By Mitch Phillips
DUESSELDORF, Germany – An 85th-minute deflected shot by substitute Randal Kolo Muani, listed as a Jan Vertonghen own goal, gave France a nervy but deserved 1-0 Euro 2024 last-16 win over a disappointing Belgium on Monday.
France made most of the running in a cagey game but were reckless with their finishing, until a nice combination of passes, finished off by N’Golo Kante, finally created space for Kolo Muani to turn and bundle a mishit shot in off the leg of Vertonghen and leave goalkeeper Koen Casteels wrong-footed.
France will now meet the winner of Monday’s match between Portugal and Slovenia in the quarter-finals in Hamburg on Friday.
It was a fittingly scruffy decider for an underwhelming game and means that France still have yet to score from open play at the tournament, recording two own goals and a Kylian Mbappe penalty across their four games so far.
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Coach Didier Deschamps, unsurprisingly, saw it differently. “It’s beautiful. It was tight but we enjoyed possession and we had more opportunities,” he said.
“We did a lot of good things. We have to savour it, it’s quite an achievement. We’re in the quarter-finals, they’re going home. It’s a good habit.”
It was a meeting between officially the second (France) and third (Belgium) best teams in the world, but after both limped into the knockout stage via unimpressive final group-stage draws, managing only two goals apiece from their three games, they looked extremely cautious in attack.
Belgium clearly had a plan to take any speed out of the game, playing at less than walking pace at times, with Kevin de Bruyne often operating just in front of his back four.
The best chance of the first half came for France after 34 minutes when Jules Kounde whipped in a curling cross that recalled striker Marcus Thuram headed wide – and spent the next two minutes berating himself for.
Aurelien Tchouameni forced Koen Casteels into his first save of the day soon after the break, while ever-lively Mbappe miskicked a decent chance as France began to put some passes together.
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A rare Belgian thrust was cut short by a brilliant Theo Hernandez tackle just as Yannick Carrasco was about to pull the trigger and Romelu Lukaku and De Bruyne then brought good saves from Mike Maignan.
The poor finishing that has dogged France’s entire campaign continued with William Saliba and Mbappe both blazing over before Kolo Muani’s decisive intervention.
“We’re enjoying this, we pushed hard, we had a lot of attempts but we were missing the target,” said Kolo Muani, who was inches away from national hero status in the 2022 World Cup final until Argentine keeper Emi Martinez got a toe to what would have been his winning goal.
“I got lucky (on the goal), the coach told me to bring my energy, to bring danger with my speed.”
It was a dispiritingly tame exit for Belgium, whose tactics to sit and absorb put them on the back foot, albeit they did create a couple of good late chances when it was still 0-0.
“We did everything to try to win. We were five minutes from extra time,” said De Bruyne. “We had chances, not so many. Then they score and there isn’t enough time to react. We were defending pretty well but then there’s a deflection. It’s a shame but that’s football.” (Reuters)
