France stumbles into quarters as attacking stars fail to fire

DUSSELDORF, Germany — A deflected 85th-minute shot by Randal Kolo Muani, listed as a Jan Vertonghen own goal, gave France a nervy 1-0 win over a disappointing Belgium on Monday, sending it into the quarterfinals, despite another poor show by its misfiring forwards.

France did most of the running in a cagey game, but was profligate with its finishing, until a nice combination of passes, finished off by N'Golo Kante, finally created space for substitute Kolo Muani to bundle a mishit shot in, off the leg of Vertonghen, wrong-footing Belgium's goalkeeper Koen Casteels.

France will now meet Portugal in the quarterfinals in Hamburg on Friday.

It was a fittingly scruffy decider for an underwhelming game, and it means that France is still yet to score from open play at the tournament, recording two own goals and a Kylian Mbappe penalty across its four games.

Various combinations have been tried up front, while midfielders and defenders also caught the bug on Monday with some wild attempts, but coach Didier Deschamps, unsurprisingly, preferred to focus on the positives.

"We have always got the capability to score more. It's been tricky for us since the start of the Euros, but we have always had chances. We don't want this to be a psychological barrier," he said.

Seeking to become the first man to win the World Cup and European Championship both as player and coach, Deschamps knows better than most that it's not how you play, but how far you go that matters when it comes to tournaments.

"An own goal, if it's deflected, it means someone had to shoot. If that finishes in the net, so be it. The best teams are at this Euros, and the games are played with high intensity," said Deschamps.

"We did a lot of good things. We have to savor it. We're in the quarterfinals, they're going home," he said. "It's a good habit."

Belgium, its golden generation long turned back into base metal, limped out of yet another tournament early, and can have no complaints after showing a shocking lack of ambition for a team with so much talent.

It was a meeting between officially the second (France) and third (Belgium) best teams in the world, but after both edged into the knockout stage, managing only two goals apiece from their three group games, both looked extremely cautious in attack for most of it.

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 only decent 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.

Aurelien Tchouameni forced Casteels into his first save of the day soon after the break, while the ever-lively Mbappe mis-struck 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 forced good saves from French stopper Mike Maignan.

France was in the ascendancy, but the poor finishing that has dogged its campaign continued with William Saliba and Mbappe both blazing wildly 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 Argentina's keeper Emiliano 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."

For Belgium, another dispiritingly tame exit adds to its appalling record in the European championship since losing in the final in 1980.

It failed to qualify for six editions of the tournament between 1984 and 2016 — failing to get out of the group stage when it was involved as a joint host in 2000.

It went out at the quarterfinal stage in the last two Euros, losing to Wales in 2016, then to eventual winner Italy at Euro 2020.

"An hour after the final whistle, and conceding a late own goal, it's hard to go into an analysis. We will analyze everything from the Euros and see in a few weeks," said Belgium coach Domenico Tedesco.

"We had chances, just not so many. Then they score and there isn't enough time to react," said De Bruyne.

"We were defending pretty well, but then there's a deflection. It's a shame, but that's football."

Reuters