Belgium Is One Of The Best Teams In The World – Gareth Southgate

Gareth Southgate agrees England will expect his side to reach the round of 16 thanks to an undeniably favourable draw for Russia 2018 but will be taking nothing for granted after recent disappointments.

“There’s one team we know so much about in Belgium — one of the best teams in the world — and two teams we, at the moment, know a lot less about,” the 47-year-old said.

“Panama, we’ve never played, and Tunisia have qualified through the African group, which is strong, so they’re to be respected.

“We’re the second-ranked team in that group so it’s understandable how people will pitch it but, equally, in the last two tournaments we went out to teams we thought we’d beat.

“At the last World Cup, Costa Rica went through instead of us and Italy, and then, in the last Europeans, we know what happened with Iceland [at Euro 2016].

“So we’ve got to be mentally prepared in those games, not in terms of underestimating them, because I don’t think we do that with anybody, but we’ll have to handle being the favourites and that’s one of the challenges of being an England player.”

Belgium manager, Martinez, who also looked pretty happy with his fixtures, told reporters Southgate is “a gentleman I admire and I wish him the best of luck, apart from the game in the World Cup.”