Friday’s quarter-finals and the tactics

Uruguay vs France
The tactical question here has to be whether Uruguay, so adept at defending, can allow France’s Kylian Mbappe the kind of spaces he enjoyed dashing into behind the defense of Argentina.
Uruguay’s veteran coach, Oscar Tabarez, ‘The Maestro’, will have taken note of Mbappe’s threat and planned for accordingly. Uruguay like to defend deep, and that means there will already be little space behind their defense, into which pacy strikers, like Mbappe and Antoine Griezmann can run into and cause damage.
Key battle areas in this match will be Uruguay’s left back Diego Laxalt tussling it out with France’s Kylian Mbappe. Uruguay striker Luis Suarez likes to make short intelligent runs in between central defenders. So his battles with France’s Samuel Umtiti and Rafael Varane, will be a highlight of this fixture too.

Brazil vs Belgium
Often lost in the array of attacking options available for Brazil, is the fact, that Brazil posess two of the best central defense pairings at this year’s World Cup.
Experienced pair, Thiago Silva and Jao Miranda, are as good a pair as you will get anywhere. Coach Title’s Brazil actually rarely conceed goals, and have let in only one so far. So it will be interesting seeing Belgium’s galaxy of attackers led by Eden Hazard, come up against Brazil’s defense.
Tactically too, it will be intriguing to see how Belgium’s defense re-adjusts to deal with the Brazil attacks led by Neymar.
Belgium’s defense, must improve drastically and quickly too from the porous showing against Japan, or it will be a torrid night for them.
The three at the back formation of Belgium, so glaringly exposed by Japan their speedy flank attackers, will surely be tested even further by Neymar, Coutinho and Willian. The suspension of Brazil’s Casemiro, in central midfield, for this fixture is a big loss for Brazil. He’s so crucial to how Brazil play in central midfield.