We think Belgium are walking into a tactical trap of their own making. Their predicted 4-2-3-1 for the quarter-final places the entire creative burden on Kevin De Bruyne, and Spain have spent five games building a press specifically designed to suffocate that kind of individual dependence.

Spain have kept five clean sheets across the 2026 tournament, and that run is no accident. Their defensive structure compresses central spaces at the exact moment De Bruyne needs them most, forcing Belgium to go wide or go backwards.

Belgium's 4-1 win over the United States showed Romelu Lukaku and Jeremy Doku combining with real ferocity. Against the United States, however, they faced nothing close to the sustained positional discipline Spain bring to every defensive line.

Belgium's quarter-final exits in 2014 and 2018 both followed the same script: midfield creativity dissolved under organised European pressing, and the final ball never arrived. Tielemans and Vermeeren offer energy in the double pivot, but neither consistently breaks lines under pressure at this level.

The counter-argument runs that Belgium's breadth across attack, including De Ketelaere and Doku, presents combinations Spain have not yet encountered. Spain have faced every attacking shape thrown at them in this tournament and conceded nothing each time.

Spain win this quarter-final 2-0, and Belgium's creative infrastructure collapses before the hour mark. De Bruyne finishes the tournament without a knockout-stage goal, and this generation's final chapter ends exactly as the previous two did.