A victory, without the manner. The French football team has qualified for the quarter finals of the Euro 2024 in Germany after beating the Belgians (1-0) on Monday. But Didier Deschamps’ men, who started his sixth final phase as coach, had a hard time finding the net for 90 minutes.
But in the 85th minute of a very tight match, Belgian defender Jan Vertonghen deflected a shot from Randal Kolo Muani into his own goal. France will face the winner of the evening match between Portugal and Slovenia in the quarter-finals. At Euro 2021, The Blues were eliminated by Switzerland in the round of 16.
Blues ineffective for a long time
Kolo Muani’s strike delivered the Blues who had been ineffective for a long time and still unable to score a single goal in the game in this competition, otherwise thanks to two “csc” and a penalty. “We had quite a few chances, but unfortunately we didn’t really hit the target. We have to savour it, we can’t trivialise it, we’re in the quarter-finals and they’re going home.”commented Didier Deschamps. Kolo Muani came on after an hour of play to replace Marcus Thuram who, like the rest of the blue attack, showed little inspiration offensively.
Only his header (34th) at the near post, following a nice cross from Jules Koundé on the right side, grazed Koen Casteels’ post, before Aurélien Tchouaméni offers two heavy blows who did not find the target. A third, at the start of the second period, was pushed back by Casteels, while Kylian Mbappé, on one of his rare flashes on Monday, unleashed a shot that went a little too high above the opposing goal (53rd).
Belgians not inspired
Opposite, the Belgians were not much more inspired, but had the best chances. Maignan had to push away a free kick from Kevin de Bruyne (24th), a shot from Romelu Lukaku (70th) and another from De Bruyne (83rd), and Théo Hernandez made a perfect tackle in front of Yannick Carrasco in his area (61st). As in 2018, at the World Cup in Russiathe Belgians come out with the smallest gap against France.
Relive France-Belgium
loading
 and qualify for the quarter-finals){kind=link}