France is in the 2024 European Championship quarter-finals after 1-0 win against Belgium

At first glance, the round of 16 match between France and Belgium looked like a kind of high point in the first knockout round of this European Championship. Two great football nations met, each with several stars from the biggest clubs in the world; the hope of a very high-quality football match was in the air.

What the audience then saw was a game marked by tactics and caution, which for a long time lacked courage and enthusiasm, and which the French finally decided in their favour with a late own goal by the Belgian Jan Vertonghen, who unfortunately deflected the ball after a shot by Randal Kolo Muani in the 85th minute.

That suited this game quite well, which for a long time seemed like the way the two teams had performed during the group phase: somehow sluggish, tough, and very strained. The French had changed their attack, Ousmane Dembélé was missing from the starting eleven for the first time, and the three-man attack was made up of Antoine Griezmann (right), Marcus Thuram (centre) and Kylian Mbappé (left). In this formation, France often had the ball, but hardly posed a goal threat. And the Belgians followed a purely defensive strategy, there was hardly any tempo after winning the ball, so there was very little going on in the penalty areas.

No mistakes

A free kick from Kevin de Bruyne was worth seeing, causing problems for France goalkeeper Mike Maignan (24th minute), and a little later Thuram headed the ball just over the bar (34th minute). But first and foremost, both teams were careful not to make any mistakes. “We are not the favourites, for the first time in the tournament,” Belgium coach Domenico Tedesco said before the match, “whether that is good or bad is something we don’t think about much.” In the end, they knew that this role had actually done them harm, and from the audience’s point of view, the approach of both teams was annoying. “We had a plan. We did play well,” said Kevin De Bruyne after the match. “It’s a shame that we conceded a goal like that.”

Coach Tedesco had already earned a reputation a few kilometers further north during his time in Gelsenkirchen with FC Schalke for playing pragmatically and successfully, but not necessarily attractively. Now the fear of an early exit from the tournament was added to this. In the course of the second half, the French gained more and more possession, but developed little penetration. Mbappé, who wore a carbon mask after breaking his nose in the first game, could not find any space, and Griezmann, who had been missing from the starting eleven in the last group game, was surprisingly inaccurate.

It was easy to see why this team had not managed to score a goal from open play in the group stage. After the break, France became more determined, Tchouameni (49th, 69th) and Mpappé (54th, 78th) tried more long-range shots, but coach Didier Deschamps’ team did not have much more to offer. On the other hand, Romelu Lukaku (71st) and above all De Bruyne (83rd) had dangerous shots that goalkeeper Maignan saved, before the chance goal from the co-production Kolo Muani/Verthongen decided the game.

Where are the gates?

The French have played their way into the quarter-finals with a kind of minimalist football. “We are one step further. We can continue like this,” said coach Didier Deschamps after the match. An own goal and a converted penalty took them into the knockout rounds, another own goal took them into the quarter-finals. They were unable to score a clear goal in their fourth game either. This also says a lot about the quality of the French game, while the Belgians simply took far too few risks considering their offensive power.

However, this defeat is not entirely surprising. The Belgians had started the tournament with a series of 14 games without defeat and then lost their opening match against Slovakia. This was the beginning of a tournament that was also complicated in terms of atmosphere, during which the team suffered greatly. The fans became increasingly critical, Tedesco sometimes seemed thin-skinned, and now the European Championship project has failed early.