“Senegal is a big team, and you have to be big to beat them” – Rudi Garcia ahead of knockout clash | OneFootball

Belgium boss Rudi Garcia made clear how highly he thought of The Red Devils’ opponents in the round of 32 as the one-time World Cup semi-finalists look to take down the AFCON champions.

It’s been far from pretty for Belgium so far at this World Cup, still wearing the skin of their once great golden generation, the small Northern European nation have failed to really get going so far at this tournament, being held to a 1-1 draw with Egypt in Seattle, followed by a goalless draw with Iran in LA where they could very easily have lost that game.

A 5-1 victory over New Zealand has done little to quell the fears of the Belgian people; however, criticism has never been far away from Rudi Garcia and his team.

One newspaper recently compared the great Kevin De Bruyne to a ”washed up hollywood actor” after his poor showing in the teams draw with Iran. Garcia was quick to defend his captain and elder statesmen.

“I really didn’t appreciate them being called has-beens”, he said. ”When a nation has a player of this calibre, you support them always.” He then praised the performances of the country’s older players, including De Bruyne, Romelu Lukaku, and Leandro Trossard, who scored the country’s first goal at this tournament (not counting the own-goal netted against Egypt) after a remarkable 45 shots on target and over 200 minutes of football.

This has furthered the annoyance of the Belgians, but Garcia continues to be optimistic.

“We wanted to finish first in the group stage, and we succeeded,” Garcia said. “Of course we wanted to win more — we know the story of our World Cup so far. Now it is time for the knockout phase. Senegal is a big team, but you have to beat them, too, if you want to go far in a World Cup.”

Given what’s already happened so far in this round of 32, where European sides have underwhelmed massively, with only Norway being the victorious European side against a non-European nation. Germany were terrible and bowed out to a spirited and resolute Paraguay side on penalties; the Dutch were outclassed by a fantastic Moroccan side.

This hasn’t gone unnoticed in the Belgian camp, and striker Romelu Lukaku was keen to remove any ideas of Belgium being favourites.

”We know it will be a tough match,” Belgian striker Romelu Lukaku said Monday in French. “Senegal has a lot of top-level players, and the coach is, too. I think it’s 50-50. We really shouldn’t underestimate them.”

Midfielder Charles De Ketelaere added to his number nine’s comments.

”It doesn’t matter who the favourite is,” said De Ketelaere. “We have confidence and need to be sharp. Yesterday showed that it doesn’t matter if you are the favourite.”

Despite the uncertainty of the Belgian players, Garcia was quick to remind them of their achievements so far in this tournament, even if they haven’t reached the heights of previous tournaments.

“What matters now is that we finished first in the group, so we can play in Seattle. We know we are playing the best third team; Senegal had a very tough group, and that is probably why they finished third.”

“It doesn’t matter; if you want to go far, you have to beat the good or excellent teams.”

“Senegal are very fast and very strong, we will have to be at our best to beat them.”

You can see if Belgian can be at their best and take down Senegal, or if the Lions of Terrenga can be the next African side to takedown a European giant when the two face off at 9:00pm UK time on Tuesday 1st July.