England defender Gary Cahill is confident that his side will learn from their 1-0 final Group stage game defeat against Belgium on Thursday.
The game was a fairly boring game and both sides opted to rest their key players as both had already qualified for the round of 16 even before kickoff.
The result, however, means that Belgium are the group winners and they will play against Japan in the last 16. England meanwhile will play against Colombia in what will be a testing encounter for Gareth Southgate’s men.
While England are out of the group and have bettered their performance from 2014 where they were knocked out during the group stage, the result will be frustrating to many die-hard England fans.
Many critics of England have also criticized them for failing to rise up against the big guns and this result will do nothing to silence their doubters.
Cahill said: “The Belgium game was a reminder to us of the standard of teams we are coming up against from now on. No disrespect to Panama, but that was a different test. The way they (Belgium) moved positions and kept the ball – it was a good benchmark for what is to come. We made eight changes, nine if you include the substitution at half-time. Things were always going to be a little bit disjointed.”
