West Ham women star Amber Tyisak shows Mavropanos and company what they lacked last term

By Alessandro Schiavone in Molenbeek, Brussels

Friendly game at Edmond Machtens Stadium,

Belgium 2-0 Greece

Goals: Wullaert 24', Janssens 48'

'What if?', any watching West Ham supporters must have been whispering to themselves yesterday.

Albeit such thinking is counterproductive, Amber Tysiak passed her test with aplomb as Belgium ran out 2-0 winners against Greece in a friendly in Molenbeek yesterday.

Tessa Wullaert turned the hosts' sterile possession into something tangible in the 24th minute.

Fed into space, her delicate chip over the Greece goalie went in off the post as Belgium finally got their rewards.

Only three minutes into the second period, the superior hosts decided that they did not want to give their weak visitors any hope.

Even though their end product still let them down; their passing quality improved as Elisabet Gunnarsdottir's ladies dotted the I's and crossed the T's.

And they did the damage again with a killer pass in behind. This time it was Jill Janssens who collected the ball before rounding Rafailia Petaloti and firing home.

But it was the Hammers defender Tysiak's assured defensive outing which gave Belgium renewed hope ahead of the Euros.

She shone, for what it's worth, in the Red Flames' final friendly before heading to Switzerland for the most prestigious of international competitions in the women's game.

Tysiak could even have added her name to the scoresheet only for the keeper to produce a miraculous goal-line reflex save to save her bullet header.

But it's hard to be too down about that missed chance after producing the goods in such manner.

Playing on the right of a three-man defence she devoured yards on that flank and also cut inside the pitch à la Trent Alexander-Arnold to build the game and pick a pass from there.

Cool, calm and collected out of possession, her experience in England's top-flight showed as she often anticipated where the ball would go and eliminated any threat.

Her quality on the ball and progressive passing is exactly what Belgium need to break the lines against opponents that press with murderous intent.

Sterner tests against Italy, Portugal and Spain await in the pipline. And yesterday's convincing win will only sate the Red Flames for so long if they don't follow it up with at least a second place in the group.

But with Tysiak barely putting a foot wrong they have many reasons to be optimistic ahead of Thursday's competition curtain-raiser against the Azzurre in Sion.

And how fans of the men's team wish that Mavropanos, Kilman and Todibo had hit the same standards throughout their underwhelming 2024/2025 Premier League campaign.

They'd certainly have won more than 11 games...