Les Bleus are facing their destiny. After a laborious group stage, marked by a narrow victory against Austria (0-1) and two draws against the Netherlands (0-0) and Poland (1-1), the French team must step up and truly launch its Euro 2024. Ineffective despite countless goal-scoring opportunities since the start of the tournament, the Tricolores have not yet scored in open play, taking advantage of an own goal by Wöber against Austria and a penalty by Kylian Mbappé against the Poles.
Facing Belgium this Monday in Düsseldorf, Didier Deschamps’ men will be able to approach this round of 16 by relying on their iron defense. So far, Mike Maignan has only been caught out once, on a penalty scored by Robert Lewandowski.
The reigning world vice-champions will also try to exploit their psychological advantage against an opponent against whom they have never lost in an international competition. The Blues will obviously have in mind their narrow victory (1-0) in the semi-final of the 2018 World Cup, but also their incredible comeback (2-3) in the last four of the 2020-2021 Nations League.
The Belgians, led by Domenico Tedesco, also experienced a delicate group stage, losing in the opening match against Slovakia (0-1) before recovering against the Romanians (2-0) and the Ukrainians (0- 0). Despite the curse of their center forward Romelu Lukaku, who has been denied three goals since the start of the Euro, the Red Devils will still be able to count on a fiery attack, led by Kevin De Bruyne and Jérémy Doku .
The Euro 2024 round of 16 match between France and Belgium will kick off this Monday, July 1st at 6 p.m. The match will be broadcast on TF1 and BeIN Sports 1, as well as live commentary on leparisien.fr.
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