Thibaut Courtois has put Belgium on the record as an outsider, but not as a beaten team. With Spain and Belgium now set to meet in the World Cup quarter-finals, the Belgium goalkeeper said his side can still pull off the upset.
The timing matters because this is no vague tournament chatter. Belgium have already reached the last eight after a 4-1 win over the United States, and the quarter-final brings a matchup with a Spain side Opta rates among the favorites to win the competition. Courtois did not hide that imbalance. He said Spain are a strong team and one of the teams to beat, yet added that football can turn on a small margin and Belgium can win with respect for the opponent.
Opta’s numbers explain why Spain are carrying that label. The model has them second in the tournament race with 21.3%, behind France on 26.9%. That is the backdrop to Belgium’s claim. Courtois knows the size of the task, but he also pointed to familiarity: many of Spain’s players come from Spanish football or the Champions League, so Belgium are not walking in blind. His point was sharper than a routine pre-match platitude. Belgium are not pretending to be favorites; they are saying the gap is not final.
This meeting also arrives with history behind it. Spain and Belgium will face each other in the World Cup for the third time, and it will be the second time in the quarter-finals. Belgium beat Spain on penalties after a 1-1 draw in 1986, while Spain won 2-1 in the group stage in 1990. Those results do not decide this match, but they do explain why the pairing carries more than ordinary knockout weight. Belgium have also managed to advance in two of their three previous World Cup quarter-final appearances, including a 2-1 win over Brazil in 2018. Their only loss at that stage came in 2014, when they fell 1-0 to Argentina.
That is the friction in this tie: Belgium are being framed as the outsider, but they are also a side with recent quarter-final success and a goalkeeper who plainly believes they can live with Spain’s quality. The unanswered part is not whether Belgium think they belong there. It is whether they can turn that belief into another result when the quarter-final begins.
Courtois has already drawn the line. Belgium will enter as the underdog, but not as a team asking permission to compete. Spain may have the numbers, yet this matchup is still being written by a side that has beaten bigger names before and now wants one more upset.
