In Villa Sporza, the negativism that lived after the defeat against Morocco was chased away and exchanged for more positivism or hope. Analyst Arnar Vidarsson was called in to thoroughly understand the game of the Red Devils and to give tips to the national coach.
Now that the dust has settled after the Moroccan blow-up, sobriety can return. And who is more down-to-earth than the cool Icelander Arnar Vidarsson? Vidarsson delved into the “hidden” statistics of the Belgian team especially for Villa Sporza.
“I’ve been looking for a solution and the problem is that the players lack guts and an over-my-corpse mentality.”
“Martinez is now being shot too easily, who has always protected his players. He treats them like his children and you never let them down.”
“But it is up to those players to show more guts now. It makes more sense that you become more careful as you get older. When I was 19 I bungee jumped, now I would never do that again.”
Take the pressure off your shoulders. Dare to play that ball into the 16.
“Martinez doesn’t ask to play that ball around endlessly”
Vidarsson brings in the data to support his point of view. “It took the Belgians 65 ball keys to get into 16 meters once. Purely because they don’t dare to give that difficult pass. Top teams do, the Belgians did too a few years ago.”
“The data also indicate that the Belgian players want to run deep, there is enough movement. Only that ball is not played.”
“That’s why: dare to play that ball into the 16. Throw that pressure off your shoulders! They can do it all. Martinez doesn’t ask to play that ball around endlessly. The players do that themselves.”
Isn’t an important problem that master passer Kevin De Bruyne was not used enough for the time being? “De Bruyne has asked for the ball 87 times, but only received it 30 times. Then it is logical that at some point he will ask the defense for the ball. But that is exactly what the opposition wants.”
