France, Belgium with a glimpse at glory as Word Cup final beckons

Paul Pogba and Kevin De Bruyne will be the two key men in the middle as France and Belgium look to advance to the final

Coming into the tournament as two of the favourites to lift the world cup in Russia, Belgium and France go into their semi-final as the only two big teams to deliver on that status. After an amazing run of stories unfolded the other big guns including defending champions Germany, former champions Spain, Brazil and Argentina all failed to make the grade.

Belgium were brilliant in their execution as they eliminated Brazil from the world cup and played on the Selecão's weakness down the middle of the park in the absence of their anchor Casemiro. This showed that the Belgians not only have the necessary talent to perform on the big occasions, but they also have the tactical nouse to see through and adhere to a gameplan.

Romelu Lukaku has been key in that regard with the bullish centre forward often acting as the first point of attack as Belgium's battering ram drawing attention to himself. This has allowed their dangermen like Eden Hazard and Kevin De Bruyne more room to outmanoeuvre opposition defences. 

Against France they look likely to be favourites as the experience and the talent is on their side. Belgium also have the ability to do a bit of everything from playing fine intricate passing football down to forcing matters if need be.

France will be well aware of this and will have confidence in themselves too as they have grown in confidence looking more assured after they mostly scraped through in their group stage matches.

More importantly, their best players have started stepping up with Kylian Mbappe looking lively in the knockout matches, Paul Pogba looking like his old self spraying an array of passes and having an impact on the matches.

Best of all, the return of Blaise Matuidi will come as welcome news for France as he along with Pogba and N'Golo Kante will prove key if Les Bleus are to have hopes of toppling a Belgium team stacked with an array of talent down the middle of the park.

So now all that's left to do is to see who'll be able to apply their game plan and adapt to their circumstances to put them just one step away from the biggest trophy in world sport.