Italy Belgium notes

First game that felt like a proper tournament game I think. Late evening, both crowds roaring and two high-quality sides trying to take the game to each other.

-Hazard. An incredibly gifted player, who's ball control is up there with the very best in the world. But his decision-making unfortunately, let's him down far too often. He's a defender's nightmare: get tight and he'll draw you in and spin you, stand off and that gives him the room to face goal, pick up speed and run. His ability to hang onto the ball means that wherever on the field he receives it (after coming too deep for instance), he usually always finds a way to skip past a couple of men and drive into a threatening area. But it's his final ball which separates him from the world's best: plays it at the wrong time far too much.

-Italy. Loved watching them. Was picked up by everyone watching that they looked like a proper team of 11 men working together (Belgium didn't). Whatever Belgium's defensive shape was, Italy made an absolute mockery of it. Constantly used the full width of the pitch to great affect. Would carefully keep the ball, suck Belgium in and then ping one out-wide to their spare man. Pelle and Eder worked very hard up front to hassle the Belgian backline.

Also were top at the back. Incredibly well-drilled. For the majority of the game, managed to restrict Belgium to shots from outside of the area, most of which were closed down and blocked - was actually astounding to see the sheer volume of blocked Belgian shots at goal, and the unrelenting determination of that Italian backline and midfield to outnumber the Belgian attackers in the final third. Bonucci's pass  (assist) was worth watching the whole game for alone.

-Lukaku should have levelled with the chance he had. And Belgium had one or two other openings which just didn't quite fall in their favour. But overall, they were very poor. A lot of supposedly talented players in that team, but all appeared to just have no idea how to combine and coordinate their movements effectively with each other.