It was another disappointing day for fans of the Belgian national team on Sunday. After Belgium drew 1-1 with Egypt in their opening game, many hoped that Rudi Garcia’s men would kick start their tournament with an expected win over Iran. Despite creating plenty of chances, the side failed to score and now face a must win game against New Zealand to progress to the next round of the 2026 World Cup. They will once again be favourites, but that was also the case against both Iran and Egypt. So, what went wrong for Belgium against Iran? And what needs to be done for the must win clash with New Zealand?

Changes failed to bring about desired result

Rudi Garcia certainly didn’t sit on the fence for this game. He brought in Nicolas Raskin, Maxim De Cuyper and Alexis Saelemaekers to try and shake things up. Raskin and Saelemaekers struggled to have any real impact on the game. De Cuyper on the other hand did have a few chances to score, coming closest when former Antwerp goalkeeper Alireza Beiranvand produced the save of the game.

Romelu Lukaku clearly isn’t fit

Lukaku had a huge impact coming off the bench last game, and in the hopes of forcing a result Garcia gave him a start. Prior to the game, the head coach of Belgium said he would only play between 45 and 60 minutes. Clearly, Garcia hoped that Belgium would be comfortably ahead by then. Lukaku played 73 minutes and it was clear he wasn’t fit. His touch was poor and he wasn’t able to get shots off that he usually does for the national team. However, Garcia simply has to play Lukaku against New Zealand as he remains the sides best chance of scoring a goal.

Nathan Ngoy’s red card

Ngoy really should not have been sent off. The defender was more than capable of catching up with Iranian striker Mehdi Taremi, yet decided to haul him down instead. This World Cup has already shown that red cards will be given for such challenges where a player is clean through on goal, even if its nearer the half way line. Ngoy will learn from this, but it certainly didn’t help Belgium in trying to create chances. They still did, but with 11 men they could have really heaped the pressure on Iran.

Time to start Dodi Lukebakio?

Lukebakio came off the bench and almost scored a wonderful goal, with his angled shot going just wide. While he has struggled domestically this season, Lukebakio has a fantastic record for Belgium. He has been one of their biggest goal threats in recent months and its time Garcia gave him a start. No one has scored for Belgium at this World Cup yet, so Garcia has to change something going forward. If Doku is back, it might mean having to drop Leandro Trossard, even if he did play a lot better than in the opener against Egypt.

Thibaut Courtois remains key

Despite their man advantage, Iran didn’t really do enough to win the game. They did find the net through Taremi in the first half through a clever free kick routine, only for VAR to adjudge the striker to have been offside by the narrowest of margins. In the second half, Courtois pulled off a world class save to deny the striker from point blank range, a reminder of how good the Real Madrid man is and how important he is to Belgium.

Belgium should still be confident of getting out of the group, but they have made it far more difficult for themselves. Failure to progress would almost certainly see Garcia relieved of his duties after the tournament is over. If Belgium can make it through, they should try to distance the group stages from their minds and reset. Once the knock out stages begin, the real tournament also begins. We have seen in the past that tournaments can feel completely different once the spectre of elimination is looming. Belgium just need to pray that something clicks against New Zealand and can be carried over into the next rounds.

GBeNeFN | Ben Jackson

The MotoGP plot just keeps on delivering new twists. The Czech Grand Prix felt like a real momentum shift in this year's title battle, and also included a touch of the bizarre as the championship leader was banned from the race...

This victory came as a painful hammer-blow for all the other riders hoping to win the 2026 MotoGP world championship. After his maximum points haul in Hungary, there were suggestions that the recovering Marquez would not find things so easy on a physical, clockwise circuit like Brno.

Looking at the exhausted 33-year-old at the end of a long, hot Sunday, it's fair to say he had indeed worked hard. Yet still he topped the podium, defeating a hungry charger eight years his junior. He also dispensed with his team-mate Francesco Bagnaia in his usual convincing fashion.

