Winners in extremis 3-2 of Wales, the Netherlands are three points ahead of the Belgians, whom they will receive at the end of September.
Despite the absence of Courtois, De Bruyne, Lukaku, Carrasco, Denayer, Meunier, Doku or even Onana, injured or allowed to return home prematurely, the team coached by Roberto Martinez quickly took the game on their own thanks in particular to the vista of Youri Tielemans.
Dominating and more enterprising than her host, whom she had already beaten 6-1 six days earlier, she was rewarded for her efforts on the quarter of an hour when Tielemans sent a precise ball in the direction of Batshuayi.
The Besiktas striker, replacing the injured Romelu Lukaku for the third time in a row, took the opportunity to score the 25th goal of his career with the national team with a beautiful diving header.
Belgian striker Michy Batshuayi (c), congratulated by his teammates, after opening the scoring against Poland, during their Nations League match, on June 14, 2022 in Warsaw JANEK SKARZYNSKI AFP
Although they came close to equalizing just before the break, on a rebound from Zalewski which narrowly missed the goal defended by Mignolet, Poland still suffered from the fairly clear but far too sterile domination of the Belgians, who were able to take advantage of a few punctual bursts from Eden Hazard during an hour of play then the freshness and dynamism of Trossard in the last quarter of an hour.
Shortly after Openda missed a huge chance to double the lead by losing their one-on-one with Szczesny, Swiderski too could have equalized for Poland twice.
But if his first recovery was narrowly diverted by Mignolet, the second, it crashed on the post of the Belgian goal.
© 2022 AFP