Key events
Just one more thing It’s Mo Salah’s 34th birthday today. Who writes his scripts these days?
The anthems have been belted out and the match is about to begin. With Romelu Lukaku starting on the bench – he’s barely played all season – Atalanta’s Charles De Ketelaere will play as a falseish nine.
“It’ll take some going for Spain v Cape Verde not to be my game of the tournament,” writes James Humphries, and he’s a Scotland supporter. “I could barely watch the last five minutes, and there was a lot of involuntary yelling and clapping. Football, bloody hell.
“It’s such a pure, pleasing underdog story I’m not even unduly bothered by the sudden realisation that cape Verde may very well end up getting more points than us.”
The story of day five has already been written
Egypt team guide
By Saher Ahmed
Egypt qualified for the World Cup unbeaten after missing out on Qatar 2022, booking their ticket to North America with a game to spare. They scored 19 goals in nine matches, as Mohamed Salah led the way with nine, conceded two goals and kept seven clean sheets. Despite the impressive numbers in qualifying, Egypt’s shape is pragmatic more than romantic and they carried that same muscle memory into the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations: tight games, deep stretches without the ball, quick release into Salah or Omar Marmoush. This was exposed by a semi-final defeat to Senegal, when Egypt were set up more to endure rather than to control.
Egypt will probably begin the World Cup in a 4-3-3 formation that becomes a 4-2-3-1 when they have to chase a game, while occasionally switching to a 3-5-2 against high blocks. Mohamed El-Shenawy is likely to start in goal, although Mostafa Shobeir has lately been giving the veteran a run for his money. The rest of the spine looks solid with Rami Rabia and either Hossam Abdelmaguid or Yasser Ibrahim in central defence. Marwan Attia and Hamdi Fathi will screen the backline and Emam Ashour will look to deliver the ball to the trio up front.
Egypt are cohesive, often hard to score against and emotionally committed, but they can still look blunt if opponents double up on Salah and the midfield cannot pass through the press. The draw placed Egypt in Group G with Belgium, Iran and New Zealand. Egypt have never won a World Cup match so ending that is the floor-level target.
Yara El-Shaboury
Last week Orange, one of Egypt’s leading mobile network operators, released a series of humorous adverts starring Egypt’s Ahmed Fatouh, Rami Rabia and Hossam Abdelmaguid, where the trio’s optimism is met with scepticism as partners and family members struggle to take them seriously. Their crime? Daring to suggest Egypt might finally progress beyond the group stage of a World Cup.
If there is one thing Egyptians do particularly well, it is self-deprecation. Perhaps that comes from history. Despite winning the Africa Cup of Nations seven times, Egypt are still waiting for their first World Cup victory. The Pharaohs will kick off their fourth appearance at the tournament against Belgium on Monday knowing they failed to win any of their seven matches so far.
That is the contradiction at the heart of Egyptian football. No African nation has won more continental titles, yet Egypt remain one of the continent’s World Cup underachievers. While other African nations aim to replicate Morocco’s 2022 semi-final success, many Egyptians would happily settle for something far more modest: a single group stage victory.
Team news
Belgium (4-2-3-1) Courtois; Meunier, Ngoy, Mechele, Ngoy, Castagne; Onana, Tielemans; Doku, De Bruyne, Trossard, De Ketelaere.
Subs: Lammens, Penders, Theate, De Cuyper, Witsel, Lukaku, Lukebakio, De Winter, Seys, Moreira, Vanaken, Saelemaekers, Raskin, Fernandez-Pardo.
Egypt (4-2-3-1) Shobeir; Hany, Fathy, Ibrahim, Fattouh; Lasheen, Attia; Salah, Ashour, Ziko; Marmoush.
Subs: El Shenawy, Soliman, Alaa, Abdelmaguid, Rabia, Abdelmoneim, Trezeguet, Abdelkarim, Hassan, Hafez, Donga, Adel, Saber, Alaa, Zizo.
Referee Ramon Abatti (Brazil)
Full time: Spain 0-0 Cape Verde
Yep, Spain 0-0 Cape Verde. There won’t be a more life-affirming goalless draw at this year’s World Cup; there may never have been one.
Belgium team guide
By Ludo Vandewalle
The head coach, Rudi Garcia, is well aware that the Red Devils’ strength lies in attack. Kevin De Bruyne, Jérémy Doku and Romelu Lukaku can each make a difference in their own way. The defence is, except for goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois, the weak point after the golden generation of Toby Alderweireld, Vincent Kompany, Thomas Vermaelen and Jan Vertonghen gradually retired. “That is why I will always choose four defenders and not five,” Garcia explains. “With five defenders I have to sacrifice an attacking player and that would be a shame.”
Garcia usually opts for a medium block to support the attack and not put too much pressure on the defenders. His reasoning could be described as flawed because there is a problem with Lukaku. He played only 64 minutes for Napoli this season and none for the national team because of injuries until coming off the bench in Tuesday night’s 2-0 win against Croatia, scoring the second goal in added time. He was also deeply affected by the death of his father. Belgium’s all time top scorer – 90 goals – will therefore start the World Cup without any kind of match rhythm.
The other teams in Group G are Iran and New Zealand, who meet in the last of today’s games.
Preamble
Hel and welcome to live, minute-by-minute coverage of Belgium v Egypt at Seattle Stadium. The 2026 World Cup is gathering pace – we’re already into day five, and by tomorrow morning 32 of the 48 teams will have been in action.
So far we’ve seen everything from potential winners to probable also-rans. It’s hard to know where Belgium and Egypt fit on that particular spectrum. Both are adjusting to life after a golden generation, or at least with a dwindling golden generation that no longer glisters as it once did. But they are still serious teams who could do damage in the competition.
This intriguing game should give us a clue as to the extent of that damage.
Kick off 12pm local/8pm BST/3pm EDT/5am AEST
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