Starting XI against Finland

Today, Georges Leekens revealed the starting eleven that will lineup in Finland tomorrow:

--------------------------Bailly------------------------------

Gillet--------Kompany-----------Vermaelen------Lombaerts

------------------------Vertonghen----------------------------

-------------Witsel------------------Van Damme------------

-----De Bruyne---------------------------------Hazard---------

---------------------------Benteke------------------------------



The biggest surprise is in the midfield, where Steven Defour will be left on the bench in favour of Jelle Van Damme. Without Defour, I'm slightly worried there won't be enough creativity with just those three. Vertonghen is pretty limited on the attack, besides the fact he has a powerful left-footed shot. Van Damme and Witsel are pretty similar box-to-box players who defend better than they attack. They both can infiltrate into the opponent's 16 and score, but they aren't wizards with the ball at their feet,though Witsel is better than Van Damme in that respect.

I'm slightly surprised that Leekens chose Vermaelen at centre back and Lombaerts at left back (I thought it would be flipped), but it probably doesn't make too much of a difference.

The inclusion of Kevin De Bruyne in the XI is to be expected since Jonathan Legear is out injured. He had a very nice game against Gent the other day and some in Belgium are beginning to say his talent is even greater than that of Defour (I'd argue they are different players with regards to their playing style so the comparisons are useless).

It's interesting to note that the three starting attackers are all still under 20 years of age. That bodes well for the future, but not so much for the present. Thus I'm going to be pessimistic and say that Belgium loses tomorrow 2-0. But hopefully I'm wrong (I usually am anyways).