Third place in the sprint race was also a handy chunk of points, allowing Marquez to end the weekend 32 points closer to Marco Bezzecchi than he had started it. The gap is now just 40. And the straws for his rivals to clutch at are all but gone.

Looking back, Bezzecchi never had a winning vibe about him this weekend. He admitted on Thursday that he had picked up injuries after being skittled out of the race by his team-mate in Hungary. He also shut down questions about the atmosphere between him and Jorge Martin, clearly in no mood to talk happy families at Aprilia.

On Friday, he conceded that he was feeling more pain from the Balaton hangover than he had expected. The following day, he managed fourth on the grid before notching up his fourth unforced sprint crash of the season – on the penultimate lap, no less. And we all know what happened in the gravel trap afterwards.

That altercation with a marshal betrayed accumulated frustration on Bezzecchi's part. But it led to even more in the form of the Sunday race ban. That guaranteed him a weekend without points, and Marquez took full advantage. What was even more concerning for the Italian was his middling pace across the weekend. It's hard to imagine the early-season grand prix king would have managed better than a distant fourth on Sunday.

With Bezzecchi in all manner of strife, it was left to Japan's rising star to prove that Aprilia's package hadn't gone off the rails. Since Mugello, he has begun to show better performance in the practice sessions, even on Fridays. This, in turn, is helping him move steadily up the grid, to the point where he delivered a maiden pole position at Brno. Given Ogura's habit of being the fastest man at the end of races, it wasn't hard to imagine that the Trackhouse Aprilia would disappear into the distance if he could manage things from the front.

It didn't quite pan out like that, but Ogura emerged from Czechia with his stellar reputation further enhanced. He fought hard and avoided mistakes as he succumbed to the experienced factory Ducati riders, Bagnaia and Marquez, in the sprint and grand prix respectively. He put together a full weekend performance at last, but says he still needs to work on his aggression in the early laps of a race. Current trends suggest he'll figure that out sooner rather than later.

Brno offered a glimpse of what KTM's returns would look like if you took Pedro Acosta out of the equation. The factory's flagship rider had a nightmare weekend on the mechanical side, getting hit by technical failures on all three days. He blamed his sprint fall on a stuck ride height device, and then his final-lap Sunday breakdown sealed his first points-free race meeting of the season.

KTM's reliability is becoming an uncomfortable talking point for the Austrian factory, particularly when you consider it was a failing RC16 that caused Alex Marquez's dreadful Barcelona accident. And with Acosta absent from the results sheets at Brno, suddenly KTM had only a 10th place to celebrate - thanks on this occasion to Enea Bastianini's Tech3 entry.

For the first time this season, the crash-prone Honda rider managed to bring it home in both the sprint and the grand prix. Not only that, he put in an excellent performance on his way to fifth place on Sunday.

Using the soft rear tyre was a daring option in the intense central European heat. The Mallorcan's decision to go with it went well and truly against the grain – though a cynic might quip that he wasn't expecting to make it to the end anyway. But make it he did, setting his quickest lap mid-race and avoiding any significant drop-off at the end.

The wild thing is that the 11 points he picked up at Brno almost doubled what he had earned in the season up until that point. Finally, Mir has produced a worthy race performance. It's on days like these that you still see glimpses of the man who won a world championship six years ago.

An errant torpedo named Martin caused a team disaster for Aprilia in Hungary. This time, at least, the Spaniard didn't take anybody down with him as he endured another forgettable weekend.

Saddled with a double long lap penalty resulting from his first-corner demolition job at Balaton, Martin was never going to get much out of the grand prix. But more worrying was the fact that he was never really on the pace. He had to go through Q1 on his way to a disappointing 10th place on the grid, then failed to turn heads on his way to fifth and ninth in the two races.

The factory Aprilia rider didn't blame his troubles on any post-Balaton injuries, saying simply that he was "lagging behind". It's been mostly downhill since his memorable comeback win in France last month, in fact. With Marquez on the charge and Bezzecchi possibly wobbling, Aprilia needs its world champion to find his form ASAP.

