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Belgium defender Vanden Borre ruled out of World Cup

AnthonyVandenBorreBelgium1-SouthKoreaWorldCup2014 (Getty)

By DAN KARELL

Belgium has lost another defender to injury, dwindling its back line ahead of its World Cup Round of 16 match against the U.S. Men’s National Team.

After taking a hard challenge late in Belgium’s 1-0 defeat of South Korea, a scan showed that Red Devils right back Anthony Vanden Borre had a crack in his fibula, ruling him out for the rest of the World Cup. Belgium head coach Marc Wilmots first announced the news over his official twitter account, but said that Vanden Borre would remain with the team throughout its stay at the World Cup.

The injury means that Atletico Madrid defender Toby Alderweireld is likely to return to the starting lineup as the team’s right back for the match against the USA. However, as recently as Friday, captain Vincent Kompany and versatile defender Thomas Vermaelen were both doubts to be fit for Tuesday’s match.

Reserve defender Laurent Ciman is on the injured list for the match, recovering from an adductor strain.

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What do you think of this news? Do you believe this could affect Belgium against the USA? Do you expect Kompany and Vermaelen to recover in time?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. Belgium does not need those players to win. They have quite a bit of depth as could be seen in the last game. They rested a number of starters. I wished Klinsmann had done that with the US team. They would now be rested. There needs to be a sub for Bradley. He sometimes runs as if he were in a trance.

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    • well…if they had held on to their lead against Portugal, he would rested a lot of starters. Germany came to play. If they had torched US, we would have been out.

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  2. With Hazard and Lukaku, it may well be that the only way to beat Belgium is to outscore them, so this is “good” news. (let’s hope their players come back healthy soon thereafter though).

    Still, coming back to reality, when an Athletico Madrid man is your back up, you are not fairing so badly.

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  3. For the above comments on espn, I think espn commentators really suck. Soccer is full of excitement, joy, heartbeat action, soccer is not tennis, baseball or tennis and I’m tired of espn soccer commentators.
    Why can’t espj recruit American young soccer commentators, have a contest or basically a national soccer commentator contest.
    Soccer is a beautiful sport and I hated when boring commentators from Europe come and get a job with espn just because they are European,
    Don’t get me wrong, there is some good commentators but they are all taken.
    Ask your self espn, is nfl and nba really exciting, NO, their commentators know the game and are American.
    Thank god I’m bilingual, and know Spanish because I can watch soccer games with top of the line commentators and I’m not talking about Univision. Here in El Paso tx we get mexican tv channels like Televisa and TVazteca and they are just top of the line.
    As a matter of fact, Univision has done way better this World Cup and that’s because Televisa mexican giants own Univision and are sharing with them soccer commentators and ideas.
    I just wish we had some crazy young entrepreneur soccer heads commentating on the USA games.
    For example, I would say this, holy moly ay caramba, Dempsey makes it like a patriot in a battle field or USA is down, USA is down , kilnsi we need back up.
    Plus I would use my bilingual skills.
    What’s so hard.

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  4. I am very happy with USMNT chances from now on. Belgium is very beatable as is Argentina as long as Messi is contained. And, Argentina is not walking over Switzerland either.

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    • Watch ESPN has been getting killed over the last few days. On their (ESPN) official Twitter feed, they mentioned that they weren’t ready for the amount of people tuning into the World Cup via the app. The US/Germany game actually broke the app’s record for most views.

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      • They (like all cable networks and the cable companies) have once again sorely underestimated how many people have already cut the cord (and are sharing other peoples passwords) or who have moved on from watching “cable programming” and would prefer a more tailored, a la carte content stream. Not to mention the people who just can’t be at home sitting in front of their TV.

        I say eff that. I got rid of cable/dish two years ago and I couldn’t be happier. Except when these content providers refuse to realise that they are flushing money away by refusing to acknowledge customers such as myself and forcing us to “come crawling back” by way of requiring cable subscriptions to use these apps and services. It’s bloody extortion. These bloodsuckers refuse to adopt innovative new revenue streams (which are so in reality so old they are neither ‘innovative’ nor ‘new’ anymore but you wouldn’t know it if you checked ESPN.) I was hoping (halfway expecting) ESPN to offer something along the lines of this: $50 stream every game of the WC in HD whether you have cable or not. Alas, sadly, we may well be years, if not decades away from that.

        Where ESPN really messed up in this regard is not taking the time to figure out that soccer fans in America are by and large, young, tech savvy and forward thinking, I gaurantee that if this were any other sport they wouldn’t be experiencing the network drain they are currently mired in.

      • Or they just under estimated how many people would stream the game at work while their boss isnt looking.

    • Seriously Univision is nails. They have great, consistent feed, and you don’t have to listen to Taylor Twellman doing color commentary.

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    • If he’s a DP, it doesn’t matter what pick you have. If he’s not a DP then it would go to the first pick if they want him. TFC wouldn’t be a good place because Bradley doesn’t play well with other central midfielders.

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  5. They may have a deep squad, but it’s going to be a make shift back line so we need to put pressure on it and get that early goal.

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  6. This, Kompany and Varmealen, red cars to Defour. I
    know we should view this game as a lot easier but I don’t think it is. Still a uphill battle that we are capable of. No more, no less. They have a deep squad. The only reason they don’t get more fanfare is they aren’t named Germany, Italy, etc.

    Then again, I don’t think we are going into this game untested. After facing Portugal, Ghana, and Germany, it’s not like we’ve not faced a challenge like this yet.

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      • Yes, I don’t disagree. In fact I agree completely. I am just saying talent wise, if this was Italy or Germany they would be listed among the favorites, not the Darkhorse. We all know that what’s on paper is different than what actually happens in the games. And while we can definitely beat teams and have beaten teams that look much better on paper, it was never easy.

  7. They’ve got a deep squad. Certainly the thinner they are on the bench the more it benefits us, but I think their attacking quality will be their best form of defense. I don’t expect we will be able to control the midfield long enough to take advantage of an uneasy back line.

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    • Have you watched Belgium play? They sit off the opposing team until the final 1/3 of the field. We are much better than the teams try have faced, and even Russia dominated them.

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      • Yup, watch the Russia game. Russia is probably about as good as we are in midfield although their attack is poor. Even then Russia was given time on the ball and was allowed to play. They play nothing like Germany.

        They also like to dump the ball into Fellaini and play off him a lot too.

        This doesn’t mean they are bad. It just means the USA will have time on the ball.

      • Just as we’ve not played to our potential, neither has Belgium. But they’ve done enough to win each match; even with many subs and 10 men against an energetic Korean side. They’ve kept a clean sheet as well apart from the Algerian PK.

    • They are deep. But Vanden Borre is a loss. A real presence, and of the Belgian fullbacks he is good at making his way upfield. Kompany would be a big loss for stability on the back line, especially with other changes happening, so I’d expect him to play even if not 100%. In any case, good news for the US.

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