Belgium vs Cyprus 20/11/19

20 November 2019

Belgium entertain Cyprus in the final match of the 2020 European Championship Qualifying (ECQ) Group I at the King Baudouin Stadium.

The hosts are presented with a tremendous opportunity to conclude their successful qualifying campaign with all ten triumphs, as they’ve beaten Cyprus in ten of their previous 11 competitive H2H meetings (W10, D1). De Rode Duivels have shown during the ongoing qualifiers why they remain the world’s No 1-ranked side, scoring 34 goals while conceding just two across nine ECQ victories. In fact, all nine of Belgium’s triumphs have come via a margin of at least two goals, with five of their previous six ECQ wins seeing them prevail by at least a three-goal margin. What’s more, Roberto Martinez’s men have scored 3+ match goals in all four of their previous WCQ home outings, finding the net in both halves in each of those matches.

Meanwhile, the visitors have gone from two straight wins to back-to-back defeats, both of which have come at home and witnessed them concede two or more goals and draw a blank in the first half. Interestingly, none of Cyprus’ four WCQ away matches has ended in a draw (W2, L2), with three of those results (win/loss) coming via a single-goal margin. A curiosity is that only four of 14 goals they’ve conceded in this group have arrived away from home, although they’ve kept a clean sheet only once in four road trips. However, it is highly unlikely that Cyprus can prevent Belgium from scoring here, as they’ve lost all five of their previous competitive trips to the country, allowing over 1.5 match goals on four of those occasions.