France – Belgium: relive the pre-match with live commentary

Speaking to beIN Sports, Didier Deschamps spoke about his team’s offensive inefficiency. And called for an improvement in this round of 16. “Above all, be more efficient. We had a lot of chances, we weren’t efficient. It can happen, like a great scorer can have a period without scoring. That’s our case, we mustn’t block or fixate. We must continue to create a lot of chances and be more efficient.”

There will be around 8,000 French people this afternoon to support the Blues in Düsseldorf against Belgium. And some French fans have created a song in praise of N’Golo Kanté.

The official lineups have been released

France : Maignan – Kounde, Upamecano, Saliba, T.Hernandez – Tchouameni, Kante, Rabiot – Griezmann, Thuram, Mbappé ©

Belgium : Casteels – Castagne, Faes, Vertonghen, Theate – Onana, De Bruyne ©, Doku – Carrasco, Lukaku, Openda

Forced to wear a mask after his nose injury against Austria (1-0), Kylian Mbappé confided yesterday in a press conference that playing with this protection is an ordeal. “Playing with a mask is an absolute horror. I changed my mask because every time, something was wrong. It’s complicated because it limits vision, the sweat gets stuck. I felt like I was in 3D and that I was invited to the Euro as a VIP. I could see the people, but I felt like it wasn’t me playing. As soon as I can take it off, I will. It’s annoying. I have to say thank you to the masks.”

This time, they got to work. Beaten on penalties by Switzerland (Euro 2020 round of 16) and by Argentina (World Cup 2022 final), Didier Deschamps’ players were not used to working on penalties in training. But for the clash against Belgium, DD changed habits and the Blues worked on this exercise.