MARTINEZ HAPPY FOR BELGIUM TO BE BORING

FOR Belgium’s Roberto Martinez everything — even today’s match against Tunisia in Moscow — is subsidiary to next Thursday’s clash with England in Kaliningrad. That is when he will learn what his team are really made of. The great unknown quantity where Belgium are concerned is how they will fare against quality opposition. They were merciless in qualifying, dropping only two of the 30 points on offer and smashing in 43 goals. But the problems materialise when the opposition have more possession, forcing the two wing-backs in manager Martinez’s 3-4-2-1 to retreat and reducing the link between defence and attack. Good sides who command possession can make things difficult for his team. Martinez (above) has not faced tough opposition often enough to know how things might work out. It was when the question of set-pieces came up yesterday that he wanted to talk about England. ‘They have fantastic movement and fantastic delivery,’ he said. For now, though, the Belgians have continued as they left off in qualifying, with Romelu Lukaku scoring twice in a 3-0 hammering of Panama in their first group game. Despite that, Martinez said he was happy his team are not being talked about. ‘We do want to be boring,’ he said. ‘We’re a football team, we’re not here to fulfil stories.’ Tunisia’s Fakhreddine Ben Youssef — who earned Tunisia’s penalty against England — sounded confident of causing an upset. He said: ‘England are the strongest team, so we’ll go all out for the three points in this second game.’