This time, there will be no Samuel Umtiti to “break the process”. But the France-Belgium football rivalry has not said its last word! The Blues and the Red Devils will once again find themselves in a decisive match in a major international competition. Six years after the semi-final of the 2018 World Cup (1-0) and three after that of the Nations League (3-2), both won by Didier Deschamps’ men, the two best enemies will find themselves in round of 16 of Euro 2024 this Monday (6 p.m.).
Both French and Belgians were jostled in this group phase, each in a group where they were nevertheless favorites. This Wednesday, the epilogue of Group E was played and Domenico Tedesco’s men were held in check in a tasteless match by Ukraine (0-0). The Ukrainians were definitively eliminated from the competition by this result despite a scenario that was ultimately quite crazy: all the teams finished with the same number of points (4).
And this team will have resisted for a long time to the Red Devils who were largely superior on paper, and who even played on an equal footing in the offensive game (13 shots attempted for the Ukrainians to 12, 4 shots on target on both sides). A match which sums up, in the end, quite well the Belgian difficulties in this competition with a team which did not know how to be sharp offensively, which has difficulty playing to its strengths and in particular finding a very isolated Romelu Lukaku in the yellow defensive tide. But also which was able to show a certain defensive feverishness in the face of the Ukrainian strong moments.
An opponent that France knows very well
This draw qualifies on the edge a Belgium saved by its salutary victory against Romania in the second match (2-0), and which just gave it a better goal difference (+1) than Slovakia, 3rd (0). Against Ukraine, it was more or less the same intoxicating Belgium that we saw surprised during the first day against these same Slovaks (0-1).
More than an opponent who has changed a lot since the famous semi-final of 2018, it is an opponent they know very well that the Blues will meet again. The Red Devils are quite simply the team that France has met the most in its history: 75 matches, for a record of 26 wins, 19 draws and 30 defeats. However, this will only be the second time that the two teams meet in the European Championship. The last time, for the second group match of Euro 1984, it had smiled on the French team. And not just a little: a 5-0 victory and, at the end, a trophy.
France will therefore “host” Belgium on Monday, July 1st at 6 p.m., at the Esprit Arena in Düsseldorf and it will be a first heavyweight opponent on paper, despite the reality of the matches, in this part of the table that will leave no respite to those who cross it: Spain, Germany, Portugal are among the potential opponents in the quarter-finals and semi-finals. But before thinking about that, let’s move on to Belgium.
