallied and defeated the Europeans 2-0, securing the first place in Group E, which football experts promised this team before the tournament started. However, they did not expect such uncertain performance.
Everything changed in the quarter-finals, where confidently playing Brazil defeated Mexico 2-0 and moved forward.
Brazil and Belgium had met four times in their history before the quarter-final match, and only once Belgium celebrated victory, while the other three times the South Americans won. However, the "Red Devils" should be confident as in the last three tournaments, in the fight for the champions' title, "A Selecao" was eliminated by European teams (2006 - France, 2010 - Netherlands, and 2014 - Germany).
It's worth noting that Brazil has only conceded one goal so far in this tournament, and the opponents have only managed to strike five times; however, this statistics may worsen as the Belgian team has the second most effective player in the tournament, Romelu Lukaku, and also Eden Hazard awaits his chances to strike. The Brazilian defense will have to pay close attention to them.
These matches will also focus on one of the most memorable players of this tournament, not always for the right reasons, Neymar. His reactions to the touches of other players have become the subject of ridicule for internet users and football specialists.
It is not clear yet whether Marcelo will be able to play for Brazil as he suffered an injury in the last match and had to leave the field at the beginning of the match. There are no injury reports in the Belgian team.
Possible line-ups:
Brazil: Alisson, Fagner, Thiago Silva, Miranda, Marcelo, Fernandinho, Paulinho, Willian, Philippe Coutinho, Neymar, Gabriel Jesus.
Belgium: Thibaut Courtois, Jan Vertonghen, Vincent Kompany, Toby Alderweireld, Axel Witsel, Kevin De Bruyne, Nacer Chadli, Thomas Meunier, Marouane Fellaini, Eden Hazard, Romelu Lukaku.
Watch these matches on July 6 at 20:45 on LRT CULTURE and on the news portal LRT.lt.
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