France vs Belgium: Their past meetings
Monday, July 1, 2024
Article summary
The neighbours meet for the 76th time in the UEFA EURO 2024 round of 16; see how their past encounters went.
Article top media content
Article body
A 3-2 defeat in the 2021 UEFA Nations League finals in Italy continued a disconcerting trend for Belgium. It was their fifth loss to neighbours France in five encounters at senior final tournaments.
Having led 2-0 at the break, the Red Devils were overrun in the second half of their semi-final in Turin. A Karim Benzema finish and Kylian Mbappé's penalty levelled the scores before Theo Hernández struck in the 90th minute to take Didier Deschamps' side to the final.
"We stopped playing football," said then-Belgium boss Roberto Martínez. "It went downhill. And against a team like France, that is punished. We threw away all our hard work."
The backdrop
Brussels is the nearest European capital to Paris; the cities are little more than 250km apart. No surprise, then, that the countries' first official footballing summit came way back in 1904: a friendly game which ended 3-3 in Brussels at the Stade du Vivier d'Oie (literal translation: Goose Breeding Stadium). They remained on good terms in the following decades, playing regular friendlies and travelling together on the SS Conte Verde when setting out for Uruguay to compete in the first World Cup in 1930.
The competitive meetings
| Played | Belgium wins | Draws | France wins | Belgium goals | France goals | |
| EURO | 5 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 5 | 8 |
| World Cup | 7 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 10 | 17 |
| Nations League | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
EURO: Belgium beat France 2-1 at home in qualifying for EURO '68 and drew 1-1 in the return fixture in Paris, but it was Les Bleus who topped the group and progressed to the quarter-finals, losing out to Yugoslavia over two legs.
The Red Devils then secured another 2-1 home victory and an away draw (0-0) when they took on France aiming to reach the 1976 finals. Belgium won the section this time, only to be mauled by neighbours the Netherlands in the last eight.
The sides' last competitive encounter in UEFA competition came at EURO '84, Michel Platini scoring a hat-trick in a 5-0 group victory in Nantes. Platini ended the finals with nine goals as well as a winner's medal.
World Cup: Paris was the venue for the teams' first competitive fixture, France beating Belgium 3-1 in their opening game as 1938 World Cup hosts. As this edition had a knockout format from start to finish, that spelled an early exit for Belgium, while Les Bleus were eliminated in the next round by eventual winners Italy.
The duo were later paired in qualifying for the 1958 and 1982 World Cups, and came together again in the third-place play-off at the 1986 finals; it was 2-2 after 90 minutes in Puebla, Mexico, before a goal from Bernard Genghini and a Manuel Amoros penalty earned France their bronze medals.
