Belgium defeats England by 4-2 in London Cup
Belgium defeated England by 4-2 in the second game of the first day during the London Cup, which is being played at University of Westminster Sports Ground in Chiswick, London, England, on July 13.
The match was quite entertaining and was played in full flow, where the English side dominated Belgium for most of the time in first half, leading by two goals to one at the interval, but Belgium really came back strongly in later part of the second half
and scored three quick goals to seal the victory.
The first half started with an early strike by England, when Richard Alexander opened the English account in the 9th minute, scoring a beautiful field goal, while they doubled their lead ten minutes before the half-time, when the skipper, Barry
Middleton, made the strike in 25th minute. However, five minutes before the internal, Belgium succeeded in reducing the English lead the help of a beautiful field goal from John-John Dohmen.
In the second half, the Belgian athletes were in full action as they scored three goals in last seventeen minutes, all on penalty-corners. Their first and the third goal of the second half were scored by Alexandre De Saedeleer in 53rd and 65th
minute, while the second one was scored by Jerome Dekeyser in 57th minute.
Colin Batch, the coach of the Belgian side, looked quite delighted with the performance of his team and viewed this victory as an idyllic preparation for the forthcoming European Championships.
“It’s the first tournament we’ve played in since the World Cup Qualifier in 2009. Good preparation for European championship. It’s a case of very much of what we can learn from this tournament as we progress from this tournament and beyond.” Colin Batch
explained after the victory.
“The half time message was about self belief. When you’re 2-0 down it means you start doing something you shouldn’t be doing and you need to have belief in yourself. At these times you don’t have control – we were 2-0 down but kept going.” Maxime Luych,
the Belgium skipper, stated his views after the match.
On the other side the English coach, Jason Lee, seemed very disappointed over the performance of his athletes in front of the home crowd and also stated that the players played poorly throughout the match as they missed a number of goal-scoring opportunities
in the first half.
Barry Middleton, the English skipper, also admitted the poor play from the national side and added that they have a bad habit of not winning at home.
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