Japan vs. Belgium
Rostov Arena, Rostov-on-Don
Belgium enters the round of 16 with new motivation following the early exits of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo from the knockout stage. Midfielder Eden Hazard explained that the ousting of the world’s top players is “good for us,” because it clears heavyweights Argentina and Portugal from Belgium’s championship path (although heavyweights Brazil, France and Uruguay remain).
Still, Hazard is not letting his team sleep on a Japanese team that only qualified for the round of 16 via FIFA’s fair play tiebreaker.
“If we think this is going to be easy [against Japan], we may lose,” Hazard said (via the Telegraph), “so we need to be very serious, very focused right from the beginning.