Why MotoGP cannot afford to forget Marco Bezzecchi’s slap

Pedro Acosta demands answers from KTM after Czech GP bike failures

MotoGP riders react to Marco Bezzecchi’s marshal slap and race ban

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PARIS (AP) — French sports media leader L’Équipe has disavowed comments by a female presenter who criticized Belgium winger Jeremy Doku for wanting to leave the World Cup to be at the birth of his first child.

L’Équipe also apologized to Doku in a statement late Sunday and said the comments by France Pierron did not represent its values.

Pierron described childbirth as “a disgusting moment, excuse me, where the dad is useless” when taking part in the television show “L’Équipe de Choc” on Friday.

“There are hundreds of footballers who would kill to be in your place,” she said on the show, reacting to Doku’s comments in the United States.

Doku’s wife Shireen is due to give birth to their son in early July when Belgium hopes to be playing in the knockout rounds of the World Cup.

“No one wants to miss a birth,” said the 24-year-old Doku, who is a star in the Belgium squad and plays for Manchester City.

Pierron questioned Doku’s priorities as he was “living a childhood dream. It might never happen again in your life.”

It was unclear if Pierron would be part of Monday’s scheduled broadcast of the talk show on the cable channel run by the storied daily sports newspaper.

Doku received support from England forward Ollie Watkins, who was asked about the family choices facing players.

“He said it only happens once, your first child. Welcoming them to the world is a blessing,” Watkins said during a news conference at the England training camp.

“Someone labeled it disgusting. And I think for a start that’s not a way to label a birth. I don’t think it’s anyone else’s business what he gets up to after training,” Watkins said.

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AP World Cup: https://apnews.com/fifa-world-cup

Jose Mourinho continues to shape his Real Madrid project while keeping one eye on the World Cup.

With several important additions still pending, the Portuguese manager has made it clear that his priorities remain strengthening the defence and midfield.

However, according to AS, he has not ruled out adding a classic centre-forward to provide an alternative option in attack.

The new Real Madrid coach would ideally like a player capable of fulfilling the role Joselu performed during the 2023-24 campaign under Carlo Ancelotti.

Mourinho looking for his own Joselu. (Photo by Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)

Although not a regular starter, Joselu contributed 18 goals and three assists and became a crucial weapon from the bench.

His most memorable contribution came in the Champions League semi-final second leg against Bayern Munich, where he scored twice in nine minutes to send Madrid into the final and help the club lift its 15th European Cup.

That type of impact is exactly what Mourinho wants available when Plan A fails.

As things stand, the pursuit of a traditional No. 9 is not considered urgent a top priority. For that reason, Mourinho has halted any plans regarding Gonzalo Garcia’s departure.

The academy graduate has attracted interest from Real Betis, but the Portuguese coach wants to assess him properly during pre-season before making a final decision.

Gonzalo offers versatility, being capable of playing on the wing as well as through the middle. He attacks spaces intelligently, is strong in the air and has even earned recognition from Spain coach Luis de la Fuente.

Gonzalo’s exit paused for now. (Photo by Angel Martinez/Getty Images)

The possible arrival of a pure striker would not affect Endrick’s place in the squad. The Brazilian remains firmly in Mourinho’s plans, especially because of his ability to play both centrally and on the right flank.

Even before Mourinho’s arrival, the club had informed Endrick that he would be reintegrated into the first-team setup following his successful spell at Lyon.

However, Mourinho’s immediate focus is on signing another centre-back and a creative, hard-working midfielder capable of covering ground.

Among the names under consideration are Ruben Dias and Alessandro Bastoni for defence, while Mateus Fernandes and Enzo Fernandez are being monitored to strengthen the middle of the park.

Despite those priorities, the Real Madrid boss would also like to have a penalty-box striker in the mould of Joselu, someone who can provide a different solution when matches become complicated.