This time, a draw would be a great result

This afternoon in Bordeaux, it will be fascinating to see how Belgium respond to the blow of losing their first game in the group 2-0 to Italy.

Questions have been asked about the character of this team before but now they’re really under huge pressure to perform. And it could go either way — that kind of burden can be too much for certain players or it can be the making of them.

Coming into the tournament, Marc Wilmots and his squad would have targeted getting something out of the Italy match, thinking they would then be able to handle ourselves and Sweden without too much bother. I know they say in football you take each game as it comes but, when they looked at this group beforehand, I’d be surprised if they didn’t think they’d get at least a draw in their opening game after which they would really have fancied their chances in the next two matches.