New Zealand 1-5 Belgium: FIFA World Cup Match Report

Belgium had scored one goal in two group matches before this. They scored five in this one. New Zealand 1-5 Belgium was almost entirely a second-half match — it stood at 0-1 at the interval — and it transformed a Belgian campaign that had produced next to nothing in front of goal into the best attacking return in Group G.

The half-time score is the part worth pausing on. For forty-five minutes New Zealand were a single goal down in a match they needed to win. They had drawn 2-2 with Iran in their opening game and lost 3-1 to Egypt, and a one-goal deficit at the break kept a theoretical route open. The four goals that followed closed it and then some.

New Zealand finished the group with four scored and ten conceded, comfortably the worst goal difference in Group G, and half of those ten came here. Belgium finished with six scored and two conceded, meaning five of their six group goals arrived in this single match after a 1-1 draw with Egypt and a goalless draw with Iran had produced only one. Few sides in the tournament left their scoring so late or delivered it so completely when it was finally needed.

First place. Belgium and Egypt both finished on five points, and Belgium took the group on goal difference, 6:2 against 5:3 — the four second-half goals here are the entire reason. Egypt drew 1-1 with Iran on the same day, so anything less than a heavy Belgian win would have reversed the order at the top.

Belgium's knockout run vindicated the timing. They reached the quarter-finals, where they lost 2-1 to Spain, the eventual champions, having improved with every round after a group stage that gave almost no indication of it. New Zealand went out bottom of the group on a single point, the one they had taken in their opening draw with Iran.

Our pre-match call was Double Chance 1X (New Zealand or Draw) at 1.42, and it lost by four goals.

The logic came from Belgium's group form, and on the evidence then available it was not unreasonable: one goal scored in two matches, a draw with Egypt and a goalless draw with Iran, against a New Zealand side that had already taken a point off Iran themselves. What the reading missed is that Belgium needed to win this match to top the group, and a team with something concrete to play for is a different proposition from one grinding out draws with qualification already in hand. The 0-1 half-time score kept the bet alive; nothing after it did. Verdict: lost