Many had France v Belgium as a possible final, but stuttering starts from both mean one is going home early. David Easson give us his best bets for the Round of 16 tie.
France take on Belgium in Dusseldorf with Les Bleus having done their thing of building slowly into tournaments – which their fans and press won’t let them do for long – and Belgium seemingly on the cusp of everyone finally declaring the Golden Generation over.
These are still two of Europe's strongest teams but the group stage would not convince you that either were valid contenders.
France have yet to score a goal in open play at Euro2024, but have only conceded once.
Belgium fought back from their opening day defeat to Slovakia with a fine win over Romania but the performance against Ukraine was abject.
So it may just come down to attack versus defence and while Belgium have De Bruyne trying to feed Lukaku, the French backline looks far more solid that Belgium’s Faes and Vertonghen partnership who’ll be up against Mbappe and possibly Giroud from the start.
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I’ll take that narrow advantage to give the French a narrow win.
France and under 2.5 goals is 3/1
Olivier Giroud to score in a France win is 16/5
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