FOOTBALL – 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 yesterday.
Later, Bernardo Silva struck the winning spot kick and Diogo Costa made three saves as Portugal won a penalty shootout 3-0 against battling Slovenia to reach the quarter-finals where they will meet France.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Meanwhile, after a scoreless 90 minutes, Cristiano Ronaldo had a chance to put Portugal ahead from the penalty spot in the first half of extra time, but Jan Oblak saved brilliantly to leave the Portuguese captain in tears.
Neither side could fashion a goal and the game went to penalties, with Josep Ilicic having the first kick saved for the Slovenians before Ronaldo put his side ahead, and when Jure Balkovec’s spot kick was saved the writing was on the wall.
Costa then saved from Benjamin Verbic, setting Silva up to confidently slot home the winner to put Portugal through to the last eight.
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