In the early morning of July 2, Beijing time, the round of 16 of the knockout round of the European Cup ushered in a key matchup, and the two strong teams of France and Belgium met in a narrow way; After 90 minutes of contention, France relied on an own gift from Vertonghen; Narrowly beat Belgium by 1 goal to secure a ticket to the last 8. Belgium is unfortunately out of the game, so far the golden generation of players led by De Bruyne may continue the curse of no championship.
Compared with France, Spain, and Germany, which have all won the European Championship and the World Cup, Belgium is not a European giant team in the true sense; Their best result in team history was only runners-up in the European Championship; The ranking during the trough even went to 71; In 2009, the ranking also dropped to 66. However, with the rise of Kevin De Bruyne, Eden Hazard, Thibaut Courtois, Romelu Lukaku and others, Belgium finally ushered in a strong rebound, soaring to 11th in the world ranking in 2013 and reaching the semi-finals of the World Cup in Russia. From 2018 to 2021, Belgium occupied the first place in the world for three consecutive years; Now it is also ranked third.
It's just that the world ranking does not represent the real strength of the team, Belgium can be ranked first for a long time, mainly in the warm-up matches and qualifiers, and the intensity of these games and the world series also have a lot of gaps; Judging from the past few editions, Belgium has only reached the semi-finals of the World Cup once, and the results of other competitions are basically in the top 8, and the Qatar World Cup is a group group home.
Eden Hazard retired, Courtois and Tedesco were at odds, and the Belgian golden generation was left with Kevin De Bruyne, Romelu Lukaku and Vertonghen; Belgium stumbled in the group stage, losing to Slovakia in the first round before winning the qualification with a win over Romania and a draw with Ukraine. When they came to the knockout rounds, they went head-to-head with France, and Belgium were considered the underdogs before the game.
And the end result was exactly that, France made 19 shots in the game, Belgium were only 5, and although Lukaku and De Bruyne had dangerous shots in the second half, they couldn't find the back of the net for Maignan; On the contrary, Vertonghen accidentally scored an own goal in the 85th minute, and Belgium were also eliminated by France.
In addition to being eliminated, Belgium still failed to achieve the embarrassment of defeating France in their first international tournament, and in the 86 years from 1938 to the present, the two sides have met five times, and Belgium's result is a dismal five consecutive defeats; Before you know it, De Bruyne and other players are all over 30+ years old, and after being eliminated in this European Cup, Belgium's record of not winning a title since 1930 may continue.