\n<\/p>\n
Belgium missed the chance to wrap up qualification for the 2026 World Cup with a game to spare as they were held to a surprise draw by Kazakhstan.<\/b><\/p>\n
The Belgians had thrashed the same opponents 6-0 in their first meeting in Group J in September, and would likely have expected another comfortable win in this fixture.<\/p>\n
But instead they were stunned in the first half when Kazakhstan took the lead through 17-year-old Dastan Satpayev, who managed to squeeze home a shot at Matz Sels’ near post.<\/p>\n
Temirlan Anarbekov made some fine saves to keep out Belgium, but they managed to equalise early in the second half when Hans Vanaken headed in Timothy Castagne’s cross.<\/p>\n
Kazakhstan, who were already eliminated from qualifying, were reduced to 10 men late on when Islam Chesnokov was sent off.<\/p>\n
Manchester City’s Jeremy Doku sent a good chance wide as Belgium pushed for the winner that would seal automatic qualification but Kazakhstan defended well to secure the hugely impressive draw.<\/p>\n
Belgium remain top of Group J and will cement qualification with a win at home to Liechtenstein on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
However, the result will give the chasing pack some hope with North Macedonia second, two points behind Belgium, and Wales third – they play Liechtenstein later on Saturday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Belgium missed the chance to wrap up qualification for the 2026 World Cup with a game to spare as they were held to a surprise draw by Kazakhstan. The Belgians had thrashed the same opponents 6-0 in their first meeting in Group J in September, and would likely have expected another comfortable win in this<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1215,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1214\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}