Belgium

Belgium Kicks Off WC 2010 Qualifying With A Win

Belgium played their first World Cup 2010 qualifying match yesterday. They played against Estonia in Liege at Sclessin Stadium. The Rode Duivels were without Tchité (didn’t qualify) and Dembele (injury). We opened the match offensively with several chances. In the first half, Stijnen only had to make two saves. Eventually, we scored the first goal thanks to Wesley Sonck. Sergei Zenjov evened the score in the 57th minute. Our defense poorly marked Zenjov and Stijnen conceded the goal. Steven Defour scored another goal for Belgium after Sonck and Mirallas had scoring opportunities. The last goals of the match were scored by Sonck (80′, and 2nd goal of the match) and Oper (which brought some consolation to Estonia). Final score: Belgium 3-2 Estonia. Narrow victory for Belgium, but we can build off of the result. Match facts:
Line-ups:
Belgium
* Stijn STIJNEN (GK)
* Axel WITSEL
* Daniel VAN BUYTEN
* Jan VERTONGHEN
* Kevin MIRALLAS Out (-76′)
* Marouane FELLAINI
* Steven DEFOUR Goal
* Thomas VERMAELEN Out (-70′)
* Timmy SIMONS
* Vincent KOMPANY
* Wesley SONCK Out (-92′)
Subs
* Filip DAEMS
* Gaby MUDINGAYI
* Gill SWERTS
* Jelle VAN DAMME In (+70′)
* Olivier RENARD
* Stein HUYSEGEMS In (+92′)
* Tom DE SUTTER In (+76′)

Estonia
* (GK) Pavel LONDAK
* Aleksandr DMITRIJEV
* Alo BARENGRUB
* Andres OPER
* Dmitri KRUGLOV
* Enar JAAGER
* Joel LINDPERE
* Ragnar KLAVAN
* (-43′) Out Raio PIIROJA
* (-60′) Out Sergei ZENJOV
* (-78′) Out Tarmo KINK
Subs
* (+43′) In Andrei STEPANOV
* Artur KOTENKO
* Kaimar SAAG
* Konstantin VASSILJEV
* (+60′) In Martin VUNK
* Yellow Card (+78′) In Sander PURI
* Tihhon SISOV

Goals:
Belgium
* Wesley SONCK (40′, 80′)
* Steven DEFOUR (75′)

Estonia
* Sergei ZENJOV (57′)
* Andres OPER (93′)

Our next WC 2010 qualifier is against Turkey this Wednesday. That should be a tough one. The Turks are ranked #10 in the world and they had a great Euro 2008. My prediction: 2-1 Turkey.