Belgium needed tactical advantage to beat Brazil, says Martinez

Roberto Martinez said Belgium had to change their system to claim a tactical advantage over Brazil that allowed them to knock the five-time winners out of the World Cup.

Fernandinho’s early own goal and a stunner from Kevin De Bruyne gave Belgium a 2-0 lead at the break in Kazan after Martinez brought Marouane Fellaini and Nacer Chadli – match-winners against Japan in the round of 16 – into the team.

Fellaini’s introduction allowed De Bruyne to shine in a more advanced role and Brazil, without the suspended defensive midfielder Casemiro, did not adapt until after the break.

Renato Augusto replied with a header and Thibaut Courtois made a miraculous save from Neymar deep in added time to book a semi-final spot, with France awaiting in Tuesday’s last-four clash in St Petersburg.

Brazil’s exit means there are no non-European teams left in the tournament and Martinez believes his tactical switch, coupled with the players’ adoption of the change, was key in Belgium’s surprise win.

“When you play Brazil you need to get a tactical advantage. It would be very easy to hope that things go your way and you win a football game. But I don’t think that can happen against Brazil,” Martinez told a news conference. 

“They bring that psychological barrier. When you play Brazil you play against that yellow jersey that has won five World Cups and we had to be brave tactically. It was a big gamble because to change things tactically in a World Cup, it means the players have to believe.

“As a coach I’ve never lost a game on the tactics board – never. I lost many on the pitch. And I think today is not about tactics, it’s about the execution of the tactics. The players knew that we had to take the risk.

“It was very clear we had to be compact and to defend, we had to stop the threat of Neymar and [Philippe] Coutinho, their movement and the runs from Paulinho, the arrival from Marcelo and the one-against-one from Willian. It was a lot of threats to stop.

“But we wanted to have our own threat, Eden [Hazard] and Romelu [Lukaku] gave us that with their positioning. It was brave, but if you execute it well like the players did then it gives you a little bit of a period where the opposition don’t know how to cope with it.

“Today it was about the mentality and I’m the proudest man on Earth now because we gave a very difficult tactical plan to the players but they believed until the last second. In the second half Brazil adapted better and you could see that they had to take risks because the way the game was going we could score the third goal or Brazil were going to carry on putting pressure with the quality and the mentality that they have.

“That was going to be the case, so it’s not a game of tactics. It’s a game of heart, belief and of talking, it’s all the aspects that you need to show when you want to be a winning team. That’s why it pleases me a lot, because it’s a combination of both things. The tactical advantage is an aspect but the performance was stronger than the tactical plan.”