Watching Belgium under Tedesco: Two systems, resurgent Lukaku and impressive Lukebakio

The March match round is generally the least anticipated and representative break in the football calendar. The domestic title and relegation battles are heating up, and the Champions League is in full swing.

This year was at least a little different. In 2023, with the World Cup in November and his December, the international window in March was the first. We’ve seen a lot of new managers, a lot of debutants, and some die-hard veterans are somehow still holding out for the next tournament in the cycle.

A good example of the latter is Belgium. They endured a disastrous World Cup, ending the group stage with one win out of three. .

Martinez will be replaced by German-Italian coach Domenico Tedesco. Relatively new after his promising but ultimately disappointing ten months in charge of RB Leipzig. The former Leipzig manager didn’t do very well at his job — see the experiences of Ralf Rangnick (Manchester United), Julian Nagelsmann (Bayern Munich) and Jesse March (Leeds United) Please — but Tedesco is a highly rated coach with very different abilities. How to work to Martinez. Already, this feels like the new Belgium.

Along with the retirements of Eden Hazard and Alderweireld, Tedesco has named a team without 130-cap Axel Witsel and 109-cap Dries Mertens for this month’s game. This quartet represents his second to fifth place players on the Belgian all-time list of appearances. Outright leader Jan He Vertonghen is surprisingly still alive and well and by the time he is 36 he has amassed up to 146 caps in a month.

There was also, in theory, no place for several players in their prime: Thorgan Hazard and Youri Tielemans were also sidelined (the latter due to injury). A total of 11 players were absent from this first team selected by Tedesco. would you like to exchange them?

Tedesco’s first international break featured two tricky matches. A trip to snowy Stockholm for the European Championship qualifiers and a friendly against Germany in Cologne, just an hour’s drive from the Belgian border.

Overall, things couldn’t get any better for the new Belgian boss.

Sweden, which rarely blows out a team, is a tough team to play against, especially when temperatures are well below freezing. Luckily, Friday night Friends her arena roof was closed.

Before the game, Belgium’s new captain Kevin De Bruyne was asked if he and his team had a good idea of ​​how Sweden would play. We could have predicted that we would play -4-2 and be happy to play without the ball for a long time.

Part of Tedesco’s response was to mimic the Swedish shape. Without possession, his side looked like his 4-4-2, with Romelu Lukaku and Leandro Trossard in the front two. Interestingly, Lukaku wore the number 10 jersey and Trossard wore the number 9 shirt. In the defensive phase, they concentrated on drop-offs and prevented passes to the Swedish central midfielder. This is pure 4-4-2.

Tedesco is often seen at the edge of his technical area doing the “compact” coaching gesture, possibly invented by Rafa Benítez, now accepted as part of football’s version of International Sign Language. increase.

But possession turned Belgium into something else like 4-1-4-1.

Lukaku was left alone up front, while Trossard joined De Bruyne between the lines. The two have essentially become a ‘free eight’, something De Bruyne has become accustomed to at Manchester City. De Bruyne’s role was particularly free. Sometimes he overlapped cross position, other times he pushed into the left inside channel.

Both moves helped Belgium invade the right flank. And while Lukaku was the obvious player of the match, scoring all three goals in a comfortable debut for Tedesco, the game’s biggest winner was right winger Dodi Lukebacchio.

Martínez has won four caps in recent years, but Lukevakio has never been in the spotlight as he was left out of the World Cup squad.

A player enjoying his best season at club level with 10 goals for relegation-threatened Hertha Berlin in the Bundesliga, four of which came from the penalty spot, the 25-year-old Always a threat to Sweden. Belgium overloaded the left flank and soon switched play to Luke Bakio, who was playing as an inverted winger on the right.

Inverted wingers tend to cut and shoot inside. They can be too predictable. Luke Bakio did it once early on Friday, but after that he showed impressive versatility in the game.

When he next received the ball in space, he waited for De Bruyne’s trademark overlap and fed the skipper, who crossed and shot Yannick Carrasco just wide of the far post. rice field.

Then after a short corner Luke Bakio crossed a Wout Faes header on goal but fell. Luquebakio cut inside again and threw his ball in-swing into the box, while Lukaku went for a goal from his post far.

After halftime, again after a short corner, Belgium doubled their lead when Luquebakio dribbled on the outside and played a low ball across the 6-yard box before Lukaku finished from close range. . Luquebakio was an all-around player, crossing, shooting and outside downs.

Lukaku’s second goal of the night prompted a tired-looking former Serie A rival Zlatan Ibrahimovic to get off the Swedish bench and start warming up. He did eventually make it out, but this gave the 41-year-old a closer look at Inter Milan’s Chelsea loaner’s hat-trick in the last ten minutes. This time it was Johan Bakayoko’s debut for his PSV Eindhoven, thanks to the right winger’s superb wing play.

Based on this evidence, Belgium’s next generation looks very promising — at least in one position.

Then came a trip to Germany, the country Tedesco called his home before the game. He was born in Italy, but his family moved to the Stuttgart area for his job when he was two years old.

Conveniently, his surname is Italian for “German.”

Tedesco have changed the system of the friendly in Cologne – Trossard has been ruled out, Orel Mangala has joined the side to strengthen their midfield and De Bruyne has moved up to tenth.

And in the first 20 minutes, Belgium completely blew the hosts away.

De Bruyne’s advanced positioning behind Lukaku worked brilliantly. With a spectacular passing move through the German press, they switched play, linking to Carrasco running down the left and opening the scoring in the 6th minute. And three minutes later, De Bruyne brought in Lukaku to double the lead.

Belgium could have scored more. Luquebakio hit a narrow shot in his 1-1 and Lukaku’s header hit the crossbar.

As Belgium dominated, Tedesco’s opposite number, Hansi Flick, forced a tactical substitution of the two after half an hour, bringing more tenacity to the midfield. “We were too passive to put pressure on them,” Flick said afterwards. “Belgium used this mercilessly.”

Especially Lukaku was great. The striker, who was often criticized for his poor touch, caused serious problems when receiving the ball with his back to goal.

At one point in the early minutes, Vertonghen smashed a pass into the channel, Lukaku glared back and told a defender to bring the ball to his feet. , swept the ball towards the runners from the depths.

Considering the way Lukaku played in the World Cup — leaving Belgium with his shirt over his face after a series of late mistakes in the goalless group finale against Croatia — two games under a new manager 4 goals in gives a much-needed boost of confidence…he is now in the top five all-time international goalscorers of European countries.

However, Lukaku’s handball allowed Germany to get back into the game from the penalty spot just before half-time, leaving Belgium under sustained pressure in the second half.

Tedesco brought in so many substitutes to watch the match that at one point he was forced to count the number of “substitution slots” he had used with the referee on his fingers. Ultimately, Belgium put the game to bed with a counter-attacking goal from De Bruyne with 12 minutes remaining in normal time before Serge Gnabry got a second-half consolation.

A 3-0 win in Sweden and a 3-2 victory in Germany would be a great first international window for Tedesco. But beyond the result itself, this suggests a serious improvement from the dismal last days under Martinez. .

Most importantly, Lukaku is back in form and De Bruyne enjoys an even more important role after Hazard’s retirement.

A speedy and efficient winger, and a focus on defensive organization and compactness often lacking under Martínez, Belgium are set to make their next appearance in Germany, likely at next summer’s European Championships. In matches, it can be a serious force.

(Photo above: Vincent Kalut / Photo News via Getty Images)