Bizarre scenes. The Belgian footballers made it to the round of 16 of the Euros, but they were very upset. They earned a loud whistle from their own fans.
They were the main favorites of the “E”, but from a tangled group where everyone ended up with four points, the Belgians finally advanced from second place only thanks to a friendly score.
They beat only Romania – 2:0. They lost to Slovakia 0:1 and drew goalless with Ukraine at the end of the group on Wednesday.
In addition, they worried about the result until the last moment. In the set time, they were scared by the Ukrainian midfielder Georgij Sudakov, who ran into the penalty area and had the go-ahead goal on his boot. But he did not give the shot enough force and accuracy.
So the Belgians could celebrate. But in reality, they suffered the following moments.
They earned whistles and boos from their own fans, of whom around 15,000 had arrived at the Stuttgart arena. The negative reactions intensified when the organizers announced Belgium captain Kevin De Bruyne as the man of the match.
“To be honest, I didn’t expect this,” Belgium coach Domenico Tedesco shook his head.
“Progress is the only thing that matters. My players don’t understand why they were whistled. It was a big surprise for me too. We need our fans, we need each other. Ukraine was a tough opponent. We tried our best to give goal,” he commented on the match in which the favorite lost on shots 12:14.
The reaction of the fans was so shocking and stormy that there was no traditional thank you.
When De Bruyne saw and heard what was going on in the stands, he shifted into reverse halfway and led the team to the cabin. From there, no one returned to the lawn.
“We agreed together that none of us will go back. We do not consider such a reaction from the audience to be acceptable. I personally do not understand it, I am terribly disappointed,” said winger Yannick Carrasco.
“It must have been an emotional reaction to the fact that we didn’t win the group,” thought national defender Jan Vertonghen after the match, who at 37 has been through a lot in football, but not this.
“Of course, everyone has the right to feel disappointment. We are also disappointed because we didn’t win the group, didn’t score 20 goals and didn’t show better football. But I didn’t experience this, especially after promotion,” he didn’t understand.
One can only speculate about what star De Bruyne thinks of the non-standard reaction of the Belgian crowd.
When he was asked after the game why he took his teammates off the field instead of thanking him, he answered as generically as possible. “In short, we need the fans. I don’t know what else to say. It’s just the way it is. We needed them in the last three games and we’ll need them against France. Period,” he noted, referring to Monday’s round of 16 against the silver team from the last World Cup.
Belgium will not be favorites for the first time at the Euros.
However, the paper-strong French did not convince in the group either. Although they did not lose, they finished second behind Austria and did not actually score a field goal with a score of 2:1. The owner helped them the first time, in the second case they rejoiced at the converted penalty.
Whistle at the Belgian footballers after their draw against Ukraine and progress to the last 16 of the Euros:
Oh, the surreal scene after Ukraine-Belgium: the Belgian players head towards their supporters under a huge boo, De Bruyne cracks and asks to return to the center of the field 😳 #ukrbel #EURo2024 pic.twitter.com/jsAj3No0C1
— JS Grond-Tran (@JS_Grond) June 26, 2024
