Belgium vs Romania

Belgium looks to bounce back in Group E as they take on Romania at the RheinEnergieStadion in Cologne on Saturday night. The Belgians were expected to get off to a winning start when they took on Slovakia on Monday. Still, they were largely outfought throughout the game and arguably didn’t deserve anything from it. Romelu Lukaku had two goals disallowed for a handball and offside, respectively, and he’ll be itching to get back out and put that right. Kevin de Bruyne wasn’t able to influence the game as much as he’d like, the Red Devils will need him to step up.

Romania made a dream start to their Euro 2024 campaign as they comfortably beat Ukraine 3-0 in their opener. In an open, attacking game, it was Nicolae Stanciu who scored the first goal of the game to reward Romania for their play. Two quick-fire second-half goals from Razvan Marin and Denis Dragus wrapped up the points before the hour mark. They’ve set the standard in the group and will be full of confidence as they look to all but secure progression to the next round of the competition.

The bookies are keen to forgive Belgium for their poor showing in their opener and have them as favourites to win this, but we’re not convinced. Romania looks well up for this competition, and their confidence will be sky-high after their performance on Monday, so they get our vote to X2. Denis Dragus was influential in that win and he’s our pick to grab the game’s first goal. It took Youri Tielemans just 2 minutes to get booked after coming on from the bench last time out. If he starts the game, he’s worth backing to pick up a card.

Check the table with our top picks below:

Finally, do not skip reviewing our predictions for the rest of Saturday’s matches: Georgia vs Czech Republic and Turkey vs Portugal.