Right away, I'll let you know that I'm biased. My all time favorite team is Chelsea F.C. in the English Premier League, and both their goalkeeper (Courtois) and 10 player (Hazard) are Belgian and a part of the starting lineup. I was a goalkeeper, and Courtois is one of the best in the world, so of course he's my favorite Chelsea player and I'm going to pull for his national team.
However, you should pull for Belgium because they are going to finish in the top three at the very least.
Belgium won their opening game 3-0 after a lackluster first half. In the second half, they played with more urgency and finesse and scored three goals. The quality on their roster and the fact that they proved against Panama that they can connect to get solid results proves that they are a winning team in this tournament. In their game against Tunisia, they won 6-2, doing everything in the first half that they didn't do against Panama, scoring early and playing with a flourish.
During qualifying, they lost none of their games and only tied once, meaning that they won the ten other games. Courtois had 6 clean sheets and only conceded 6 goals, which is impressive considering they played 11 games and lost none of those. They scored 46 goals, averaging 4 per game. This is a team that likes to score and they certainly have the capability to.
The players on their roster are stellar.
Eden Hazard, Romelu Lukaku, Thibuat Courtois, Dries Mertens, Kevin De Bruyne these are all players who are in very good form right now. De Bruyne just won the Premier League title with Manchester City, and he was definitely important in that win. He won the playmaker award in the 17/18 season, the season in which they won the league. He also scored 8 goals for Manchester City this past season. Courtois and Hazard won the FA cup with Chelsea this past season, and Courtois had 15 clean sheets this past season. Courtois is also very good with his feet and passes from the back with ease and gets the ball back into play quickly, rolling or throwing it out.
Lukaku is a powerhouse striker who uses his size very intelligently and has excellent technique. This helped him score 16 goals with Manchester United this past season and two goals for Belgium in their first game. Despite his size, he had 0 red cards with Manchester United, and I think that reflects kindly upon the way he likes to play. Hazard had 12 goals and also 0 red cards. Mertens scored a beautiful goal for Belgium in their first match and currently plays for Napoli in Italy. There he scored 19 goals with them in this past season. They finished second in Serie A. Mertens also received 0 red cards and minimal yellow cards as well.
Seeing as Spain has given up several foolish freekicks in the world cup thus far, along with several other teams, it is important to pull for a team who has disciplined key players. Discipline is key in soccer, where a foul called can decide the outcome of the game.
Belgium has the players who can score, a solid defense and goalkeeper, and the discipline necessary to see a lead all the way through the game. They're the team I'm pulling for this world cup, not only because of club loyalties, but also because of the talent and finesse with which they play that impressed me greatly during the last world cup. The team was on the younger side four years ago, and now I think they have the age and therefore experience as a team that is sometimes necessary in soccer. Go Belgium!
