English star Harry Kane fails to increase his lead in the Golden Boot race, but Southgate has no regrets

There was a competition between England and the Belgium – two teams that had already qualified for the knockout stages of the 2018 FIFA World Cup, even before the start of their last Group G game on Thursday, but not necessarily on the field, the two leaders seek to know who can change their starting lineup.

In the end, Roberto Martinez beat Gareth Southgate by a hair, realizing one more change than his counterpart, Belgium bringing out nine new players to their starting lineup, while England did not could handle only eight.

An additional change did the deal, with one of the men who came in – Adnan Januzaj – scoring the winner for Belgium in a 1-0 win against England.

The goal was brilliant, with Januzaj, the former Manchester United player, twisting and turning Danny Rose, before scoring and pbading a nice shot past Jordan Pickford after six minutes of play. [19659005] This moment of individual brilliance was the only real positive point in an otherwise disappointing match, with all these changes, inevitably, affecting the cohesion of both sides

The two teams will undoubtedly bring their best teams for the last 16 games – Belgium will play against Japan, while England will face a more delicate opponent in Colombia – and England will have to go through their first defeat of the 2018 FIFA World Cup and hope that this will not happen. has no negative effect on their form and their confidence. Especially as England has suffered from the elimination of Euro 2016 by Iceland, after Roy Hodgson, the manager of England for this tournament , has made a series of changes to his line-up for the last group match. We wanted to win but the knockout is the biggest game in ten years for us and we had to make sure our key players were preserved, "said Southgate." Sometimes you have to look at the big picture and make decisions that in some circles could be criticized. "19659005" But everyone understands – in the cloakroom and in the group – what we are trying to do. ] "With respect, in the Euros, I think we only had a few minutes in advance of one of the games." Here we played very well, we played well in the games that preceded and followed the tournament. I think we played badly (against Belgium).

While changes were expected , the initial feeling was that Southgate would start with Harry Kane and take him away at half-time, with the striker eager to cement his first place in the Golden Boot race.Kane is leading with five goals , one ahead Romelu Lukaku, who did not play Belgium on Thursday, and Cristiano Ronaldo.

However, Southgate felt that Kane was not worth it, especially if we consider it is important for the hopes of England

"If we put Harry on for 10 minutes and someone had raked his ankle, that would have been ridiculous, the knockout game is important. a responsibility to the fans, and the support in the stadium was absolutely outstanding tonight. The support and encouragement of the house has been brilliant. But when you are a leader and a manager, you must make decisions that are right for your group to reach the main goal.

"Sometimes you have to make decisions for an overview."

England has impressed up here in this tournament, but while playing limited opposition in their first two games. And while Colombia managed to finish top of Group H, it was far from impressive.

Leads an attack similar to that against Panama, who left the tournament without a point after sinking 2-1 in Tunisia. will have a very good chance of going to the quarterfinals.