Brazil V Belgium World Cup 2018

Brazil V Belgium

Synopsis in red

Beers: Round of 8 Beer World Cup:

Similar in the football, Belgium were also strong on the beer front, coming top in a relatively strong group, Beer Group G, with a duo of beers from Jessenhofke and Kamill. On the other side, Brazil didn’t get out of their Beer Group E, so Switzerland represent them here.

Switzerland V Belgium

Switzerland (Dr. Brauwolf, Celestial Brewery, Soo. Soors Beer) easily powered home in my Beer Group E, no problem at all, and in the last 16 they beat popular Mexican beer, Corona. While Belgium (Jessenhofke and Kamil) had a tough close encounter with England (London Pride) to come top of Beer Group G, but just got there in the end as group winners. They had a some what easier time dispatching of Colombia (Club Colombia) in the last 16.

Celestial Brewery Soo. Soors Beer Dr. Brauwolf

Jessenhofke Kamil

Was a big hard fought match up between Belgium and Switzerland in my beer world cup last eight encounter.

Started off drinking some water to mentally prepare for it! Eh?

Yeah that’s right, Dr. Brauwolf’s hopfenwasser, it is lovely fresh water with some hops and citrus notes. Kind of weird, but also kind of cool. Against Jessenhofke’s PMPRNI Tripel bier, which was loaded with lovely fruits and citrus, well there was only going to be one winner and that was the Belgian blonde.

So second match up was between Jessenhofke’s Maya, a 6% Belgian blonde, against Soo. Soors Session IPA. Although both were great beers, and I enjoyed the two, I will give this first goal to the Swiss beer, as it did exactly what it said on the tin! It was very sessionable and very easy to drink. Maya certainly had more bang for its buck, more kick, and looked fantastic, but the “magic” beer won out in this opener.

Last match up and the decider was betwee n Kamil’s Moktamee, a big 75cl bottle of pure rocket fuel, against Celestial Brewery’s L’elektron Libre, an American style amber beer. I really loved both beers. Moktamee had a lovely dark purple appearance with a nice head, a hoppy tasty effort but strong enough to give it a good kick, while L’elektron Libre had a very strong caramelized malt aroma and taste that I found very interesting. Id give it as a draw to be honest. So that means the tie end 2-2 a piece and with no penalty decider I have decided to put Switzerland through to the last 4 as the range of styles are that tad bit more unique than the usual Belgians that are quite common these days. But it was damn close and a pity that two big beer nations in my world cup met so early on in the draw.

Read who qualified for my Beer World Cup last 8 here

PreGame:

Easy for Brazil against Mexico, a stroll in the park against a Mexican team that shot their little load after about 10 minutes. Too easy for Brazil.

Good enough game to watch, Neymar dictating the play up front, and Willian bombing it down the wing all evening, with Paulinho bossing the midfield. Too easy for Brazil. But Javier Hernández your haircut is dead cool, heh? Clown.

Best player for Mexico, was Ochoa who had to keep making the saves, when his defence kept falling asleep. I counted about 10 half decent saves, where was his defence?

Brazil scored when Neymar set the goal up, lovely back heal to Willian who returned a lovely ball into the far corner for Neymar to score with an easy tap in. A very nicely worked goal.

Neymar got another one, another tap in, easy for Brazil today, like a training session. Mexico disappoint AGAIN. why do they even bother.

Japan did well early doors in their against Belgium, and they even had the temerity to go and score two goals, cheeky fuckers. Haraguchi got one in the 48th from a lovely counter attack , and just when we were getting our head round that goal, they only just went up and scored another one, lol. Inui got one in the 52 minute, I have to say I thought Courtois could have did better with both goals, I feel he was in a poor positional place for both goals.

No problems, nothing to worry about here, Belgium got one back, Vertonghen got a goal with a looping header that beat everybody. Still the Japanese goalkeeper should have had his eyes on it, clown. Once that went in, it was obvious that Belgium would get a second. And sure enough Fellaini got the equalizer with a simple header, two all. Game on.

A quick break instigated from Kevin de Bruyne, led to Chadli scoring to win the game for Belgium. I don’t honesty think it was ever in doubt. That’s the difference between top teams and the rest. Sorry Japan, you should have closed the game out with 30 minutes to go, but you jizzed in your pants, bye bye. While Belgium go up against Brazil today in what should be a very tasty game, and quite a tough enough one to call. Could even go all the way and we get another penalty shout out. Hard to call.

From the start the excitement was built up, the national anthem of Brazil belted out by the players and the crowd, great to see.

And that passion transferred to the pitch as Brazil started well, with Thiago Silva missing a sitter that hit his knee and went mad wide. Should have scored the opener.

Fernandinho then scored a bad own goal to give Belgium the lead somewhat against the run of play. A quick corner hit his arm and went in, was very unlucky for Brazil

Brazil came back strong with both Coutinho and Marcelo having shots well saved by Courtois in the Belgian goal.

But once again Belgium struck on the counter, with a superb goal by De Bruyne shooting to the corner from just outside the box, what a great goal from a very classy player. This was starting to look worrying for Brazil, 2 down inside half an hour. It was all from a qucik break from a Brazilian corner, Lukaku doing most of the running to by pass midfield and give it to Keven to work his magic.

In the second half it was all Brazil, attack after attack by the team in the famous yellow shirts. But Courtois was on the top of his game, and saved well from Coutinho and his lovely curler.

When Douglas Costa came on it made a huge difference in the game, the man was simply breathtaking, and we must wonder why we only got to see only about 30 minutes of him all world cup! He lifted the tempo even higher, and Brazil started to have some real good chances. Renato Augusto took one of those chances with a lovely headed goal to bring Brazil back into this game. Was a good goal with a great pass from Coutinho. But Augusto should have got the equaliser when he was set up again by Coutinho, but this time not hitting the target, tsk tsk. Coutinho himself was superbly set up by Neymar, and had the whole goals to shoot at but instead blasted it wide. Again a decent chance not taken. And then we had the fianl chance from Neymar with a lovely curling effort that was heading for the top corner, or so we thought, until Courtois pulled of the save of the tournament to tip it over the bar. Brilliant goalkeeping from a goalie in the best form of his life

By the end Belgium hung on, just about. I have to say i take my hat of to Martinez, their a manager, he has them well coached, and every players knows exactly what they have to do on the pitch, a really well drilled operation. Plus it looks like they are enjoying their football too, which always helps. As for Brazil, just not good enough really and Neymar will come away from this World Cup with some egg on his face, as he is mostly now remembered for his rolling and moaning all over the world. Embarrassing.